It has been 300 years precisely since the day that Johann Sebastian Bach sat down at a table in the little German principality of Cöthen to compose a letter to a Berlin potentate to accompany a package containing what he called “six concertos with several instruments.” Those works, sent off to the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg in March of 1721, have become known … [Read more...]
Young artists do Purcell proud at Palm Beach Opera opener
By Rosie Rogers Although the exact circumstances of the composition of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas have been contested over the last 30 years, the first verifiable performance of the work was given in London by the students at Josias Priest’s School for Girls in 1689. The lively cast of Palm Beach Opera’s 60th anniversary production of the opera on Dec. 11, made up … [Read more...]
Clarinetist, Palm Beach Symphony pay sublime tribute to Mozart
Into this crazed COVID world of variants popping up ad infinitum, there came a sublime evening of music-making given by the Palm Beach Symphony under the leadership of conductor Gerard Schwarz on Dec. 2 at their permanent new home: The Kravis Center. It was dedicated to four works written by Mozart in his last year of life, 1791. Each of the four pieces selected had special … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2021-22: The season in classical music
The classical season looks mostly normal this year, with COVID protocols in place and venues opening back up. There are a host of major artists and groups coming to the county this year, from established veterans to exciting new talents. Although some usual season players are missing as of this writing (the Flagler Museum has not yet said whether its chamber music series … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2021-22: The season in opera
It may be that the biggest news of the American operatic world has been the drama over at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which has only just settled things with its crews after 18 months of COVID hiatus. But local opera companies have stayed in the game, too, perhaps none more so than Palm Beach Opera, which mounted an outdoor festival in February at the iThink Financial … [Read more...]
Appreciation: South Florida jazz master Lonnie Smith kept surprising his listeners
Dr. Lonnie Smith wasn’t an actual doctor, and didn’t play one on TV. But when he manipulated the keys, pedals and drawbars of his Hammond B-3 organ, as he did publicly and on more than 70 albums from the early 1960s through the late 2010s, he was a soulful jazz surgeon. Smith died Sept. 28, at age 79, at his home in Fort Lauderdale after a long battle with pulmonary … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2021-22: The season in jazz
“Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny,” Frank Zappa announced during the performance of his dizzying, bop-infused composition “Be-Bop Tango (of the Old Jazzmen’s Church)” on the 1974 live album Roxy & Elsewhere. Hopefully, his satirical words about the genre’s decay aren’t proving prophetic nearly a half-century later. The COVID-19 pandemic altered the second half of … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2021-22: The year in pop
One of the first popular music shows of the 2021-2022 South Florida concert season was scheduled to be by Dead & Company this week. The group canceled, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been a long, strange trip to get here over the past two years. The COVID-19 pandemic reared its ugly head in the middle of the 2019-2020 season, altering both the second half of … [Read more...]
Bumblefest music gathering returns after COVID hiatus
You can’t keep a good area music promoter and PureHoney magazine publisher like Steev Rullman down. After the success of his fourth annual Bumblefest in 2019, with 37 musical acts over two nights to celebrate his print and online publication’s eighth anniversary, Rullman — along with the rest of the world — hit a COVID-19-induced snag in 2020. Yet Bumblefest 5 will … [Read more...]
West Palm’s RATM tribute band lauded as ‘must-see’ act
Amid a sea of tribute acts to unworthy subjects, providing acid for the masses by giving the gullible what they think they want but perhaps can’t afford actual tickets to, one occasionally proves legitimate. Such is the case with a West Palm Beach-based Rage Against the Machine tribute called Products of Rage (www.facebook.com/productsofrage). That’s because Rage, despite … [Read more...]