By Márcio Bezerra Palm Beach Symphony ended its 50th anniversary season April 25 with an ambitious all-Beethoven program at the Kravis Center. Under the direction of Gerard Schwarz, the group started the evening with an early work, the Piano Concerto No. 2 (in B-flat major, Op. 19). This sunny concerto (actually the first the composer wrote, despite its misleading number) … [Read more...]
Frost string trio opens Flagler Museum music series
It’s been quiet, musically speaking, at the Flagler Museum over the past year as COVID-19 silenced the annual chamber music programs at Whitehall. Since 1999, the mansion-museum in Palm Beach has welcomed some of the leading chamber music groups on the world scene, especially young string quartets such as the Dover, Calidore, and New Orford, all of whom have played the … [Read more...]
Flagler Museum to feature six concerts by University of Miami musicians this season
Tucked away in Coral Gables, several miles southwest of the city it’s named for, the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami (www.frost.miami.edu) is the linchpin of all South Florida musical institutions of higher learning. Renamed for arts patrons Phillip and Patricia Frost in 2003, its program actually goes back 95 years. Saxophonist Paul Chafin (1930-2008) … [Read more...]
Appreciation: Jerry Herman, proudly old-fashioned man of the theater
In describing Broadway composer-lyricist Jerry Herman, who died Dec. 26 in Miami of pulmonary complications at the age of 88, most use the terms “optimist” and “old-fashioned.” And throughout his long, illustrious, lucrative career, he embraced both labels. As he commented to me back in 1985, as his final mega-hit show, La Cage aux Folles, was beginning its victory lap … [Read more...]
Mainly Mozart finale featured fine playing, muddled concept
By Dennis D. Rooney The conclusion of the Mainly Mozart Festival’s 25th season, held July 8 at the University of Miami’s Gusman Auditorium, was a gallimaufry masquerading as a concept program. It would have been better dubbed “a bit of Mozart, but mostly Shostakovich.” The subtitle was “The Soul of Celebration” and included video accompanying the music, credited to Ali … [Read more...]