Music has a history of artists deserving of wider recognition — especially instrumentalists — and especially now, in the modern era of TV shows that only hype singers and dancers toward their 15 minutes of fame. Los Angeles-based bassist Bryan Beller is on the current short list of those most deserving musicians. The 48-year-old native of Charlottesville, Va., has gained … [Read more...]
Beethoven Septet wraps fine PBCMF season smartly
By Dennis D. Rooney The final program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I heard July 28 at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach, opened with a Trio in E (WQ 162) by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), the second son of Johann Sebastian. While acknowledging the musical foundation received from his father, C.P.E. Bach was a central figure in … [Read more...]
Rare Zemlinsky trio part of PBCMF’s unusual Program III choices
By Dennis D. Rooney Music for string quartet took up the first half of the third program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I saw Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre. Flutist Karen Fuller joined violinists Dina Kostic and Claudia Cagnassone; violist Renée Reder; and cellist Susan Bergeron for the Nocturne and Scherzo by Arthur Foote … [Read more...]
Brahms piano quartet is high point of PBCMF’s Program II
By Dennis D. Rooney The second program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I heard Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre, contained three works: novelties by Glière and Thuille; and a Brahms masterpiece. Born in Kiev in 1875, Reinhold Moritzovich Glière came to maturity and enjoyed early success in Imperial Russia, then managed to flourish in … [Read more...]
PB Chamber Fest delivers enjoyable readings of unfamiliar fare
By Dennis D. Rooney The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season opened last weekend with a program that contained two concertinos, a sonata and a nonet. None of them could be described as popular fare, although experienced listeners might have already encountered two of them. Both works titled “Concertino,” however, certainly qualified as unfamiliar. That by … [Read more...]
Something for everyone as PB Chamber Music Fest opens 28th season
In this summer’s version of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, the music ranges widely from canonical string and piano quartets to rarities for unusual combinations of instruments, as well as major utterances from overlooked composers of the past. In short, it contains all the elements listeners have come to expect from this festival, whose 28th anniversary season begins … [Read more...]
FGO ends season with beautifully sung, handsome ‘Werther’
Florida Grand Opera closed its 78th season on May 11 with a beautifully sung, attractively presented mounting of Jules Massenet’s Werther, which many scholars of French opera consider to be the composer’s masterpiece. The opera, based on Goethe’s breakthrough novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, tells the story of a young poet who falls desperately in love with a woman he … [Read more...]
Garbage brings out the sun during a soggy SunFest Sunday
By Hali Neal There was a brief two-hour window on a rainy Sunday where it actually looked like SunFest was going to live up to its name. That window was when the Wisconsin rockers by the name of Garbage took the stage. Scottish lead singer Shirley Manson strutted up and down the stage in a white kimono/dress, hot pink hair pulled into a bun as she nailed every note on … [Read more...]
Papa Roach makes SunFest Saturday special
By Hali Neal Although there was an unusual amount of rain at this year’s SunFest, Saturday saw only a few drops in the early evening. Still, it warranted a warning: “Inclement weather approaching. Take necessary precautions.” Like most Floridians, I figured that if the next band was still going to play, I didn’t need to worry about the inclement weather warning yet. That … [Read more...]
Fine performances of contemporary music stand out at Zimmermann’s
By Dennis Rooney Zimmermann’s Café Chamber Music is devoted to presenting the music of living composers resident in South Florida. Its biannual concerts are presented in the social room of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lake Worth, where an audience of somewhere between 50 to 100 people gather at banquet tables to listen to the performances. The most appealing aspect of … [Read more...]