By Dennis D. Rooney One of the most memorable aspects of Seraphic Fire’s all-Bach program, which took place Feb. 27 at St. Gregory's Espicopal Church in Boca Raton, was the striking impression made by the large stained-glass sanctuary window behind the singers and players. Two Bach cantatas (Nos. 62 and 147) and the Mass in G minor (BWV 235), composed the program, which … [Read more...]
Splendid ‘Acis and Galatea’ closes Seraphic Fire’s Enlightenment Festival
By Robert Croan “Happy we!”/”Wretched lovers!”/”Galatea, dry they tears!” That’s the plot, in a nutshell, of Acis and Galatea, Handel’s pastorale opera, first performed in London in 1718, given a rare (and splendidly realized) revival by Seraphic Fire to conclude the group’s two-week Enlightenment Festival in South Florida. The shepherd Acis and the sea nymph … [Read more...]
Two premieres add breadth to Seraphic Fire Christmas
Seraphic Fire’s Christmas concerts have become more than a South Florida tradition over the Miami choir’s 17 seasons. This year’s holiday program was first heard in Vermont and Connecticut at the beginning of the mnnth before the group returned home and opened a long series of Christmas concerts that will last through Dec. 16. The singers opened their Florida shows Thursday … [Read more...]
A stellar evening with Shakespeare and Seraphic Fire
By Clare Shore (Editor's note: The publication of this review was delayed by technical difficulties.) To delight or not to delight? Surely the latter is out of the question, and as for the former, it’s exactly what Seraphic Fire did in its season-closing concert of music inspired by, or set to, the work of William Shakespeare. At the May 12 concert at All Saints … [Read more...]
Pärt’s ‘Passio’ gets rigorous Seraphic Fire reading
As we move further past the high-water mark of minimalism, the stature of its major practitioners can be seen more clearly in our rearview. A performance Saturday night of the Passio, a 1982 setting of the Passion according to St. John by the eminent Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, now 82, brought something particular about Pärt’s work into high relief: He is the purest and … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire adds richness, variety to sounds of Christmas
There have to be as many ways of exploring the music of the Christmas season as there are ways to celebrate the holiday, from indulging in the sounds of choirboys from a centuries-old English college to using Spotify or YouTube to find brand-new music for the year’s end. In the case of Seraphic Fire, you start with 13 expert singers and an adventurous approach, and you end … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire opens with brilliant, vigorous Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi was a man ahead of his time, a trailblazer in the then-new form of opera and a composer who approached his mostly vocal output with fealty to the words and a concern for their expressive power that was paramount. To begin its 16th season of concerts, the Seraphic Fire choral group presented about an hour’s worth of excerpts from Monteverdi’s 1640 … [Read more...]
French requiems get deep Seraphic Fire treatment
The idea of putting two requiems back to back on one program might seem to promise an overdose of despair, but when the two funeral pieces in question are among the two best-known such works by French composers, it’s a notion that makes more sense. For the second concert of its season, the Miami chamber choir Seraphic Fire offered the requiems of Gabriel Fauré and Maurice … [Read more...]