“INfusion Music Fest, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s boundary-busting debut music festival, kicked off Thursday with violinist Nicolas Kendall skipping into the Hilbert Circle Theatre lobby, his arms raised in the air as if he had just won a wrestling competition,” writes Wei-Huan Chen in Wednesday’s (5/4) Indianapolis Star (Indiana). Kendall is “one-third of the string trio Time for Three … the ISO’s artists-in-residence since 2009…. Time for Three’s … connections to the global music scene have allowed the ISO to offer experiences that were fresh and, as last weekend proved, often astonishing. Featuring guest artists Ben Folds, Kishi Bashi and San Fermin, the festival featured some of the ISO’s most courageous and experimental programming. ‘Become Ocean,’ a Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composition by John Luther Adams, was challenging and transcendent. Valgeir Sigurðsson’s ‘Dreamland,’ an expanded score for a documentary of the same name, took audiences on a journey through Iceland’s soon-to-be-devastated landscapes…. Folds’ ‘Concerto for Piano and Orchestra’ dipped into Gershwin and Prokofiev…. The eight-piece Brooklyn outfit San Fermin’s influences ranged from The Decemberists to Vampire Weekend. This philosophy of musical agnosticism had a welcome companion—social consciousness. The ISO entered the climate change conversation by eschewing all printed programs.”
Posted May 5, 2016
