For the first opera of its 2017-18 season, Palm Beach Opera handed its audience a gift. In mounting a box-office surety in Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca, the company was doing its best to make sure it had a sizable audience for its first mainstage production of the year. And on the afternoon of Jan. 28, the Kravis Center house was gratifyingly huge. But in bringing this opera … [Read more...]
Boston string orchestra A Far Cry joins with pianist Dinnerstein for new Glass concerto
A concert Feb. 14 at the Society for the Four Arts in Palm Beach has multiple drawing points: A visit by one of the top young classical ensembles in the country, one of the nation’s finest pianists, and a new concerto by its most prominent modernist composer. Philip Glass’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which is composed for piano and string orchestra, got its world premiere in … [Read more...]
Dorrance Dance taps into endless energy, innovation
The performing arts are currently undergoing one of their occasional convulsions, as established ways of presenting art, dance, music and theater are remade along with their subjects of inquiry. From a critic’s standpoint, it’s been welcome to see, as fresh thinking and new ideas spice up the cultural menu to delicious effect. In the case of Dorrance Dance, a New York-based … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Salome’ benefits from strong lead, secondary performances
Today’s menu of visual entertainment encompasses literally everything thanks to digital technology, but even a complicated work of grand opera from more than a century ago still has the power to shock. Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera Salome, based on an Oscar Wilde play that was the last word in decadence at the time, also remains a formidable challenge for any house that wants … [Read more...]
Sister pianists dazzle in Four Arts concert
The piano has as one of its many benefits the ability to be orchestral, if not in color, at least in contrapuntal density and mass. Small wonder that in the days before recordings made actual orchestral performances available to people far from the concert hall, enthusiasts heard the symphonic works of their day by playing them at home in four-hand arrangements at one piano. … [Read more...]
Philadelphia Orchestra’s Kim returns for genial Symphonia program
David Kim came back to Boca Raton on Sunday, and he got the kind of warm reception and enthusiasm people give long-absent friends when they finally get to see them after many moons have passed. Kim brought his violin and avuncular professionalism to center stage as soloist and conductor with the Symphonia Boca Raton for a program of 19th- and 20th-century Romanticism that … [Read more...]
Trumpet competition at Lynn honors legacy of Roger Voisin
Every branch of music has its deities, and for classical trumpet players, one of the members of the pantheon was the Franco-American trumpeter, educator and conductor Roger Voisin. Voisin, who died in 2008 at 89, was born in France and moved to the U.S. as a boy when his father René joined the trumpet section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1928. His son became the … [Read more...]
PB Symphony inaugurates chamber music series with program of overlooked American master
Even if you’re a devotee of classical music, you might never have heard of William Grant Still. It was different in Still’s own day. Music historians have long called Still (1895-1978) the dean of African-American classical composers, and that came out of his prominence, which began in the 1920s when he made his initial name as an arranger for leading bands in the new … [Read more...]
Schwarzes return to Symphonia, with striking world premiere in tow
Conductor Gerard Schwarz has become a regular guest of the Symphonia Boca Raton over the past three seasons, and his cellist son Julian has occasionally accompanied him. Both were on hand Dec. 10 for the opening concert of the Symphonia’s season at the Roberts Theater on the campus of St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, where the son gave the world premiere of a piece his … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire adds richness, variety to sounds of Christmas
There have to be as many ways of exploring the music of the Christmas season as there are ways to celebrate the holiday, from indulging in the sounds of choirboys from a centuries-old English college to using Spotify or YouTube to find brand-new music for the year’s end. In the case of Seraphic Fire, you start with 13 expert singers and an adventurous approach, and you end … [Read more...]