By Ava Figliuzzi An impeccable attention to detail by the members of the Viano String Quartet was complemented well Feb. 7 by the pin-drop acoustics of the Flagler Museum's West Room as the group opened the museum's 2023 music series. The young Philadelphia-based ensemble holds a residency at the Curtis Institute of Music and won first prize in the 2019 Banff … [Read more...]
Violinist Porter heads for Flagler recital with focus on spontaneity
By Ava Figliuzzi Caught between two days of Barber Violin Concerto performances with the Modesto (Calif.) Symphony, Simone Porter says she embraces her inner spontaneity when playing the same work two nights in a row. "I try to make an entirely fresh performance. If I try to re-create anything that happened the previous night, that's where the danger starts happening," … [Read more...]
Frost string trio opens Flagler Museum music series
It’s been quiet, musically speaking, at the Flagler Museum over the past year as COVID-19 silenced the annual chamber music programs at Whitehall. Since 1999, the mansion-museum in Palm Beach has welcomed some of the leading chamber music groups on the world scene, especially young string quartets such as the Dover, Calidore, and New Orford, all of whom have played the … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2020-21: Palm Beach art institutions forge ahead
By Sandra Schulman Palm Beach is counting on the arts and art lovers to rebound this season, with ambitious shows planned, and plenty of outdoor art viewing available. The Norton Museum plans to reopen this month, and the Boca Museum has been renovated and is offering several new exhibits. Palm Beach’s Worth Avenue emerges as a new gallery hotspot. Norton Museum of … [Read more...]
Arts briefs: Boca Museum reopens; Flagler back open Tuesday
The Boca Raton Museum of Art in Mizner Park reopened its doors to the public today. It was shut down March 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials stress the plan complies with guidelines from the state of Florida, Palm Beach County and city of Boca Raton, and is subject to change depending on circumstances. The museum has created an intense sanitizing program and will … [Read more...]
Ying Quartet brings powerful Schubert to Flagler
The music of Franz Schubert is not an unknown quantity (except for the operas), but a good group of musicians can always bring something special to it that we might not have encountered before. Tuesday night at the Flagler Museum, the Ying Quartet, a veteran string foursome founded in Chicago more than 30 years ago, programmed two of Schubert’s late quartets on the first … [Read more...]
What lies beneath: At Flagler, women’s fashion confronts its foundation
What came first, the desire to show off a tiny waist or the corset that squeezed internal organs out of the way? A dynamic new exhibition exploring how women’s fashion has shaped American society, and vice versa, gives a Mobius-strip answer. How is that for a silhouette? The gallery walls of the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum are uncharacteristically colorful these days. They … [Read more...]
Young, exciting Thalea SQ wows Flagler audience
Oh, to be a member of a young string quartet nowadays. A format that reached its first flowering in the days when leaders of Britain’s American colonies were looking for the exit sign is today a group synonymous with the kind of tight-but-exhilarating camaraderie that results from a small band of people attempting something Olympian while navigating concert-packed road … [Read more...]
At the Flagler: When women said ‘me, too’ to jewelry-making
If you are blue and don’t know where to go to, head toward the sparkling jewels on view now at the Flagler Museum. Few times has the extravagant gilded-age Whitehall mansion been upstaged by an exhibit running on the second floor. If it feels like the noise levels go up a fair number of decibels upon entering the upstairs galleries, that’s because there are more than 200 … [Read more...]
Akropolis Reed Quintet stellar at Flagler
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...]