Frank Bridge (1879-1941).By Greg StepanichDELRAY BEACH -- While the orchestras and opera companies of the world were wrestling with the issue of over-familiar programming, the chamber ensembles were digging through the libraries and coming up with gems.In a concert Sunday afternoon, a Palm Beach County-based piano trio offered three major offbeat works, the most familiar of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 11-14
A 1930 Ford Model A "Woody" is a focal point of the SURFari exhibit.(Photo by Katie Deits)Surf’s up, dude, at the Lighthouse Center for the Arts, where you’ll find memorabilia, art, photographs and vintage boards from the South Florida surf culture dating back to Palm Beach in 1940, when the surfer's car of choice was the Ford "Woody."SURFari: The Old and New of Surfing in … [Read more...]
CD review: Composer Crabtree reimagines the cantata, compellingly
Composer Paul Crabtree.By Greg StepanichThe Anglo-American composer Paul Crabtree possesses the rare and admirable ability of being able to use the most unlikely artifacts of popular culture and fashion them into highly sophisticated art without mocking the sources or having them sound incongruous.He has, for example, written a choral song cycle called Five Romantic Miniatures … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Interview: Alexander Platt, director of the Boca Symphonia
Alexander Platt conducts violinist Vadim Gluzmanand the Boca Symphonia in theTchaikovsky Violin Concerto in December 2008.(Photo courtesy Boca Symphonia)The Boca Raton Symphonia is, along with the Master Chorale of South Florida and the Delray String Quartet, one of the few area cultural institutions to have emerged and thrived from the demise of the Florida Philharmonic in May … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival set for 18th summer
The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival logo.By Greg StepanichThere is some debate, even now, among the founders of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival as to just what the three of them had in mind when they decided to get together and play music one day back in the faraway summer of 1992.Michael Ellert, a bassoonist, said he thought it was just orchestral players meeting to … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 21-25
Freedom of the Stallions, by Purvis Young.Art: Opening this Saturday at Exor Galleries in Boca Raton is Purvis Young: Raw, which features 20 works by the 65-year old artist from Miami’s Overtown. Young, who has painted on just about anything that he finds, from discarded political signs, doors and plywood scraps to metal sheets and carpet remnants, may be considered the … [Read more...]
Music review: Seraphic Fire’s ‘Jew and the Gentile’ a compelling voyage of discovery
The title page of Salamone Rossi's Songs of Solomon (1622).By Greg StepanichWEST PALM BEACH -- The moment of true cultural collision for Seraphic Fire's latest concert came in the middle of a hot Thursday afternoon, as a cantor rolled melismatically over words of praise to the Most High while choristers in the balconies above held a drone and let him have his say.But the music … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 14-17
A scene from Every Little Step.Film: A documentary about any Broadway show’s auditions would be an interesting look at the lives of performers and what they have to put themselves through to gain a job, but James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo apply that notion to the ultimate backstage musical, A Chorus Line, in their must-see film, Every Little Step. The subject is ostensibly the … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: St. Paul’s music series explores Bach, plans Baroque mini-festival
By Greg StepanichDELRAY BEACH -- It's one thing to do a concert of music by J.S. Bach, but it's even more interesting to do one in which the Leipzig master's music is heard in the context of his time.So says Keith Paulson-Thorp, director of music ministries at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, who runs the church's year-round monthly concert series. This Sunday, … [Read more...]
CD review: Disc of early Blitzstein music offers revelation
Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964).By Greg StepanichThose who have seen Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock in performance can testify to its burning, slashing energy, a drive that moves the piece of 1937 agitprop ineluctably forward even as its angular melodies give the listener very little to hang onto.But there was another side to this fascinating American composer (1905-1964), … [Read more...]