As a musician, I've come to the conclusion that playing music in a live setting works best when it parallels, well, life. There will be some of the inherent up moments, like harmony among the vocals and the instruments, and conversations both with and without words, plus some of the downs like mistakes that you have to recover and learn from. But being a veteran musician … [Read more...]
Chameleon ends season with worthy revival of forgotten composer
It’s surely the case that most of the readers of this review have never heard of the Swedish woman composer Elfrida Andrée (1841-1929), whose career ran into the standard gender roadblocks of the Victorian era into which she was born. But Andrée’s music is well worth hearing, and last Sunday (May 12), the Chameleon Musicians chamber music series in Fort Lauderdale closed its … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 7-9
Theater: Little Shop of Horrors, Roger Corman’s 1960 low-budget sci-fi flick about a man-eating plant and a nebbish florist’s love for an abused Skid Row tootsie, must have seemed odd source material for Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (the songwriting team behind such Disney animated features as The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast), but they turned it into a … [Read more...]
Jazz phenom Eldar charts course of steady growth
At the age of 23, most jazz musicians are still figuratively getting their feet wet in both their art and their lives. Which puts young pianist Eldar Djangirov at least up to his waist by comparison. Going by only his first name since starting his recording career nine years ago, Eldar (eldarjazz.com) released Virtue, his sixth CD overall and fourth for Sony Masterworks, last … [Read more...]