The usual round of chamber music visits to South Florida in season favors assemblies of string instruments, sometimes with piano, and the occasional woodwind quintet. That’s part of what made the Feb. 19 concert by the Akropolis Reed Quintet at the Flagler Museum so special: Unlike a standard wind quintet of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, the Akropolis has oboe … [Read more...]
CSO, Muti show how Beethoven should go
By Dennis D. Rooney The audience in the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos Hall to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Tuesday night seemed the usual assortment of mostly middle-aged and older listeners. However, I do hope that some children and young people attended so that they might experience the sound of a major orchestra under an eminent conductor in music of Ludwig van … [Read more...]
Pink Martini and Nu Deco Ensemble: Bending genres, building community
By Christina Wood You won’t find many places where people of diverse opinions gather peacefully these days. Where young and old sit, amicably, side by side. Where people come together – regardless of labels or affiliations – to celebrate life. With Pink Martini and the Nu Deco Ensemble both performing, this year’s Festival of the Arts Boca might be an exception. The … [Read more...]
PB Opera scores with stylish, fast-moving ‘Giovanni’
Mozart called his opera Don Giovanni an opera buffa, and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte called it a “dramma giocoso” (playful drama), but the work’s ending, with its protagonist being swallowed by the earth after the statue of a man he killed comes to dinner and implores him to repent, has seemed to many stage directors of the past two centuries to define the opera as a piece … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire’s women stellar in all-Vivaldi program
Late in his life, he was “an old man with a mania for composing,” but the Rev. Antonio Vivaldi’s musical productivity was also stoked by his decades of service on behalf of the conservatory-orphanage for girls and women known as the Ospedalle della Pietà in his native Venice. Novelists and filmmakers have been unable to resist the salacious possibilities of a red-haired … [Read more...]
Opera Fusion mounts a delightful ‘Don Pasquale’
By Robert Croan Opera is an expensive enterprise, combining musical requirements (singers, orchestra) with all the trappings of drama (stage director, lighting, sets). South Florida is fortunate to be served by two big-league companies – Miami-based Florida Grand Opera, and Palm Beach Opera in West Palm Beach – as well as a smaller group that operates on a shoestring budget … [Read more...]
Huang sensational in Mendelssohn at strong ACO concert
It was fitting that in the first concert program after its founder’s passing, the Atlantic Classical Orchestra and a guest soloist could present an evening so full of life and eventful music-making. On Wednesday night at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens, the young American violinist Sirena Huang gave the orchestra and its audience an astoundingly vital reading … [Read more...]
Pianist’s comedy needs stronger musicianship
There is a healthy tradition of clowning in classical music performance, as could be witnessed just this past Monday in New York when the splendid Chinese pianist Yuja Wang joined the British music-and-comedy duo of Igudesman and Joo for a night of general goofing around at Zankel Hall. Looking back a little bit further, we find compositional satire with Peter Schickele and … [Read more...]
Canada’s Gryphon Trio stellar at Flagler
The Gryphon Trio, a Canadian threesome that played the Flagler Museum music series in 2006, returned Feb. 5 to Whitehall with three works from the Austro-German canon. Violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon, cellist Roman Borys and pianist Jamie Parker offered music by Haydn, Beethoven and Brahms, playing the trios in chronological order, with Parker commenting as they went about … [Read more...]
Israel Philharmonic, Levi splendid in Bruckner at Kravis
By Dennis D. Rooney Zubin Mehta, longtime music director of the Israel Philharmonic, was originally scheduled to conduct at the Kravis on Feb. 5, but withdrew due to illness. His place was taken by Yoel Levi, the IPO’s first Israeli music director. A frequent guest conductor in the U. S., Levi, 68, was from 1978 to 1984 at the Cleveland Orchestra, initially as assistant … [Read more...]