David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, has made himself a regular visitor to South Florida over the past few years, and on Sunday afternoon with the Symphonia Boca Raton he was back in the spotlight again, where his combination of skill and easy audience rapport was bountifully on display. Kim, who has led the Symphonia as guest conductor (and will do so … [Read more...]
Drummer Joseph spreads the gospel of Weather Report
Miami native and South Florida resident Jonathan Joseph joined an elite group of fellow drummers in late 2012 — one that’s included Terry Bozzio, Narada Michael Walden, Richard Bailey, Vinnie Colaiuta, Cozy Powell, Carmine Appice, and Simon Phillips — when he started touring and recording with now 74-year-old guitar icon Jeff Beck. When Colaiuta (Frank Zappa, Sting, and … [Read more...]
St. Paul’s music director bids 2018 farewell with ‘Goldberg Variations’
It’s said that the insomniac Count Hermann von Keyserling, an ambassador from Russia to the royal court of Saxony, commissioned the work by Johann Sebastian Bach we know now as the Goldberg Variations as a sonic sleep aid to be played for him by one of the court’s musicians, Johann Goldberg. Although this monumental set of variations was out of the cultural mainstream for … [Read more...]
For PB Opera, it was a grand night of youthful singing
Time was when the Palm Beach Opera held a singing contest in April, inviting young opera performers from around the world to be heard in front of an elite panel of judges and a full orchestra. The contest is gone (though it may someday return), and with it the chance to hear a wide variety of new voices and not incidentally a broad sampling of repertoire that one will surely … [Read more...]
New York Polyphony’s excellence muted by dry acoustic
If the Christmas season revives a rich body of American song for the holiday, it also is a door into the vast, centuries-old library of sacred choral music that amplifies the observance. Following by three days a concert by Miami’s Seraphic Fire that also explored ancient classical repertoire, the vocal quartet New York Polyphony made its first stop in Florida in seven years … [Read more...]
Two premieres add breadth to Seraphic Fire Christmas
Seraphic Fire’s Christmas concerts have become more than a South Florida tradition over the Miami choir’s 17 seasons. This year’s holiday program was first heard in Vermont and Connecticut at the beginning of the mnnth before the group returned home and opened a long series of Christmas concerts that will last through Dec. 16. The singers opened their Florida shows Thursday … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony launches season with rich menu of “pops”
By Dennis D. Rooney The term “Pops Concert” suggests to some a program in some way inferior to the program of a symphony orchestra, which unfortunately sometimes has been true when an orchestra is asked to play arrangements of music not originally for orchestra. But the term also particularly applies to orchestral music of a lighter character that is not often programmed … [Read more...]
Soloist Xu’s Beethoven stands out at SoFla Symphony opener
By Dennis D. Rooney Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, centerpiece of the opening program in the South Florida Symphony’s 21st season, was by far the most interesting performance of the evening Saturday at the Spanish River Worship Center in Boca Raton. The soloist, 28-year-old Angelo Xiang Wu, a native of Inner Mongolia, was educated at the Shanghai Conservatory and won a … [Read more...]
Soloist Bournaki, conductor Schwarz get Symphonia season off to smart start
The Canadian pianist Marika Bournaki made something of a splash back in 2012 with the release of a documentary about eight years of her young musical life as an emerging classical pianist. I am Not a Rock Star was an interesting look at the life of a talented child, and later woman, from the suburbs of Montreal who goes to Juilliard to pursue her dream of becoming a concert … [Read more...]
Such a night: Big Medizen does right by The Band in Boca show
Boynton Beach-based singer/songwriter Jerry Leeman has presented his live, abridged interpretation of The Last Waltz, director Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1978 documentary about the farewell concert by The Band, several times at different South Florida venues since 2002. The latest installment — with Leeman playing four different roles amid an ensemble of area all-stars — … [Read more...]