Art: If you haven’t bought your 2010 calendar yet, consider buying one that supports local artists. Twelve local artists bared all to artist/photographer Durga Garcia in her first annual Palm Beach Artists Uncovered calendar.The artists, who range in age from their mid-30s to mid-80s, are all members of the Clay Glass Metal Stone Gallery in downtown Lake Worth. Proceeds from … [Read more...]
Music review: Delray brings power, passion to Beethoven, Franck
César Franck (1822-1890). By Greg StepanichThere were two moments Sunday afternoon in a concert by the Delray String Quartet that gave encouraging hints about the kind of ensemble this foursome is becoming.The first moment came in the first movement of the Beethoven Fourth Quartet (in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4), around about the recapitulation, when it suddenly became clear that … [Read more...]
Music feature: Delray Quartet embarks on expansion
The Delray String Quartet rehearses last Sunday.(Photo by Greg Stepanich)By Greg StepanichIt's difficult to predict what will happen years down the road in any arts endeavor, given the vagaries of unreliable economics and audience taste.But for the foreseeable future, there will be a Delray String Quartet in some form or another. Founder Don Thompson won't have it any other … [Read more...]
Music review: Delray Quartet’s Mendelssohn underwhelming
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).By Greg StepanichDELRAY BEACH -- In this bicentenary year of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, no fewer than three string quartet ensembles have played the composer's final, anguished quartet in local concerts.The Delray String Quartet closed its fifth season Sunday afternoon with a somewhat limp reading of the Mendelssohn Sixth Quartet (in F minor, … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Sleeper finds challenge in new string quartet
Composer Thomas Sleeper.By Greg StepanichDELRAY BEACH -- Thomas Sleeper finds it difficult to describe music in words, but he knows what appeals to him about the genre of the string quartet."I find it very challenging," said Sleeper, whose String Quartet No. 3 will have its world premiere Sunday afternoon at Delray Beach's Colony Hotel. "You've got four colors which are so … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks, Jan. 30-Feb. 2
Clarence Measelle, a painting and drawing instructorat Palm Beach Community College, stands withmodel Nieves Lopez, over whom he drapeda raw canvas and airbrushed paint to make Resonance.(Photo by Katie Deits) Sherry Stephens, a photography teacher at PBCC,and her husband Wayne, who teaches painting and drawingat PBCC. They're posing by New Look Salon Inside,an archival pigment … [Read more...]
CD review: Delray String Quartet, works by Dvorak
By Greg StepanichFor its first commercial disc, the Delray String Quartet has turned to two of the most popular and most recorded chamber works of Antonin Dvorak -- the American String Quartet (No. 12 in F, Op. 96) and the Piano Quintet No. 2 (in A, Op. 81).Venturing into this beloved territory carries risks of unfavorable comparisons, but on the whole this is a respectable … [Read more...]
Music preview: Delray Quartet to launch first CD
By Greg StepanichDELRAY BEACH — The Delray String Quartet will launch its fifth season this Sunday afternoon with music by Antonin Dvorak and Mozart in the first of five concerts that will include, in February, the world premiere of the String Quartet No. 3 by the Miami-based composer Thomas Sleeper.But there will be another milestone to mark on that first concert: The release … [Read more...]