It’s been more than 10 years, Rachel Barton Pine said, since she’s played South Florida, the last time being in an appearance with the Florida Philharmonic. In the meantime, her hero status in her native Chicago has only grown, and in that city, she’s one of the leading lights of classical music (and thrash metal, too, but that’s another story). The full house at Palm Beach … [Read more...]
Oliveira powerful in Beethoven with Judd and Symphonia
The American violinist Elmar Oliveira, gold medal winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia in 1978, has been assiduously working on raising his local profile in the past several years, having made a mark for himself on the national and international scenes since then. A part-time resident of Jensen Beach and a teacher at Lynn University in Boca Raton, he has made … [Read more...]
Countertenor Mobley mesmerizes at Seraphic Fire
One of Seraphic Fire’s longtime members stepped into the solo spotlight last week with a concert of 18th-century opera and sacred music, and made an eloquent case for the beauty of the countertenor voice. Reginald Mobley, whom everyone calls Reggie, was the featured soloist in a program with Seraphic Fire’s Firebird Chamber Orchestra that paid tribute to the art and life of … [Read more...]
‘Hyper-theatricality’ on tap for PB Opera’s ‘Hoffmann’
Jacques Offenbach made and lost several fortunes in the course of turning out about 100 operettas for the French stage, but he wanted to write at least one serious grand opera that would show the world that he had more than frivolity up his sleeves. It was during the composition of that long hoped-for piece, Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) that he became … [Read more...]
For two-piano sensations Anderson and Roe, it’s all about joy
You could look a long time and you’d be hard-pressed to find a whole lot of musical ensembles with a mission statement. But Anderson and Roe, the two-piano sensation that formed at Juilliard a dozen years ago, have that staple of business culture right on the News page of their website: “To make classical music a relevant and powerful force in society. To connect with others; … [Read more...]
Pianist Dong makes thrilling, important Florida debut
The art of recital programming is an elusive one given that there’s so much repertory to choose from, but in solo performances, pianists generally follow a chronological order, going from the Baroque or Classical periods to the present. The terrific young Chinese pianist Fei-Fei Dong, a medalist at the last Van Cliburn competition last year, followed this norm only in the … [Read more...]
Scrupulously beautiful Beethoven, intriguing Beamish from Elias Quartet
Sometimes the difference between a splendid performance of something and one that’s merely good comes down to an exercise of fundamentals. In the case of Britain’s Elias String Quartet, which played the Society of the Four Arts on Sunday afternoon, its exceptional performances had a lot to do with dynamic range. Seldom have I heard a performance with the kind of soft dynamics … [Read more...]
Strong lead performances lift Ballet Palm Beach’s ‘Romeo’
It was an interesting experience to see Romeo and Juliet at Ballet Palm Beach in the middle of the Winter Olympics at Sochi; if ice dancing is a somewhat clunky country cousin of the ballet, it has the same general wish to express profound emotion through the arc of the body. In its performance Feb. 15 at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens, Colleen Smith’s … [Read more...]
Forte tenor Valera grateful for ‘America’s Got Talent’ opportunities
When the operatic tenor trio Forte gives its first full-length orchestral concert in Mizner Park on March 15, it will be another milestone in a brief but blazing career for three young men thrown together for the reality show America’s Got Talent. But for Fernando Varela, it also will be a return to the area where he first saw his future path while a member of Palm Beach … [Read more...]
Music, science link arms for Max Planck lecture series in Jupiter
If you were to list the names of prominent scientists who also were interested in music, you’d be at it for some time. Along with the more or less well-known examples of chemist-composer Alexander Borodin, physician-organist Albert Schweitzer and physicist-violinist Albert Einstein, you could find any number of physicians, chemists, botanists, surgeons, astronomers and the … [Read more...]