After the ailing Claude Debussy finished his Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp in 1915, he wrote to a friend that the music reminded him of an “antique” Debussy, writing as he had done 20 years before in the Nocturnes. Not antique, perhaps, so much as distilled to its purest essence, as a performance of this work showed last weekend in the final concerts of the Palm Beach … [Read more...]
Symphony of the Americas joins Austrian orchestra for Summerfest
For nearly 25 years, the musicians of the Symphony of the Americas have presented Summerfest, a series of concerts and cultural exchanges that take the Fort Lauderdale-based group to other parts of the Americas as well as venues across the tri-county area and Treasure Coast. This summer, the group’s string section is joined by the Arpeggione Chamber Orchestra of Hohenems, … [Read more...]
PBCMF Concert 3: French flavors and a rare clarinet quintet
There is something about French musical culture that inclines it toward woodwinds — perhaps because of the sound of French language — and when it comes to the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, French music has played a powerful role in its 24 season of concerts. Two French rarities were featured Saturday night at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens during the … [Read more...]
PBCMF Concert 2: Surprising Dubois, a touching tribute, elegant Brahms
Grab-bags of eclectic programming, a hallmark of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival since its inception 24 seasons ago, are always interesting in themselves, though in many cases the disparate works don’t necessarily hang together as an entity. But the second concert in its four-concert weekly series, presented last weekend at the Crest Theatre in downtown Delray Beach, had … [Read more...]
Miami Summer Music Festival bounces back from no-show with high spirits, strong Mahler
The opening concert of the second-ever season of the Miami Summer Music Festival opened in good news-bad news fashion, with the worst intelligence coming at the very start: No Deborah Voigt. The celebrated soprano, who was to open the season Saturday night at Barry University’s Shepard Broad Performing Arts Center, begged off, citing stomach flu and promising to appear for … [Read more...]
Stravinsky hommage stands out at PBCMF’s first concert
A young American composer’s tribute to Igor Stravinsky made a remarkable impression during the opening concert last weekend of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 24th summer season. San Francisco-based Stefan Cwik, not yet 30 years old, composed his Eight Miniatures for the Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition in 2010, and it was easy to hear Sunday afternoon at … [Read more...]
If it’s July, it must be time for chamber music: Festival enters 24th season
For 14 summers now, René Reder has joined her colleagues in the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival as they transform a South Florida July into a sonic oasis. And the violist wouldn’t have it any other way. “It’s some of the most satisfying playing of my life,” said Reder, whose fulltime job is as a member of the viola section in the Alabama Symphony in Birmingham. “I can’t … [Read more...]
Dante-Liszt presentation ends Mainly Mozart in remarkable style
The Mainly Mozart Festival closed its 22nd season Sunday afternoon with a remarkably ambitious presentation that combined a medieval classic of world literature with a large work of Romanticism, and along the way featured a children’s chorus and a brand-new ballet. For sheer guts and imagination, the festival’s mounting of Franz Liszt’s Dante Symphony in a two-piano … [Read more...]
Dante, Liszt anchor multimedia finale for Mainly Mozart Festival
For the Romantics, the medieval Italian writer Dante Alighieri loomed large, nowhere more so than in his Divine Comedy. Manuscript copies of the first part of this vast three-part poem, Inferno, became available in 1314, or just over 700 years ago, and quickly attracted commentary and interest. By the time Franz Liszt began working on a symphonic interpretation of the poem in … [Read more...]
‘Intelligent Systems’ an urgent, innovative take on contemporary opera
Although the operatic art form is enjoying a period in which edgy productions are much more common, you still have to go some distance to find one that’s closer to experimental. But that’s what composer Carson Kievman has done with his new opera, Intelligent Systems, which premiered last week at the SoBe Institute of the Arts and presents its final performance tonight in the … [Read more...]