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March 18, 2009

STEPHANIE SALTER: You like music? You need to be in Tilson Saturday night

By Stephanie Salter

TERRE HAUTE — Let’s see, what are all the excuses you can come up with for not washing your face, combing your hair and getting yourself out this Saturday evening to hear the Terre Haute Symphony Orchestra present two hours of Big Band Swing?

“I don’t have any dress-up clothes.”

You don’t have to “dress up.” This concert, the symphony’s last of the season, is like all the rest of THSO’s concerts — not about being uncomfortable or stuffy. You can wear a tuxedo or Bruce Springsteen-style black jeans. No one cares.

This performance, called “Club Swing,” and featuring a guest group of actor/vocalists, Five By Design, is about enjoying an auditorium filled with terrific music made by real, living, breathing human beings.

You know, a live show? What you can’t get on television? No matter how premium your cable package may be?

“A symphony is too expensive.”

Compared to what? For $15 an adult can get a seat in Tilson Auditorium, which is intimate and acoustically satisfying (like lying on the floor with your head between two stereo speakers used to be). It is a perfect place to watch and listen to about 50 trained musicians knock themselves out for you.

The Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience, which is a movie, will cost you $15. “Coraline,” a 3D cartoon, is $12. (The least-expensive symphony ticket for a person under 18 is $4!) Two six-packs of Japanese beer or a run-of-the-mill pinot noir will set you back about $15. And good luck getting a decent prime rib dinner for that price around here.

“Nobody likes Big Band Swing music but seniors.”

Really? To what then do we attribute a veritable renaissance of swing dancing that, earlier this decade, sent 20- and 30-somethings across the nation to the recordings of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman?

What explains cover recordings of ancient hits such as “In The Mood” by everyone from John Coltrane to Robert Plant to Jerry Lee Lewis?

Be honest. When is the last time you sat in a space the size of Tilson and let the horns, reeds, basses, drums and piano of a big band capture and seduce you? Throw in strings, as Shaw often did and THSO will do on “Begin the Beguine,” and you just might get swept away.

“I’m a classical music purist. A symphony doing swing is slumming.”

Tell that to Yo-Yo Ma. Tell it to the symphony’s principle cellist, Kurt Fowler.

On the faculty at Indiana State University (he teaches cello and music appreciation), Fowler is classically trained. He loves Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Mahler, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss. He also loves Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Cole Porter, Alison Krauss, and Yo-Yo Ma’s crossover CDs, particularly his tribute to the film music of Ennio “A Fistful of Dollars” Morricone.



A program such as “Club Swing” doesn’t feel like slumming to Fowler and the other musicians. It provides them an opportunity to do something out of their ordinary, “to be part of the texture” of a different orchestral sound, he said.

“Something like Strauss’ ‘Don Juan’ — that’s intense. I have to concentrate on every note I play,” said Fowler of one of the pieces included in THSO’s dynamite Valentine’s Day concert. “What we’re doing Saturday, the music is not so hard that I can’t enjoy it while I’m playing.”

The whole orchestra can be “a little laid back and relaxed,” he said, which encourages the audience to do the same.

“Just because something is not really classical, per se, doesn’t diminish its value,” Fowler said. “Like ‘Begin the Beguine.’ I love Cole Porter. I love playing it, but I don’t get the opportunity that often.”

“At least two hours, just of music? My back will get stiff and I’ll get bored.”

There is an intermission. You can stand up and walk to the lobby, or just stand up and stretch.

And you aren’t likely to get bored. “Club Swing” is as much a musical play as it is a concert. Created and produced by the Minneapolis-based Five By Design, it has two acts, a plot, characters and a point to the story.

In addition to music from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, Five By Design will recreate vintage radio and television programs and commercials, and provide a painless little history lesson about American culture during those decades. The symphony will play music across a wide and colorful spectrum, from Johnny Mercer’s beautifully tender “Dream,” to the Spike Jones version of Johnson and Coslow’s “Cocktails for Two.”

Several Big Band classics that can’t help but cook (yes, such things exist) are on the program: “It Don’t mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Woodchopper’s Ball,” and “American Patrol.”

Perhaps the swing cooker of them all is slated for Saturday’s finale, the fabulously frenetic “Sing, Sing, Sing” (Louis Prima’s pop/jazz answer to Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”).

“I never heard of Spike Jones. I only listen to heavy metal.”

Perfect. You are in for a big surprise.

Seriously, folks. All of you, go out this minute and buy a pair of tickets at the Hulman Center Ticket Office (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), or show up at Tilson on Saturday, after 6:30 p.m., for the 7:30 p.m. concert.

You live in Terre Haute. You are always complaining that there’s nothing interesting to do here. Put down the remote, pull out the iPod earbuds and get your booty to the symphony’s final concert.

No more excuses, just do it.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

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