Monday night’s Palm Beach Symphony Orchestra program was a tribute to the chamber music concert series founded by Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna in 1919, in which the enfant terrible modernist of his day established a way to try out new music in private, and hear large orchestral works in chamber arrangements. Thus it was Monday night, as a small band of just 11 players played … [Read more...]
Shostakovich symphony shows growth for Lynn Philharmonia
For several years now, the student orchestra at Lynn University has offered high-quality symphonic concerts for area patrons in the know, who show up reliably in substantial numbers. And they are rewarded for their loyalty. Each year, the Lynn Philharmonia gets a little better, as the conservatory programs at the Boca Raton college deepen, and a larger number of promising … [Read more...]
Symphony of the Americas marks 25-year milestone
In January, the Symphony of the Americas will celebrate 25 years of musical performances — and the fact that they are still here. “It’s no small accomplishment for a nonprofit orchestra to achieve a milestone like our 25th anniversary,” artistic director and conductor James Brooks-Bruzzese said. “Economically, we are very fortunate to continue, in our own little way, to bring … [Read more...]
PB Symphony’s music-in-the-round a great success
What could top an all-Bach program? I’ll tell you: The arrangement of the orchestra in the octagonal DeSantis Chapel at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Seating for the Feb. 27 concert was in a great circle with orchestra and soloists in the center. “Switch seats after the intermission, and look into the conductor’s eyes,’’ suggested the symphony’s new executive director, … [Read more...]
Director Kennedy brings new energy to Master Chorale
Leaving a place where your colleagues in academia went boogie-boarding in the Pacific Ocean every Friday morning can’t be an easy thing to do. And so it was for Karen Kennedy, who left her job at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and directorship of the Honolulu Symphony Chorus to come back to the mainland, first to Baltimore, and then to Miami. “It was very hard for me to … [Read more...]
Atlanta Symphony violinists do right by Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev didn’t write a great deal of chamber music, but his two string quartets, two violin sonatas (one originally for flute) and piano quintet are marvelous works, and worthy of the repertory status that only the violin sonatas currently appear to have. The same goes for the Sonata for Two Violins (in C, Op. 56), written in 1932 for a French chamber music series in … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks, Jan. 29-Feb. 3
This weekend, the Houston Symphony Orchestra comes to town as part of a limited national tour, and it’s bringing the universe along with it. Conductor Hans Graf will lead the Houstonians (and the women of its chorus) in the great seven-part tone poem The Planets, by English composer Gustav Holst, accompanied by high-definition NASA images of our universe projected on a giant … [Read more...]
PB Symphony to play score during ‘Potemkin’ showing
Ramón Tebar has worked with demanding sopranos, played as a soloist and chamber musician, and conducted orchestras in symphony, ballet and opera. But for the 30-year-old Spanish conductor, directing an orchestra as the accompaniment to a soundtrack is the hardest thing he's ever done. "The main reason is that, as a conductor, I don't have the freedom and flexibility that … [Read more...]
‘Symphony’ provides much-needed spark at MCB show
For a season opener, Program I seemed a bit tame. Friday’s performance at the Kravis Center, heralding the start of Miami City Ballet’s 24th year, was remarkably low-key: No sets, for one thing. And of course, in these lean times, again no orchestra. And no new repertoire. Two ballets, from the midpoint of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet career, announced a short, … [Read more...]