Unlike most previous years, the expected familiar faces aren’t dotting the 2019-2020 South Florida pop concert season landscape. One’s impressions of the results depend on whether they see that situation as glass half-full or half-empty. Elvis Costello and Sting make rare appearances only days apart; soul icons the Isley Brothers stop in 65 years after the group’s formation, … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: Birthday boy Beethoven will be a big presence in 2019-20 season
The shade of Ludwig van Beethoven looms large over this season, as he will the next, because the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth falls in 2020. No fewer than five performances of the Ninth Symphony are coming our way this season, but there’s also plenty of the master’s chamber music to be had this time around, too (including several readings of his late string … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: Jazz scene feeling the influence of youth
Jazz may be at a generational crossroads within the 2019-2020 season in South Florida. More and more presentations are becoming tributes to icons, echoing centuries of classical music and, more recently, pop and classic rock. A couple such nods to deceased legends are included here. Yet original jazz material is increasingly requiring deeper research. Shows that could at … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: Opera companies playing it mostly safe for coming season
The three major opera companies in the South Florida region are sticking to the mostly tried-and-true this season, but there are enough surprises to make it a good few months for the opera veteran, too. Palm Beach Opera: Over the summer, General Director Daniel Biaggi stepped down from his post in search of new challenges, but will stick around for a little while to allow … [Read more...]
In sold-out Boca show, Aristocrats prove to be lords of jazz fusion
A longtime bastion for touring blues artists, and more recently for ones playing funk, the Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton recently instituted a welcomed series of notable jazz/fusion acts. Those include bands led by drummer Billy Cobham (on Sept. 22), guitarist Oz Noy (Nov. 5), and drummer Simon Phillips (March 26, 2020). Jump-starting the procession on Thursday was a … [Read more...]
Bassist Beller brings funk-fusion trio to Boca’s Funky Biscuit
Music has a history of artists deserving of wider recognition — especially instrumentalists — and especially now, in the modern era of TV shows that only hype singers and dancers toward their 15 minutes of fame. Los Angeles-based bassist Bryan Beller is on the current short list of those most deserving musicians. The 48-year-old native of Charlottesville, Va., has gained … [Read more...]
Beethoven Septet wraps fine PBCMF season smartly
By Dennis D. Rooney The final program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I heard July 28 at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach, opened with a Trio in E (WQ 162) by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), the second son of Johann Sebastian. While acknowledging the musical foundation received from his father, C.P.E. Bach was a central figure in … [Read more...]
Rare Zemlinsky trio part of PBCMF’s unusual Program III choices
By Dennis D. Rooney Music for string quartet took up the first half of the third program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I saw Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre. Flutist Karen Fuller joined violinists Dina Kostic and Claudia Cagnassone; violist Renée Reder; and cellist Susan Bergeron for the Nocturne and Scherzo by Arthur Foote … [Read more...]
Brahms piano quartet is high point of PBCMF’s Program II
By Dennis D. Rooney The second program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I heard Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre, contained three works: novelties by Glière and Thuille; and a Brahms masterpiece. Born in Kiev in 1875, Reinhold Moritzovich Glière came to maturity and enjoyed early success in Imperial Russia, then managed to flourish in … [Read more...]
PB Chamber Fest delivers enjoyable readings of unfamiliar fare
By Dennis D. Rooney The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season opened last weekend with a program that contained two concertinos, a sonata and a nonet. None of them could be described as popular fare, although experienced listeners might have already encountered two of them. Both works titled “Concertino,” however, certainly qualified as unfamiliar. That by … [Read more...]