Seraphic Fire wrapped its 11th season this past week with a new record release, a $12,500 NEA grant in hand to record the next one, and a concert of widely varied works that illustrated the range of its interests as well as the flexibility of its singers. Dubbed Cathedral Classics, the potpourri concert featured 18 short works, many of them suggested by an email campaign in … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire, Renaissance jam band bring Ponce de Leon’s era alive
It takes a leap of empathy and a sizable amount of scholarship to take an audience back five centuries to a time too remote from our own to be entirely understandable, yet recognizably humanist in a way that we still emulate. That Seraphic Fire was able to do this with its program of late medieval and early Renaissance music from Spain – in honor of Juan Ponce de León’s … [Read more...]
At the symphony I: Lovely Mozart at Boca Symphonia
Philippe Entremont closed out his tenure as director of the Boca Raton Symphonia on March 24 with a concert that included a flute concerto by Mozart and works by Respighi and Shchedrin. The French pianist and conductor will return for one concert next season, but conducting duties will be divided among three other maestros: Gerard Schwarz, Alexander Platt and James Judd. … [Read more...]
PB Opera gives us a ‘Salome’ with a conscience
Richard Strauss’ Salome has earned its reputation for decadence not just because of its Oscar Wilde source, the time of its composition in the overripe-civilization years of the early 20th century, or its score, with its strange, unexpected sounds at every turn. It has also earned it because of the story itself, which ends in a parody of Wagnerian bliss, with a cruel but … [Read more...]
PB Pops paying tribute to the king of all film composers
Few American composers of any description have enjoyed the fame of John Williams, and even fewer have had their music become so familiar to a worldwide audience. It’s likely that almost anyone you run into could sing the opening theme of Star Wars (1977), for example, or imitate the deep, chopping bass figure that accompanies the great white shark of Jaws (1975). His music is … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony season opens with high spirits, powerful playing
The Palm Beach Symphony opened a new era for itself Sunday afternoon with an effervescent, powerful concert of 20th-century orchestral works, performed by a newly restaffed ensemble that stands fair to carry out the group’s mission of expanded cultural influence. The group of musicians that took the stage of the Gubelmann Auditorium at Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts is … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony reaches out to youth with Stravinsky
Time was, in the late 1950s, that a charismatic conductor could start a TV series in which he introduced young people to the world of classical music, and build himself a legend as well as permanently influence the lives of millions of those youths. But Leonard Bernstein is no longer with us, and neither is the middlebrow consensus that led to the televising of the Young … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony commissions composer Muhly
The Palm Beach Symphony has commissioned one of the most celebrated young composers in the country to write a fanfare for the ensemble’s 40th anniversary in 2013. Nico Muhly, 30, a Vermont-born composer who studied at the Juilliard School, is perhaps best-known for his score for The Reader, the 2008 Stephen Daldry film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. He’s written … [Read more...]
Stringendo summer camp works to build serious string players
By Chloe Elder The Stringendo School for Strings, founded in 2000, is dedicated to giving young musicians the tools and experience they need to better their craft and become serious instrumentalists. The summer camp at Palm Beach Atlantic University, which ends Friday, provides intensive 9-hour days of music, music, and more music. For the 45 accepted students this year, the … [Read more...]
Pahokee Heritage Music Festival offers much-expanded lineup for 2nd-ever event
This weekend's Pahokee Heritage Music Festival will feature a diverse lineup of performers that ranges from jazz, R&B, rock and blues to soca, Latin, country and pop. There’s also a gospel music competition, an array of seafood, barbecue and Caribbean food vendors, plus some of the area's prominent visual artists and authors -- all along the Lake Okeechobee waterfront at the … [Read more...]