By Dennis D. Rooney The fourth and final program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 27th season was composed of a local premiere and two works of 20th-century composers on its first half, and Schubert’s Trout Quintet on its second. Clarinetist Michael Forte’s prefatory remarks mentioned that Piotr Szewczyk (b. 1978), composer of Three Summer Sketches that opened … [Read more...]
Mainly Mozart finale featured fine playing, muddled concept
By Dennis D. Rooney The conclusion of the Mainly Mozart Festival’s 25th season, held July 8 at the University of Miami’s Gusman Auditorium, was a gallimaufry masquerading as a concept program. It would have been better dubbed “a bit of Mozart, but mostly Shostakovich.” The subtitle was “The Soul of Celebration” and included video accompanying the music, credited to Ali … [Read more...]
Mainly Mozart closes with evocative, engaging ‘Jewish Bride’
For the past four years, the Mainly Mozart Festival in Coral Gables has ended its summer concerts of chamber music with a multimedia, multidisciplinary finale that includes video, guest artists and world premiere dances choreographed by a member of the Miami City Ballet. For as ambitious as that sounds, it’s a workable formula. Audiences show up in large numbers on a late … [Read more...]
Violinist Gourdjia opens Mainly Mozart Festival with high style, elegance
One of the joys associated with the Mainly Mozart Festival, now in its 24th season in Coral Gables, is that it introduces audiences to rising players they are unlikely to have heard before. This past Sunday, for the festival’s opening, it was the young Russian-born violinist Liana Gourdjia, who studied in Moscow, the Cleveland Institute and Indiana University, and now lives … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 6-7
Film: OK, it’s only early May, but in the world of movies it is already summer. The season officially begins this weekend with the arrival of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, and it comes recommended. Sure, it doesn’t have the surprise factor the first installment did in 2014, but writer/director James Gunn demonstrates that that earlier megahit was no fluke. A handful of … [Read more...]
Ambitious Mainly Mozart finale doesn’t always work
By Kevin Wilt The Miami Chamber Music Society closed out its 2015-2016 season with the Mainly Mozart Festival, which opened with the namesake composer, but featured many others. The first work on the July 1 program was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate (K. 165). Taking the stage for the performance was a string quartet made up of members of the Metropolitan … [Read more...]