Go, Krakatoa, go

One title, plucked from the profusion of classical and jazz performances about to burst forth in greater Lansing in the 2022-‘23 performing arts season, sums up the whole scene: “Krakatoa.” 

The talented and passionate musicians of greater Lansing and Michigan State University will continue to breathe life into the great music of the past, as they have done for decades, but this season is different. 

Music you never heard, and ought to, will erupt almost continuously in a calendar packed with fresh faces, new music, diverse voices and imaginative programming. It’s hopeless to touch on every highlight, but here we go. 

The MSU Symphony and its dynamic young conductor, Octavio Más-Arocas, will perform the aforementioned “Krakatoa,” by Chicago composer Stacy Garrop, at the Wharton Center Feb. 10, on a packed slate that also includes “Soul Force,” by celebrated New York composer Jessie Montgomery. The same crew will play “Metacosmos,” by young Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, along with Prokofiev’s crushing Fifth Symphony, Oct. 30.  

Not fresh enough for you? The pulsating amoeba of student musicians known as Musique 21 explores 20th and 21st-century sounds and sights in four concerts spread over the 2022-’23 season (Sept. 26, Oct. 31, Feb. 6 and April 24). A battery of master percussionists, led by MSU’s Gwendolyn Dease, plays new music Sept. 28 at Cook Recital Hall in the MSU College of Music Building. An 18-member Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble — no kidding — will open a Stygian trap door of chaos Feb. 2 under MSU’s Fairchild Theatre. A free April 8 concert at Cook explores the research of MSU plant biologists via new acoustic-electric compositions.  

That’s only a sampling of the packed 2022-‘23 MSU College of Music calendar. From a superb early music series to the under-appreciated, innovative sounds of the Wind Symphony and university bands to a relentless slate of almost daily recitals by faculty and guests, check the college’s website for more information. 

Each year, MSU jazz studies brings a bouquet of top jazz musicians for a week each of master classes, workshops at area high schools and a concert at Fairchild. The queenly pipes of vocalist supreme Carmen Bradford, who sang with Count Basie for nine years, will begin the season with a grand flourish Oct. 7. Soulful Detroit trumpeter Dwight Adams will mix it up with jazz studies faculty and students Nov. 4. Switzerland-based trombonist and composer Adrian Mears will add a worldly eclecticism to the program Dec. 9. The blistering, Texas-spawned “hobo bebop” guitar of Bruce Forman will scramble the scene Feb. 3. Camille Thurman, a dynamic young singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist, brings her formidable talents to the program finale March 3.  

The stellar MSU Professors of Jazz, led by bassist and jazz studies Director Rodney Whitaker, will bring back the ever-popular “Jazzy Little Christmas” Dec. 17 at Fairchild, but just in case you think they’re getting soft, watch them dive into the spiky music of Thelonious Monk Feb. 24.  

When the innovative, engaging New York-based Imani Winds return to Wharton for a concert March 25 and a week-long residency, expect to hear anything from West African rhythms and melodies to the music of jazz greats Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane and the poetry of Persian mystic Rumi and literary lion Langston Hughes. 

Other classical and jazz artists visiting the Wharton Center this season include the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and its charismatic director, Nicola Benedetti (Oct. 18), riveting young cellist Alisa Wellerstein (doing her specialty, Bach, on Jan. 26) and the New York Philharmonic String Quartet (April 6).  

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s “Songs We Love,” a touring show with an all-star big band and three guest vocalists, comes to Wharton Feb. 21. Charismatic singer Cyrille Aimee brings her own eclectic jazz muse to Wharton March 30. 

The sellout experiment of deploying Lansing Symphony Orchestra musicians in REO Town’s Robin Theatre to play new music, mostly by local composers, will be doubled in 2022-‘23. LSO at the Robin will showcase more than 30 living composers, many of whom will attend the concerts and chat with the audience afterward, on Jan. 19, Feb. 16, March 16 and April 20, 2023 — a de facto festival of new chamber music.  

The LSO’s MasterWorks series is also serving up freshly minted music in between bread-and-butter classics. For the season opener Oct. 7, music Director Timothy Muffitt will unveil the first of two world premiere compositions by an audience favorite, composer-in-residence Patrick Harlin. Later that night, Chicago-based violinist Adé Williams will play the Samuel Barber violin concerto. The Nov. 5 LSO concert features music by Respighi, Hindemith, Debussy and a truly major eruption — Stravinsky’s crushing “Firebird Suite.” One of the most exciting soloists ever to perform with the LSO, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Jon Nakamatsu, comes to Lansing Jan. 12 to play the magisterial Brahms Second Piano Concerto. The LSO’s March 4 concert pairs Mozart and Shostakovich’s little-heard Ninth Symphony. The June 2 closer will bring Harlin’s tenure as composer-in-residence to an electrifying climax with the world premiere of “The Fourth Pedal,” an electro-acoustic extravaganza that will feature the return of dynamic young pianist Clayton Stephenson. 

Even grand opera, a rare experience in mid-Michigan, is headed our way this coming season, thanks to MSU Opera Theatre. Mozart’s “La Finta Giardiniera” serves up a light appetizer, followed by an elephantine main course Nov. 16-20 — MSU’s first-ever production of Giuseppe Verdi’s magnum opus, “Falstaff.”  

Lansing is also blessed with two chamber music series — the LSO Chamber Series and the Absolute Music series, curated by LSO principal flutist Richard Sherman — and both are back at full strength. Check their websites for more information. 

And don’t forget Lansing’s gold standard jazz venue, Jazz Tuesdays at Moriarty’s, a local miracle that keeps the jazz flowing every week, with star guest artists, faculty and students from MSU and surprise guests. Watch for vocalist/clarinetist Sarah D’Angelo Sept. 27, Detroit bassist Paul Keller Oct. 25, an all-star tribute to Chick Corea Nov. 8 and the great vocalist Ramona Collins Dec. 27, with a visit from New York City pianist Ben Rosenblum in February. The packed, eclectic music calendar at Urban Beat in Old Town always tosses jazz and even some chamber music into the mix. There is much, much more to explore, but we are out of space. For those who say there’s nothing going on in greater Lansing, I have only one word: Krakatoa.