Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

We got ISO Music Director Krzysztof Urbanski and his wife, Joanna, ready for takeoff with jet-setting spring styles.

The film selection sometimes strays a long way from the genre at Roving Cinema’s annual party. Even so, it’s one of our 10 Best of Indy holiday picks.

Broadway vet Ben Crawford and his merry band of mercenaries tackled that monstrous song from Frozen at the 52nd-annual event.

One hour before each Classical Series concert, get perspective from musicians, conductors, and guest artists. The pre-concert talk is free to all ticket-holders.

“(Orchestras) would say, ‘Our audience won’t be interested in this.’ Our point was, ‘We aren’t looking for your audience. We’re looking for classic-rock fans.'”

The ISO’s latest is a glitzy lesson in 1930s romance, with zealous orchestral flourishes steered by Jack Everly. Rachel York guides the ship from there, as comely evangelist–turned–entertainer Reno Sweeney.

You haven’t quite lived until you’ve heard Lily & Madeleine, Time for Three, and Tony Styxx take on Kanye West’s “All of the Lights.”

Gift Lily & Madeleine’s hot debut album with tickets to a local show next month.

The songstress revealed various realms of her range, both musical and stylistic, and, at one point, took the theater to church.

This world premiere did not disappoint. Beth Leavel, a Tony Award winner, commanded every song she took on, moving fluidly among touchingly romantic and randy, handsy numbers.

Q: I was stunned when John Mellencamp divorced supermodel Elaine Irwin a couple of years ago. What ever happened to her?

1. Indy snagged the show’s world premiere.  Why? It just so happens that Jack Everly, principal pops conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, fills that same role for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Baltimore, as any hair hopper knows, is the hometown of John Waters, creator of the original 1988 movie Hairspray, and the setting for that and all of his other films. Everly is known for taking Broadway shows, which increasingly rely on synthesized music to save money, and creating concert versions that place a full-scale orchestra right on stage with the actors. The result: lush, symphonic sound for numbers like “You Can’t Stop the Beat” and “Good Morning Baltimore,” with just enough scenery, choreography, costumes, and dialogue to lend a theatrical atmosphere. Given the experience of Everly, an Indy native, the show (based on the Tony Award–winning 2002 Broadway rendition and subsequent movie remake) ended up debuting here today at an 11 a.m. Coffee Concert; it heads to Baltimore in two weeks.

How apropos that the long, rudderless period at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra finished last weekend with an exciting evening of music featuring no  conductor at all.