By Myles Ludwig Since mid-April to today, Big Media has submerged us in a swamp of the sensational and salacious, holding our heads down in one hot mess after another. We can barely come up for a breath before another epic wave knocks us over again: Boston bombers; Jodi Arias; the Cleveland 3.1; the Bangladeshi building collapse (bad news for WalMart Nation); military rape; … [Read more...]
Scarlett’s ‘Euphotic’ showcases big talent of MCB corps
The Miami City Ballet showcased its Program II, Tradition and Innovation, this weekend at the Kravis Center presenting something old and something new, but also something timeless and something different. George Balanchine’s choreography, the mainstay of Miami City Ballet’s repertory, is known for its unsurpassed musicality, and it is interesting to note that the first two … [Read more...]
Raitt mesmerizes big audience at Mizner show
Sunday, Oct. 21, was particularly long for Bonnie Raitt. The day before she and her band had headlined Magnoliafest in Live Oak, and she was hoping for a nice rest in Boca Raton before her show at the Mizner Park Amphitheater. Unfortunately for Raitt, the presidential debate had claimed every room in the neighborhood, so as she noted, they found a hotel “farther up the beach.” … [Read more...]
For Pink Martini, masters of retro elegance, the beautiful comes first
Thomas Lauderdale, founder, pianist, composer and arranger for genre-defiant big band Pink Martini, was preparing for the second of a two-night run in Oklahoma City on the afternoon of March 24. And while he may have been focusing on that evening’s concert, he had more immediate concerns when he answered his cell phone. “I’m walking over to get my dry cleaning,” he said. “I … [Read more...]
Cliburn medalist Zhang sets big challenges for himself
He is young and only at the beginning of his career, but Haochen Zhang already has a firm grasp on how to build a good concert program. Zhang, the gold medalist at the last Van Cliburn Competition in 2009, is ending his concert tonight at the Kravis Center with Islamey, Mili Balakirev’s corker of a showpiece, and one favored by an older generation of pianists. It doesn’t have … [Read more...]
Splendid Shostakovich as Enso Quartet plays Flagler
One of the joys of seeing small concerts that are part of a good music series is that you get to hear not just the venerable players but the rising stars. Surely Tuesday night’s performance at Palm Beach’s Flagler Museum by the Enso String Quartet was a case of seeing a young ensemble on the cusp of something really big, and its performance justified the wisdom of Grammy … [Read more...]
Beatles tribute band graduates to big centers
Just because you cannot afford to book a band, or the members have long since stopped talking to each other, let alone playing together, that should not stop a performing arts center from presenting the group anyway. Or at least a reasonable facsimile. That is the rationale behind the tribute band phenomenon, which has seen the likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd on the … [Read more...]