If the Christmas season revives a rich body of American song for the holiday, it also is a door into the vast, centuries-old library of sacred choral music that amplifies the observance. Following by three days a concert by Miami’s Seraphic Fire that also explored ancient classical repertoire, the vocal quartet New York Polyphony made its first stop in Florida in seven years … [Read more...]
Two premieres add breadth to Seraphic Fire Christmas
Seraphic Fire’s Christmas concerts have become more than a South Florida tradition over the Miami choir’s 17 seasons. This year’s holiday program was first heard in Vermont and Connecticut at the beginning of the mnnth before the group returned home and opened a long series of Christmas concerts that will last through Dec. 16. The singers opened their Florida shows Thursday … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony launches season with rich menu of “pops”
By Dennis D. Rooney The term “Pops Concert” suggests to some a program in some way inferior to the program of a symphony orchestra, which unfortunately sometimes has been true when an orchestra is asked to play arrangements of music not originally for orchestra. But the term also particularly applies to orchestral music of a lighter character that is not often programmed … [Read more...]
Soloist Xu’s Beethoven stands out at SoFla Symphony opener
By Dennis D. Rooney Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, centerpiece of the opening program in the South Florida Symphony’s 21st season, was by far the most interesting performance of the evening Saturday at the Spanish River Worship Center in Boca Raton. The soloist, 28-year-old Angelo Xiang Wu, a native of Inner Mongolia, was educated at the Shanghai Conservatory and won a … [Read more...]
Soloist Bournaki, conductor Schwarz get Symphonia season off to smart start
The Canadian pianist Marika Bournaki made something of a splash back in 2012 with the release of a documentary about eight years of her young musical life as an emerging classical pianist. I am Not a Rock Star was an interesting look at the life of a talented child, and later woman, from the suburbs of Montreal who goes to Juilliard to pursue her dream of becoming a concert … [Read more...]
Such a night: Big Medizen does right by The Band in Boca show
Boynton Beach-based singer/songwriter Jerry Leeman has presented his live, abridged interpretation of The Last Waltz, director Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1978 documentary about the farewell concert by The Band, several times at different South Florida venues since 2002. The latest installment — with Leeman playing four different roles amid an ensemble of area all-stars — … [Read more...]
Soprano Caballero subs beautifully as Mimi in FGO’s fine ‘Bohème’
By Robert Croan When the rock musical Rent opened on Broadway in 1996, the point of reference for many viewers was Giacomo Puccini’s opera – premiered a century earlier – La Bohème. Jonathan Larson’s musical was an updated version of the opera’s libretto, though with entirely new music. Fast forward two decades: at the Nov. 15 performance of Puccini’s La Bohème in the … [Read more...]
Big Medizen: All this, and ‘The Last Waltz,’ too
As a veteran area singer, guitarist and songwriter, Boynton Beach-based Jerry Leeman has learned the secrets that are mostly unique to South Florida musical success. He has secondary income, especially important during non-seasonal months when paying jobs tend to fade here, as a yoga instructor. He plays acoustic guitar, which helps in the era of local volume restrictions. … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire takes radiant journey of faith, with help of ABQ
There are many roads to God, as biblical tradition would have it, and during the Middle Ages, one of the most important literal paths to Christian devotion, as well as papal indulgence, was the road to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. It’s still a pilgrimage people take (including an American cellist, Dane Johansen, who traveled the 600-mile road in 2014 and … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2018-19: Classical music
It shouldn’t be surprising at this point, given South Florida’s deep connection to the Northeast, and New York City in particular, but this area can boast a season of classical music as rich as most other cities in the country, particularly in the first months of the year, when everyone likes to come to Florida to escape winter. Here’s a monthly look at what you can look … [Read more...]