Lynn New Music Festival: Donald Waxman (Oct. 4, Lynn University, Boca Raton) The composer Donald Waxman turns 87 later this month, but his compositional muse shows no sign of slowing down. The special guest last week for the New Music Festival at Lynn University, founded by pianist Lisa Leonard and now in its seventh year, Waxman has had a long, distinguished career in … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2012-13: Few classic rockers in this pop season
The end of classic rock as we knew it continues in the 2012-2013 South Florida concert season, since few of the usual suspects like the Eagles, Allman Brothers Band, Tom Petty, U2, Bruce Springsteen or Crosby, Stills and Nash will be present. Sure, there’s a specialty show by The Who (a Quadrophenia run-through) and an appearance by retro-rock singer Chris Robinson, although … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2012-13: Loss of JAMS hurts, but jazz season looks strong
The biggest news regarding the 2012-2013 South Florida jazz concert season may also be the most unfortunate. The 13-year-old, West Palm Beach-based Jazz Arts Music Society (JAMS), which presented a series of annual concerts at the Himmel Theater at CityPlace in West Palm Beach that were fixtures within these previews, decided in late July to suspend the series until further … [Read more...]
Flutist Anderson to perform iconic ‘Thick as a Brick’ at Kravis
Add to the list of Woodstock-era rockers who are still performing live in concert at Social Security age the name of Ian Anderson, who brought the flute to rock music through his high-concept former band, Jethro Tull. Forty years ago, he had an international hit with the progressive rock album Thick as a Brick, which he wrote with lyrics credited to a fictional 10-year-old … [Read more...]
Kreisberg electrifies at Arts Garage
Jazz guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg has slowly and steadily increased his profile since graduating from the University of Miami’s acclaimed music program in the mid-1990s ― including moving back to his native New York City in 1997 and, stereotypically, becoming a bigger jazz star overseas than in the United States. Kreisberg’s quartet recently returned from a 10-show stint in … [Read more...]
Opera at Bard: ‘King’ plot preposterous, but Chabrier’s opera worth doing
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. -- “This is a royal mess,’’ sings one of the characters in Bard Summerscape’s performance of Emmanuel Chabrier’s comic opera Le Roi Malgré Lui (The King In Spite of Himself). This could well be a wry reflection on the quality of the singing or the production. It is not. Standards were very high. Rather, it goes to the root of why this opera is not … [Read more...]
Chamber concert offers fine 20th-century discoveries
Over the years, some of the better Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival concerts have presented a good blend of discovery and tradition. And so it was with the second concert in the festival’s 21st season this past weekend. The festival musicians sounded well-rehearsed and crisply confident at the Crest Theatre on Sunday, and delivered a fine afternoon of masterworks and obscure … [Read more...]
Chamber fest opens first week of 21st season in high spirits
The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival entered its third decade Friday night in West Palm Beach in the arms of a warm, supportive audience that gave all of its work lengthy applause, and laughed forcefully at the jokes its performers offered in oral program notes before each piece. A good time at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Persson Hall was certainly had by all, but … [Read more...]
Astanova, Ling lead Palm Beach Symphony to sparkling season finale
It was hard, seeing all those instrumentalists downstage on a closed-in pit at the Kravis Center, not to think of the long-gone Florida Philharmonic. And perhaps that ultimately was the point of the Palm Beach Symphony’s benefit concert Tuesday night at the Kravis Center, which featured a terrific reading of the Dvorak Eighth Symphony as conducted by a major international … [Read more...]
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra shows why jazz matters
When you think about it, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra is essentially the only ensemble in the entire country quite like it, a group whose purpose is to keep a flame for the benefit of the American people and occasionally stoke it with fresh wood. There are many hundreds of university-based jazz bands, and most of the major symphonic orchestras do plenty of outreach at … [Read more...]