By Robert Croan At the start of Seraphic Fire’s concert of English cathedral music Saturday night at Fort Lauderdale’s All Saints Episcopal Church, director Patrick Dupré Quigley spoke to the audience, explaining that there would be 75 minutes of uninterrupted music, and asking that the listeners not look at the printed program during that time. “Just let the music wash over … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, New World bring major Reich score to vivid life
Patrick Dupre Quigley rehearses the New World Symphony and Seraphic Fire in Steve Reich's The Desert Music. (from Facebook) The season now in its final weeks has been a particularly good one for Beethoven, but performances of contemporary music have been relatively rare. Which is why it was great fun Saturday night to be at the New World Center in Miami Beach, where … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire movingly examines the American spiritual
By Robert Croan If you’ve seen the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou, which has become a cult movie since its release in 2001, you’d have recognized several of the Appalachian hymns included in Seraphic Fire’s concert of The American Spiritual, performed in five South Florida venues Jan. 12-17. Artistic Director Patrick Dupré Quigley labeled the concert “an expression … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, times two: “Messiah” and “The First Noël”
By Rex Hearn George Frideric Handel, looking down from heaven, gathered his Baroque composer friends and revealed to them the mystery of the angels on earth called Seraphic Fire. “St. Cecilia must have chosen each member of The Sebastians orchestra,’’ he said, “because they are so good. And young Patrick Dupré Quigley, their conductor, used 17 perfect singers, as did I back … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, Sebastians team for splendid Charpentier, Handel
This week, Seraphic Fire heads to the Northeast for concerts in Washington, New York and Philadelphia, joined by the period orchestra The Sebastians, and the choir no doubt wants to give the best impression it can. If Saturday night’s concert at Miami Shores Presbyterian Church represents the quality of its calling card, audiences there will be delighted. For sheer technical … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 6-8
Dance: Stephen Mills didn’t think he was the right person to tell a Holocaust survivor’s story in dance, but the Ballet Austin artistic director relented, and the result was a remarkable 45-minute depiction of the memories of survivor Naomi Warren called Light: The Holocaust and Humanity Project. The work also includes larger themes, including the Genesis myth, used here as a … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, Piffaro offer absorbing evening of’ ‘Vespers’
The merging of a Renaissance wind band with 21st-century American choral music is an idea that may sound odd on the surface, but composer Kile Smith showed it could work, and work beautifully, when he composed his Vespers in 2007. The original-instrument band that commissioned the work, Philadelphia-based Piffaro, joined Patrick Dupré Quigley and his Seraphic Fire concert … [Read more...]
Glorious Bach, exquisite Mahler at Seraphic Fire
By Robert Croan There are those rare and wonderful times in music when every element comes together and seems exactly right, when a great work is given a performance that captures the meaning and the message of the score. Seraphic Fire, a chamber ensemble led by the brilliant and creative Patrick Dupré Quigley, provided just such a moment Friday evening with an exceptional … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire provides excellent view of young Mozart in context
Composers are not like Athena, who burst fully formed and armed for battle from the head of Zeus. Forging an individual style is in part a reflection of who the composer is, but also who that composer has studied and listened to. Even someone as miraculous as Mozart had plenty of models for his work, and the Miami concert choir Seraphic Fire goes in search of those musical … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, Sebastians do Papa Haydn proud
By Robert Croan Performing in three South Florida venues on successive evenings last weekend, Miami-based chamber choir Seraphic Fire joined with New York instrumental ensemble The Sebastians in a first-rate tribute to composer Franz Joseph Haydn: two of his late choral works, with a delightful middle-period symphony felicitously sandwiched in between. To most classical … [Read more...]