Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL) becomes new title sponsor of Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s Yuletide Celebration; Renowned opera star Angela Brown and Broadway sensation Ben Crawford to co-host IPL Yuletide Celebration in 2014; holiday show will also star ISO artists-in-residence Time for Three

IPL becomes new title sponsor of Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s Yuletide Celebration

Renowned opera star Angela Brown and Broadway sensation Ben Crawford to co-host IPL Yuletide Celebration in 2014; holiday show will also star ISO artists-in-residence Time for Three

Tickets go on sale Sept. 8 for ISO donors and subscribers, Sept. 15 to the general public

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra announced today that Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL) has signed on to a three-year title sponsorship of the Orchestra’s annual Yuletide Celebration. Renowned soprano Angela Brown and Broadway star Ben Crawford will co-host this year’s IPL Yuletide Celebration and will be joined by ISO artists-in-residence Time for Three, who will make their first-ever appearance in the beloved holiday spectacular.

IPL has been a longtime partner and premier sponsor of hundreds of ISO concerts, programs and initiatives, including the Coffee Classical series, free Symphony in the Park series, the Celebration of Black History concert and the Stella Artois Happy Hour at the Symphony performances. In addition, IPL played a significant role in the renovation, restoration and preservation of the Circle Theatre in the early 1980s, which paved the way for the ISO to make the historic theater its new home on Monument Circle in 1984.

“IPL is a tremendous supporter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and a wonderful neighbor as well,” said Gary Ginstling, chief executive officer of the ISO. “We are extremely grateful that IPL has enhanced its commitment to the ISO by becoming our new title sponsor of Yuletide. We are delighted that tens of thousands of families will experience the IPL Yuletide Celebration this holiday season.”

Conducted by the ISO’s Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly, IPL Yuletide Celebration celebrates its 29th anniversary this year and remains the largest orchestra-produced holiday presentation of its kind. With Angela Brown’s background in opera, pops and gospel, Ben Crawford’s success on the Great White Way and Time for Three’s limitless enthusiasm and talent that transcends musical genres, the 2014 IPL Yuletide Celebration promises to be one of the most musically-diverse productions to date.

“The ISO plays a meaningful part in making Indianapolis such a great place to live and work,” said Kelly Huntington, IPL President and CEO. “Indianapolis is in a unique position to be one of the few U.S. cities with a major orchestra, and IPL is proud to continue our long-standing support of the ISO through our partnership on this one-of-a kind event.”

ISO donors and subscribers can buy tickets to IPL Yuletide Celebration beginning Sept. 8, and the general public can begin purchasing tickets on Sept. 15. IPL Yuletide Celebration includes 23 concert dates from Friday, Dec. 5 through Tuesday, Dec. 23, with evening and matinee times available.

Artist Biographies

Jack Everly is the Principal Pops Conductor of the Indianapolis and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa). He has conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and appears regularly with The Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center. Maestro Everly will conduct over 90 performances in more than 20 North American cities this season.

As Music Director of the National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth on PBS, Maestro Everly proudly leads the National Symphony Orchestra in these patriotic celebrations on the National Mall. These concerts attract hundreds of thousands attendees on the lawn and the broadcasts reach millions of viewers and are some of the very highest rated programming on PBS television. Mr. Everly is the also Music Director of IPL Yuletide Celebration, which celebrates its 29th season in 2014. He led the ISO in its first Pops recording, Yuletide Celebration, Volume One, that included three of his own orchestrations. Some of his other recordings include In The Presence featuring the Czech Philharmonic and Daniel Rodriguez, Sandi Patty’s Broadway Stories, the soundtrack to Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Everything’s Coming Up Roses: The Complete Overtures Of Jule Styne.

Originally appointed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mr. Everly was conductor of the American Ballet Theatre for 14 years, where he served as Music Director. In addition to his ABT tenure, he teamed with Marvin Hamlisch on Broadway shows that Mr. Hamlisch scored. He conducted Carol Channing hundreds of times in Hello, Dolly! in two separate Broadway productions. In 1998, Jack Everly created the Symphonic Pops Consortium, serving as Music Director. The Consortium, based in Indianapolis, produces new theatrical pops programs, including the most recent On Broadway with Kander & Ebb. In the past 12 years, more than 265 performances of SPC programs have taken place across the U.S. and Canada.

Maestro Everly, a graduate of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, holds an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Franklin College in his home state of Indiana. He is a proud resident of the Indianapolis community for over 12 years.

Angela Brown personifies the ideal American dramatic soprano: sheer vocal power; luxurious finesse; shimmering, high pianissimos; and a charming personality larger than life. Her highly successful Metropolitan Opera debut in 2004 sparked a media excitement that landed her on the front page of The New York Times and on the CBS Evening News. Her New York Times review exclaimed: “At last an Aida.” and the CBS Evening News declared: “the future of opera has arrived!” She has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Essence Magazine, Ebony Magazine, Classical Singer, Reader’s Digest and on CNN worldwide for her one-woman show, “Opera…from a Sistah’s Point of View.” Combining pops, Gospel and opera in one spectacular voice, Brown has collaborated with pops legend Marvin Hamlisch, Gospel icon Richard Smallwood, as well as guest starred on the national radio show A Prairie Home Companion, a live Disney celebration at Lincoln Center and other national award events and television shows.

Brown made her ISO debut in February 1996 in a pops weekend conducted by former ISO Pops Music Director Erich Kunzel, with whom she also recorded. Since then, she has performed with the ISO on numerous occasions in classical, pops, Yuletide Celebration (2012) and Opening Night Gala programs. She graduated from Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis and attended the Indiana University School of Music as a student in the studio of Virginia Zeani. Brown received the Indiana University African American Arts Institute’s inaugural Herman C. Hudson Alumni Award in 2006, given annually to recognize outstanding contributions made in the arts by former members of the Institute. She is featured in “Nineteen Stars of Indiana,” a book by Michael S. Maurer about 19 living Hoosier women with successful and inspirational life stories, released by Indiana University Press in December 2008. In the fall of 2009, Angela received the Governor’s Arts Award from the Governor of Indiana, a Spirit of the Prairie Award from Conner Prairie and was inducted into the Indianapolis Public Schools Hall of Fame.

Ben Crawford has Broadway credits that include the starring role in Shrek the Musical and as Jalvert in Les Misérables. Regionally he has been seen in as John Wilkes Booth in Assassin, plus Guys & Dolls, Titanic, Soul Doctor, Oklahoma!, White Christmas, A New Brain, Oliver! and Next to Normal. In 2012, he served as co-host of Yuletide Celebration with Angela Brown and starred in the ISO’s Printing Partners Pops Series concert stage production of Hello Dolly! with Sandi Patty and Gary Beach. He has also appeared in concerts with the Naples Florida Philharmonic and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.

Time for Three – Zachary (Zach) De Pue, violin; Nicolas (Nick) Kendall, violin; and Ranaan Meyer, double bass – defies traditional classification. Performing music from Bach and Brahms to their own arrangements of The Beatles, Katy Perry, Kanye West and Justin Timberlake, they have performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Jazz clubs, European festivals, NFL games and the Indy 500. Their hit YouTube anti-bullying video Stronger, featured on CNN and the Huffington Post, has inspired students around the globe. In 2009, Time for Three was named as the ISO’s first ensemble-in-residence and have curated and performed in the Orchestra’s wildly popular Stella Artois Happy Hour at the Symphony series.

Known for his virtuosic, high‐energy performances, violinist Zachary De Pue successfully balances his roles as concertmaster, soloist, chamber musician, fiddler and classical jam‐band member with passion and dedication. A rising star among both classical and crossover music fans, he was appointed Concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in 2007 and became one of the youngest concertmasters in the country. He graduated in 2002 from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with renowned violinists Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo. He earned a full‐tuition scholarship to Curtis and he also held the David H. Springman Memorial Fellowship. He served as concertmaster of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra before becoming a violinist in The Philadelphia Orchestra. Prior to entering Curtis, he attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with William Preucil, Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Nick Kendall connects people through music. He picked up his first violin at the age of three. With an insatiable appetite for a diversity of expression, he went to the streets of Washington D.C. to play trash cans for lunch money as a teenager. By college, he was forming pick-up rock bands at Curtis Institute between concert debuts at the most prestigious halls in the world. Nick is one of our generation’s most persuasive champions of bringing new audiences to concert halls across America. Irreverent, funny, and relentless, Nick has become a force for bringing people together through music, on stage and off. His work is based on the simple idea that the energy you exude greatly impacts the relationships that you build.

Ranaan Meyer is a double bassist redefining the career path of a professional musician. His work runs the gamut from appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra to Joshua Radin, and all points between. Ranaan began playing the double bass at age 11 and has worked with many of the double bass’s greatest teachers, including Rufus Reid, Hal Robinson, Gary Karr, Neil Courtney, Larry Grenadier and many more. When not performing with Time for Three, Ranaan Meyer spends his time building Ranaan Meyer Entertainment, a company dedicated to the universal education of double bass players. Through summer camps Wabass Institute and Wabass Workshop, Ranaan works with the most promising students and professionals in the world every summer. Recently, Ranaan began publishing The Next Level Bassist, a free online journal that is dedicated to bass education. Ranaan recently received a Community Partner grant from the American Composers Forum to compose 10 pieces for student musicians in disadvantaged areas, and will be conducting residencies on those pieces beginning in the fall of 2013.