When Tamara Wilson packed her things to head to Miami for rehearsals of the Florida Grand Opera production of Un Ballo in Maschera, she forgot one important item: Her copy of the score. Her assistant later mailed it to her, but having it at hand again perhaps was more akin to having a good-luck charm nearby. This is Wilson’s fifth appearance as Amelia in Giuseppe Verdi’s … [Read more...]
Figueroa’s Bartók, Robertson’s Elgar end Lynn Phil season in strong fashion
During the current concert season, Guillermo Figueroa has made two big statements about repertoire for the student orchestra at Lynn University that he directs. In February, he presented the Roméo et Juliette of Hector Berlioz, his favorite composer, and a work almost never encountered in full in area concert halls (to say nothing of any of its constituent parts). And this … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony’s Russian finale shows Tebar’s mastery
Ramón Tebar conducts his orchestra like a man fine-tuning a grand piano. Responding to his every command, even the slightest hand gesture, the refined playing of the Palm Beach Symphony in its last concert of the season Thursday night at the Kravis Center was superb. Tebar is proving to be more than a fine orchestra builder. His conducting and orchestral control is … [Read more...]
World premiere Easter work, Schütz stand out at Seraphic Fire
By Robert Croan Bach’s jubilant, elating Easter Oratorio (BWV 249) was the featured item in advance announcements of Seraphic Fire’s Easter weekend concerts (seen Friday night in Fort Lauderdale’s Sanctuary Church), but in the event, two shorter works on the first half of the program — one brand-new, the other older than Bach — provided the event’s most rewarding moments. … [Read more...]
Germany’s Gaechinger Cantorey riveting in Bach B Minor Mass
By Robert Croan Bach’s so-called Mass in B Minor is a paradox in musical history. Firstly, it’s not a mass for liturgical use. While the work covers the text of the Latin Ordinary – those parts of the mass for which the words remain the same throughout the liturgical year – it was never intended to be performed all together. It consists of several compositions dating … [Read more...]
‘Pirates’ brings PB Opera season to smart, funny close
The operettas of William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan might not be the kind of touchstone they once were in American culture, but that fact gives professional opera companies room to do the works as they should be done: With thorough fealty to scripts and their often underrated scores. This past weekend, Palm Beach Opera closed its season by fulfilling that mission, … [Read more...]
Tower of Power truly may be the ‘Last Band Standing’
Formed in Oakland, Calif., in 1968, Tower of Power is one of the few groups ever set to celebrate a 50-year anniversary next year. Which makes the 10-piece act’s blend of funk, R&B, soul and jazz nearly as long-lasting as rock band the Rolling Stones — and with more original members (four) than its venerable British counterpart (three). That’s right, TOP still features … [Read more...]
Pianist Ji offers creative rethinking of the recital in Rosarian concert
By Dennis D. Rooney An unusual program by a young Korean-American artist with the single name Ji was the final offering of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach's Young Concert Artists series for the 2016-17 season. Beginning piano studies at age 5, Ji-Yong Kim came to the United States at age 9 and enrolled in the Preparatory Division of Mannes College in New York and … [Read more...]
Bluegrass wizards The HillBenders give Duncan crowd an exciting ‘Tommy’
Pete Townshend has proven a musical visionary since he penned The Who’s first of two rock opera releases, Tommy, in 1969 (the other being Quadrophenia, in 1973), but could the guitarist/vocalist have foreseen Tommy: A Bluegrass Opry, the 2015 Compass Records release by Springfield, Mo.-based quintet The HillBenders? Perhaps. Both the group’s latest recording and its … [Read more...]
Pianist Biegel clowns, shines in P.D.Q. Bach at SoFla Symphony
The American composer Peter Schickele has had a remarkable career in which he has managed to have his own compositional triumphs and an entirely separate career in musical parody, in which his compositional triumphs have been much more dubious. But that’s the sort of thing you’d expect me to say when we’re talking about Schickele’s creation, P.D.Q. Bach, whose scattered … [Read more...]