By Greg StepanichIt’s true that the Miami-based concert choir Seraphic Fire is a national organization that draws many of its singing members, as well as the personnel for its Firebird Chamber Orchestra, from across the country.But it is also nevertheless true that on Saturday night in a church in Fort Lauderdale, a large audience saw a South Florida musical … [Read more...]
Music review: Seraphic Fire’s Rachmaninov ravishing, and a departure
By Greg StepanichThe music of faith may mean most to the worshippers for whose ears it ultimately is meant, but the sensual beauty of some composition in these traditions, especially when well-performed, has a way of suspending doubt.On Saturday night at All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale, the Miami-based concert choir Seraphic Fire continued its opening … [Read more...]
Music review: Musical piety, vocal purity make for absorbing concert of French Baroque
Louis XIV, king of France and Navarre (1638-1715).By Greg StepanichIn the days when Louis XIV was an actual presence and not merely the name of a favorite rococo interior design fashion, the faithful gathered in churches for communion with the Almighty but also for music, for the sound of a pure, unclouded voice ascending into the severe angles of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 16-20
Blue Boy, by Tammy Marinuzzi.Art: Work in ceramics by a group of artists who all have connections to the University of Florida opens today at West Palm Beach’s Armory Art Center and runs through Aug. 28. The 13 artists, assembled under the rubric Motley Moxie, shared the same working environment or instructors at UF, but have widely varied approaches to … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 11-13
The Entr’Acte Theatrix cast of Hair.Stage: There’s a new theater company in the area, Entr’Acte Theatrix, a professional offshoot of the 10-year-old Palm Beach Principal Players, which hangs out its shingle for the first time with a worthy production of Hair, the “tribal love-rock musical” from 1968, the previous time we were mired in a protracted, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 7-13
Kaitlyn O'Neill, Matthew Korinko, Philip de la Caland Zachary Schwartz in Assassins.(Photo by Gemma Bramham)Theater: The brilliant composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim turned 80 in March, and did you even send him a greeting card? Well, you can make up for that lapse by attending Slow Burn Theatre Company’s salute to him with its aptly chilly, but … [Read more...]
Music review: ‘Nevsky’ concert unusual but compelling
On screen, Vera Ivasheva as Olga in Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky; below, the Russian National Orchestra.(Photo by Sherry Ferrante)By Greg StepanichIn his recent study of Sergei Prokofiev's Soviet career, the musicologist Simon Morrison reveals that the composer was a huge movie buff, and that for one tantalizing moment, had a chance to do a film score in Hollywood for … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 26-March 4
Gezim Myshekta as the title character in Palm Beach Opera's Don Giovanni.Music: Palm Beach Opera’s production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni opens tonight, and it could mark a real departure for the company. That’s because it’s secured the services of Stefano Poda, an up-and-coming Italian director who’s created major buzz with his recent productions, including a Thaïs for Turin that … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 29-Feb. 3
Jupiter and its moon, Io.(Photo by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory)Music: This weekend, the Houston Symphony Orchestra comes to town as part of a limited national tour, and it’s bringing the universe along with it. Conductor Hans Graf will lead the Houstonians (and the women of its chorus) in the great seven-part tone poem The Planets, by English composer Gustav Holst, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 18-20
Elizabeth Dimon, Christopher Oden and Colin McPhillamy, in Copenhagen. Theater: Opening tonight is Palm Beach Dramaworks’ much-anticipated production of Michael Frayn’s Tony Award-winning Copenhagen, a cerebral look back at a mysterious 1941 meeting between two nuclear physicists that may have changed the course of World War II. Based on fact, but then stretched into … [Read more...]