By Robert Croan Classical recitals are all too scarce in Broward County. A recital of the caliber of Emanuel Ax’s all-Beethoven program, in Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater on March 22, would be rare anywhere, anytime. Professionally, the Polish-born pianist, 67 this year, is at the top of his field, and as the present concert demonstrated, he is in top form technically and … [Read more...]
SoFla Symphony gets needed lift from Master Chorale in Beethoven 9
By Kevin Wilt Sunday afternoon, the South Florida Symphony stopped by the Carole and Barry Kaye Auditorium at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton to play a pair of symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven. This performance was third in their January tour, beginning in Key West, and ending with their debut at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami. The first half of the concert … [Read more...]
Escher Quartet remarkable in Bartok, Beethoven at Four Arts
The Escher String Quartet came to the Society of the Four Arts on Sunday, and everything about its performance was spotless and perfect. So spotless and so perfect, that at times it became bloodless, even while the foursome was demonstrating an astonishing display of musical excellence that was a triumph of instrumental wizardry and interpretive subtlety. This was a bigger … [Read more...]
Composer Runestad offers message of love in new work for Seraphic Fire
Rather than hire a babysitter when they had choir practice at night, the parents of Jake Runestad simply took their son along to rehearsals. “I would just run around in the choir room, and I think a lot of that music seeped into my brain,” says Runestad (pronounced RUN-uh-sted), speaking last week from his home in Minneapolis. “There was just a lot of music in my own … [Read more...]
‘A Little Chaos’ is all wood and no flowers
So far, Alan Rickman’s A Little Chaos is the year’s best candidate for Most Misleading Movie Title. Would that even a little chaos infringe on this calcified costume romance about nothing much more than the design of a water cascade and outdoor ballroom in the Gardens of Versailles in 17th-century France. This movie is what happens when the irrepressible thrills of modernist … [Read more...]
For legendary songwriter Webb, life still heading up, up and away
For composers to have songs that are more recognized than their own names is a rare phenomenon — yet, at the same time, a definition of success. But to have a slate of recognizable hits over 50 years while staying comparatively under the radar involves rare air breathed by few other than 68-year-old vocalist, pianist and Oklahoma native Jimmy Webb. At his forthcoming solo … [Read more...]
The View From Home 68: Family angst, goofy Godard, bleak Tsai, race matters; plus Rivette, rabbits and Britt
Force Majeure: For approximately the first two minutes of this confrontational, uncomfortable Swedish drama (Magnolia, $13.49 Blu-ray, $12.14 DVD), its central family of four is having a happy vacation in the Les Arcs ski resort in Savoie, France. Some laughs are exchanged and photographs are taken, as father Thomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), his wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and … [Read more...]
Youthful Calidore Quartet wins over Flagler audience
Four young student string players met at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles in 2010 and decided to form the Calidore String Quartet. They quickly won four American grand prize competitions, and the Munich and Hamburg equivalents in 2012. On Feb. 3, the Flagler Museum music series was host to their winning ways. All in their mid-20s, it was appropriate that the … [Read more...]
Sundays: The man who turned a hubcap into a hat
By Myles Ludwig My pal Tony Palladino passed into another dimension this week. He was – still is — my friend and mentor for some 40 years and one of America’s premier graphic designers, illustrators and adventurers in art. TP, as he called himself, grew up in Manhattan. His family spoke Italian, not English, so to communicate he taught himself a way of drawing that could … [Read more...]
Sundays: Being and un-being
By Myles Ludwig The untimely passing of Peaches Geldof was the big news in Britain this week. It was the top-trending topic on the staid BBC and banner fodder for the tabloid-obsessed country in which Murdochian journalism has ensnared its own perpetrator in a messy matrimonial scandal. You may be forgiven for not knowing that Ms. Geldof was one of the three whimsically named … [Read more...]