By Robert Croan South Florida Symphony’s Summer with the Symphony series --- one monthly chamber music concert in Miami and in Fort Lauderdale --- is the oasis in South Florida’s off-season classical music desert. Responding to this cultural void, an enthusiastic capacity audience filled the attractive auditorium of Fort Lauderdale’s Center for Spiritual development for … [Read more...]
Brilliant Fauré, Brahms performances at SFSO chamber opener
By Robert Croan The first-desk players of South Florida Symphony Orchestra are not an official ensemble, like, say, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center or the Beaux Arts Trio. They get together each summer for a series of three modest monthly concerts — each performed in two South Florida venues — which provide some of the best classical music to be heard in this … [Read more...]
Convivial, enthusiastic Mozart, Schumann enliven SFSO chamber evening
By Robert Croan With live classical music scarce at this time of year, South Florida Symphony Orchestra’s chamber music series in Miami and Fort Lauderdale has been a welcome addition to the cultural scene, as well as continuing evidence of the organization’s self-described commitment to community engagement. The third and final program (heard July 22 at Fort … [Read more...]
A fine night of clarinet quintets at CityPlace
The two canonical clarinet quintets, and there are really only two, attain that status at least in part because listening to them, one wonders why such a beautiful combination isn’t regularly attempted by composers everywhere. For now, no one’s done it better than Mozart in 1789 and Brahms in 1891, and it was their respective clarinet quintets that occupied a program of the … [Read more...]
PB Symphony inaugurates chamber music series with program of overlooked American master
Even if you’re a devotee of classical music, you might never have heard of William Grant Still. It was different in Still’s own day. Music historians have long called Still (1895-1978) the dean of African-American classical composers, and that came out of his prominence, which began in the 1920s when he made his initial name as an arranger for leading bands in the new … [Read more...]
Cellist Jaffe elegant, polished in Boca recital
Hearing a good chamber music recital in a small room out of season is comforting: While our local world is focusing on other things than the classical realm, it's heartening to know that fine musicians are still at it, working away and making admirable art. This past Sunday at the Steinway Piano Gallery in Boca Raton, the Brazilian-born cellist Claudio Jaffe offered his … [Read more...]