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...]
Lincoln Center duo brings week of Romantic music to Four Arts
It’s one thing to come and do a concert during the South Florida season, but it rises to another level when you’re able to bring your friends. This month at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, the proprietors of New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the husband-and-wife team of cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, will settle in for a week of … [Read more...]
Echols a gently winning Violetta in PB Opera’s ‘Traviata’
It’s a commonplace of Verdi scholarship that the composer’s “big three” operas of the early 1850s – Il Trovatore, Rigoletto and La Traviata – were game-changers for him in that they announced a consistent mature style in addition to introducing tunes so catchy they hold their popularity today. All of which is true, but it takes an especially sensitive and musical performance … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire’s African-American program deep and vital
The African-American musical tradition is a vast one, extending as it does from that day 400 years ago that the first enslaved Africans were brought to the English colonies that became the United States, to the hip-hop titans of our current popular music universe. And while much of that music is steeped in sorrow, there is also much of it that expresses joy in life, and … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire program to explore African-American musical legacy
When Seraphic Fire takes the stage tonight at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton for a concert called I Have a Dream, they’ll be doing more than bringing attention to the vital literature of the African-American spiritual tradition. In addition to such beloved examples of black American sacred folksong as “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” and “Go Down, Moses,” the … [Read more...]
Violinist’s excellence obscured by poky tempi at Palm Beach Symphony
The arrival on the musical scene of a fresh young soloist talent is always worth noting, and in the case of the South Korean violinist SooBeen Lee, she’s been getting a lot of major attention. Lee, who turned 18 in September, is currently studying with the great pedagogue Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory, the Boston school where she won the concerto competition … [Read more...]
Delphi Trio offers meaty program of canonical works at Flagler
The Delphi Trio, a San Francisco-based threesome of piano, violin and cello, made a stop in South Florida on Tuesday night in a different guise than expected. Founding pianist Jeffrey LaDeur has left the group to “pursue other projects,” said violinist Liana Bérubé, and so she and cellist Michelle Kwon were joined by Tampa-based pianist Eunmi Ko at the Flagler Museum for a … [Read more...]
Philadelphia visitors pay strong visit to Symphonia
David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, has made himself a regular visitor to South Florida over the past few years, and on Sunday afternoon with the Symphonia Boca Raton he was back in the spotlight again, where his combination of skill and easy audience rapport was bountifully on display. Kim, who has led the Symphonia as guest conductor (and will do so … [Read more...]