WEST PALM BEACH —Palm Beach Atlantic University’s biennial concert series of new music, the Frontwave Festival, begins tonight at the college in West Palm Beach and runs through Saturday.
The special guest for the festival is composer John Fitz Rogers, who teaches composition at the University of South Carolina. He holds degrees from Oberlin, Cornell and the Yale School of Music, and has studied with Jacob Druckman, Steven Stucky and Roberto Sierra. The recipient of many awards including from ASCAP and the MacDowell Colony, his most recording is of his Magna Mysteria for soprano, chorus and orchestra, released last year on Innova Records.
Guest performers for the festival include Duo Gastesi-Bezerra, the Abraxas Saxophone Quartet, soprano Jourdan Laine Howell and Dale Underwood and the Frost Saxophone Quartet. The concerts take place in the Helen K. Persson Recital Hall on the PBAU Campus.
Tonight’s concert, set for 7:30 p.m., features music of student composers. Rogers gives a talk at 11 a.m. Friday, followed by a composition master class at 1:30 p.m. At 7:30 Friday, music of Rogers, Lansing McLoskey and Matthew Evan Taylor is featured.
At 2 p.m. Saturday, music of South Florida composers including Clare Shore, Michael Bies and Dylan Findley is featured on a program with music of Rogers performed by the Abraxas Saxophone Quartet. The festival concludes at 7:30 p.m. Saturday with duo pianists Marco Bezerra and Estibaliz Gastesi in works by Rogers, Marlene Woodward-Cooper, Justin Rubin, Donald Waxman and others.
Tickets for the concerts are $10, with $5 for students with ID. Call 561-803-2970 or email ticket_central@pba.edu.
Violinist Oliveira launches international competition
BOCA RATON — Violinist Elmar Oliveira announced this week the creation of a new violin competition named after him that will take place every three years at Lynn University in Boca Raton.
The Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition aims to give violinists ages 16 to 32 “the tools necessary for building a strong foundation for success in the arts industry,” according to a statement from the competition. That will include career development, performance opportunities, financial support as well as public relations and artistic management.
The competition will be held from Jan. 22 to Feb. 5, 2017, at Lynn University.
“The mission of the Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition is to nurture and develop talented young violinists who are drawn from a truly global pool,” Oliveira said in a prepared statement. “Through this competition we will provide the next generation of violinists with career building tools —not solely financial ones — that are so necessary in today’s world. This is our ultimate goal.”
Interested violinists can visit www.elmaroliveiraivc.org for details about the process. Twenty finalists will be chosen from the submissions, which require a $100 registration fee and must be received by Sept. 30.
Finalists will compete in three rounds, and the final concerts will be Feb. 4 and 5 at the Wold Performing Arts Center. Guillermo Figueroa will lead the Lynn Philharmonia in the two concerts. Winners will be chosen and awards distributed after the final concert. The first-prize winner will receive $30,000; second $15,000; and third $10,000.
There will be seven judges for the competition; six of them have been named: Andrés Cárdenes, Gudny Gudmundsdottir, Daniel Heifetz, Ilya Kaler, Vera Tsu Wei-ling, and Elmar Weingarten. For more information, visit the competition website.