Michael McKeever and Nickolas Richberg in Stuff.Editor’s note: This story, was was to be posted Friday, was delayed by technical difficulties. It has been posted since Friday on www.palmbeachartspaper.com.Theater: OK, you’ve procrastinated long enough. This is the final weekend for the world premiere production of Stuff at Boca Raton’s Caldwell Theatre. This … [Read more...]
Music review: Mozart quintet makes graceful memorial at chamber fest
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in an unfinished portraitby his brother-in-law, Joseph Lange.By Greg StepanichA sweetly radiant reading of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet added a poignant touch to the closing half of the third concert in the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s current summer season.The quintet (in A, K. 581) was dedicated to the memory of the Rev. Perry … [Read more...]
Music review: Recent American brass trio proves smart switch at chamber fest
American composer Lauren Bernofsky.By Greg StepanichThe second concert of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 20th season underwent a programming change, but its tried-and-true finale, which didn’t change, worked its customary magic.A large audience at the Crest Theatre on Sunday afternoon warmly applauded that last work, the Death and the Maiden Quartet … [Read more...]
Music review: Chamber fest’s Schoenberg falls short of transfiguration
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).By Greg StepanichAs one of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s performers rightly said in her remarks from the stage, the name of Arnold Schoenberg is “box office poison” for a lot of people, but that really shouldn’t apply to his early string sextet, Verklärte Nacht.This important, beautiful work was one of the major events … [Read more...]
Music feature: Camaraderie keeps PB Chamber Music Festival going, 20 summers on
Members of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, picturedthis week at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach. From left: Ellen Tomasiewicz, Rebecca Diderrich, Beth Larsen,Michael Ellert, Roberta Rust, Julia McAlister, Rene Reder and Sherie Aguirre.(Photo by Michael Price Photography)By Greg StepanichIt all began at Chuck and Harold’s.On a long-ago day at … [Read more...]
Music review: Chamber festival’s closer features effective Dahl and premiere
Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970). In the years just before and after World War II, Southern California became an oasis of sun, refuge and economic opportunity for several of the era’s most important European composers, Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schonberg chief among them. Ingolf Dahl was another one of those composers, and in the fourth and final program of the Palm Beach … [Read more...]
Music review: French-accented chamber program brings vigor to Ibert trio
Jacques Ibert (1890-1962).By Greg StepanichAt its most important, the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival is about discovery, in hearing something worthwhile that its musicians have brought out of the libraries or fresh off the stocks for its loyal audience of nearly two decades.In the first installment Friday of its third week of concerts, the musicians returned in … [Read more...]
Music review: Beethoven’s ‘Harp’ stands out in second chamber fest concert
Joaquín Turina (1882-1949). By Greg StepanichThe 10th string quartet of Beethoven, depending on which scholarly camp you favor, is either a genial mid-career throwback to the peak of the Haydn classical style or the earliest example of the innovatory, astonishing manner of the late-period quartets.Either way, it’s a remarkable piece of music from a … [Read more...]
Music review: First PB chamber festival concert shows group building canon
A quilt from Gee's Bend.By Greg StepanichPieces of music come and go, sometimes just once before disappearing, sometimes aired out only every once in a while like an unfashionable sweater found in the depths of Grandfather’s closet.But many of these works are pieces of real merit, and it’s up to performing organizations to start turning old and new rarities into … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 9-12
Noomi Rapace in The Girl Who Played With Fire.Film: Those who clamored about The Twilight Saga last week can now take in a far better, darker trilogy, now that they have that out of their system. It is the Swedish mystery novels by the late Stieg Larsson, whose introduction on film was the riveting The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, about a Goth computer … [Read more...]