It’s fair to say the world of opera is in flux, with the nation’s preeminent company, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, sharply modernizing its repertoire, and locally, with the three opera houses pulling back from innovation somewhat and sticking with box-office certainties. Palm Beach Opera The West Palm Beach-based company opens its 62nd season with the most reliable … [Read more...]
2023-24 Season in Pop: From Willie to Pink to Blackberry Smoke, season features artists of integrity
There’s a tendency to presume that COVID-19 might’ve driven home one of the final nails in the coffin inhabited by the once-affordable popular music concert scene. Realistically, it was the latest in 50 years of paper cuts that turned music from art into business, and made it just another part of our advertorial non-culture. Punk music once declared that any non-rock … [Read more...]
Guitar-keyboard wizard Keneally living the prog dream with tribute band
It’s definitely a sign of the times that one of the world’s greatest all-around musical artists — the guitar and keyboard virtuoso, master composer, and singing bassist, drummer and percussionist Mike Keneally (www.keneally.com) — is part of a tribute act. Thankfully, and predictably, it’s not just a standard tribute to any pop or classic rock band or performer. ProgJect … [Read more...]
‘Maps and Legends’: Author chronicles life of seminal indie band R.E.M.
In a storied irony, the band that achieved its highest-charting single with “Losing My Religion” would begin its wobbly launch toward rock superstardom in a church in Athens, Georgia. It was April 5, 1980, at a private birthday party in the city’s former St. Mary’s Episcopal, where 50 people were expected to turn out. Five hundred showed up, standing shoulder to shoulder in … [Read more...]
Review: King Crimson documentary finds music amid the drama
Consider writer/director Toby Amies’ late-2022 documentary In the Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50 a bookend to the British ensemble’s 1969 debut album of the same name, since bandleading guru guitarist Robert Fripp has called it quits for the group. Again, of course. Fans have endured this scenario countless times during his leadership, only to have King … [Read more...]
A pub crawl with three of South Florida’s top tribute bands
South Florida’s current music scene was encapsulated during a three-night, three-tribute act pub crawl through southern Palm Beach County in late July. The results included a wide variety of musical styles, settings, instrumentation, audiences, and ticket and cover charges. First up was Solid Brass (www.solidbrassband.com), the area eight-piece act that’s been saluting … [Read more...]
Boynton band brings back ‘Live at the Nut’ outdoor party Aug. 26
When area bands get booked for an outdoor event in August, it can often be the result of less competition. Other acts literally can’t stand the heat of South Florida’s hottest tropical summer month. So what you’re most likely to see at an outdoor venue this month is a relatively recently formed tribute act. South Florida venue owners and managers don’t seem to look beyond … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, on hiatus, seeks funds to return in 2024
For the first time in 31 years, a July in Palm Beach County passed without the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival. Thrown off its tracks by adjustments for the COVID-19 pandemic and a drying up of donor funds, festival organizers called off the summer concert series they’ve been hosting since 1992. But it’s too soon to write an epitaph for the festival, which gave four … [Read more...]
Jupiter house held lost Steely Dan song — and memories of its engineer
JUPITER — Even if you don’t recognize the name Roger Nichols (rogernichols.com), you’ve almost certainly heard his work. That’s because his most heralded efforts, and six of his eight Grammy Awards, stem directly from the entire recorded output of Steely Dan, the omnipresent California-based band that’s fused pop and rock; jazz and R&B for 50-plus years. Nichols … [Read more...]
Beethoven, Schubert quartets dazzle at SoFla Symphony chamber concert
By Robert Croan Among the entire chamber music repertoire, the Andante movement from Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, known as the “Death and the Maiden” Quartet, is one of the most sublime moments. A highlight of Western classical music in its emotional impact and veracity, this series of variations on an earlier Schubert song that gives the work its … [Read more...]