After 32 years, the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, long a beloved staple of South Florida summers, will come to an end this month. Battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated loss of funds, as well as tiring of the grind of putting together four weekends of concerts, the founders of the festival — flutist Karen Fuller, clarinetist Michael Forte and bassoonist … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, on hiatus, seeks funds to return in 2024
For the first time in 31 years, a July in Palm Beach County passed without the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival. Thrown off its tracks by adjustments for the COVID-19 pandemic and a drying up of donor funds, festival organizers called off the summer concert series they’ve been hosting since 1992. But it’s too soon to write an epitaph for the festival, which gave four … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival returns in one-week format
Over the 30 years that the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival has been presenting summer concerts, its musicians have presented more than 500 pieces, the majority of which have been pieces from worthy but infrequently visited corners of the repertoire. It’s a remarkable legacy, and its mix of adventurousness and first-rate playing can be explored on the six recordings its … [Read more...]
PB Chamber Music Festival returns scaled-down, but live, for 30th season
The 30th anniversary season concerts of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival, which arrive this week, amount to a statement of survival. The series returns for one week and six concerts over three days from this Friday through Sunday, and will be presented, as always, in three different parts of the county. One of the venues will be wide open, the two others less so, with … [Read more...]
Video concerts keep faith alive for PB Chamber Music Festival
The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival is finishing up its 29th season tonight with the release of the third program in its series of short virtual concerts. Forced by the coronavirus pandemic to cancel its live shows, the festival has moved online for three abbreviated concerts filmed at Old School Square’s Crest Theatre, and made available for $10 apiece on Vimeo. The … [Read more...]
For 29th season, PBC Chamber Fest going virtual with 3 concerts
The classical music world has adapted rapidly and skillfully to the coronavirus pandemic when it comes to the presentation of concerts. Look no further than YouTube or the Facebook page of your favorite presenting institution and you’re likely to find streams of live music that in the absence of audiences at least are keeping the faith alive. And so it is that the Palm … [Read more...]
Beethoven Septet wraps fine PBCMF season smartly
By Dennis D. Rooney The final program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I heard July 28 at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach, opened with a Trio in E (WQ 162) by Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), the second son of Johann Sebastian. While acknowledging the musical foundation received from his father, C.P.E. Bach was a central figure in … [Read more...]
Rare Zemlinsky trio part of PBCMF’s unusual Program III choices
By Dennis D. Rooney Music for string quartet took up the first half of the third program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I saw Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre. Flutist Karen Fuller joined violinists Dina Kostic and Claudia Cagnassone; violist Renée Reder; and cellist Susan Bergeron for the Nocturne and Scherzo by Arthur Foote … [Read more...]
Brahms piano quartet is high point of PBCMF’s Program II
By Dennis D. Rooney The second program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season, which I heard Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre, contained three works: novelties by Glière and Thuille; and a Brahms masterpiece. Born in Kiev in 1875, Reinhold Moritzovich Glière came to maturity and enjoyed early success in Imperial Russia, then managed to flourish in … [Read more...]
PB Chamber Fest delivers enjoyable readings of unfamiliar fare
By Dennis D. Rooney The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 28th season opened last weekend with a program that contained two concertinos, a sonata and a nonet. None of them could be described as popular fare, although experienced listeners might have already encountered two of them. Both works titled “Concertino,” however, certainly qualified as unfamiliar. That by … [Read more...]