Named for Telegraph Hill, an artsy neighborhood of San Francisco, Calif., the four young players of the Telegraph Quartet came to the Flagler Museum on Jan. 24 to demonstrate their winning ways. Founded in 2013, after barely a year together they won the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. In 2016 they carried off the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition, a prize that helped … [Read more...]
Beautifully sung ‘Butterfly’ opens PB Opera season
There are any number of tragic female heroines in the centuries since opera was created, but it’s hard to think of one more sympathetic than the Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San, traduced by her caddish American husband and forced to take the only way out she knows. That’s Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and for this opera to come across successfully, it’s important that the … [Read more...]
Lark seeks ‘sincerity’ in music, career
Tonight, violinist Tessa Lark returns to Carnegie Hall for a recital. She wants you to know that while her program might seem unconventional, it will give you a good idea of who she is as a musician. “When you look at the program it doesn’t seem like the pieces relate, but it’s really just types of music I’ve loved my whole life and I’m putting them together in one … [Read more...]
Violinist Lark shines in Korngold at SoFla Symphony
The South Florida Symphony is a musical organization that likes to think big. In the first classical concerts of the season (a pops concert took place in November), the Fort Lauderdale-based ensemble took on an echt-Romantic violin concerto, a world premiere score, and one of Richard Strauss’s enormous tone poems. Credit the group and its maestra, Sebrina María Alfonso, with … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Onegin’ beautiful, satisfying
Of all the operas of Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin is the best-loved, and its profusion of engaging melody is surely one of the primary reasons. But it also helps when the cast is strong enough to give those melodies the ride they deserve, and happily, Florida Grand Opera’s current production of Eugene Onegin hits its marks in that regard, and in providing a fine night at the … [Read more...]
PB Symphony sparkles in Borodin, Brahms-Schoenberg
Under the leadership of Ramón Tebar, there is no doubt that the Palm Beach Symphony has become the worthy successor to the late lamented Florida Philharmonic. But the public is woefully ignorant of this sparkling gem in its midst due to the private nature of its past. Happily, there are forces at work to help it become the orchestra for all of Palm Beach County. High … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire’s 15th anniversary concert masterful, eclectic
The South Florida classical music scene was rather different 15 years ago than it is today, and while in some aspects of those pre-recession days it was more robust, in one thing in particular there is no comparison. Today, there has been substantial growth in the appearance of smaller arts organizations, with chamber orchestras, chamber music series and even opera companies … [Read more...]
Jasper SQ offers staples, new works in Duncan appearance
By Dennis D. Rooney Jasper is the name of a gemstone and also a national park in Alberta, Canada, from which the Jasper String Quartet takes its name. The Jaspers are current artists-in-residence at Temple University in Philadelphia. Previously quartet-in-residence at Oberlin College, where it was founded in 2006, it has won many awards, including the Cleveland Institute … [Read more...]
Dover Quartet opens Flagler season in brilliant fashion
The Dover String Quartet opened the Flager Museum Music Series on Jan. 10 with a bright, intense sound that was refreshing, lean and passionate. Founded in 2008 by four young graduates of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, they were catapulted to international fame with their stunning sweep of Canada’s Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2013. … [Read more...]
Soprano’s vocal fireworks give Boca Symphonia a joyful afternoon of Baroque
The European audiences of 300 years ago liked their singers to show off, and Jan. 8 at the second seasonal concert by the Symphonia Boca Raton, a local audience got a thrilling example of why that was. In all-Baroque program led by conductor Brett Karlin, who in November directed a strong account of the Mass in B Minor of J.S. Bach with his Master Chorale of South Florida, … [Read more...]