Classical music continues to be a growth industry in Palm Beach County and South Florida generally, which is remarkable considering the depth of the current economic slump.
Perhaps it’s the wealth of technology that makes it easier to get the word out about this music, and inspires small bands of enthusiastic players and singers to get out there and try to get their voices heard. True, the area classical scene doesn’t have quite the breadth of the classical capitals, such as New York, Chicago or London, and most of the activity remains seasonal.
But there’s more than enough out there to keep concertgoers very busy during the winter months, and here’s a look at some of the highlights:
ORCHESTRAS: The Boca Raton Symphonia returns for a fifth season, led once more by the great French pianist Philippe Entremont. Young soloists have become something of a specialty for the group, and this year the players include the American pianist Claire Huangci, who won the national Chopin Competition in Miami last year. She’ll play the Saint-Saëns Second Concerto on April 1 on a program that also features the Czech Suite of Dvořák.
Pianist Alex Korbin, winner of the gold at the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition, plays the Beethoven Fourth on Jan. 15 with conductor Arthur Fagen, who will lead the band in a world premiere: Five Brief Essays by Marshall Turkin, the former Pittsburgh orchestra executive who founded the Symphonia after the demise of the Florida Philharmonic.
Violinist Tim Fain opens the season Dec. 4 with the Prokofiev Second Concerto , while violinist Areta Zhulla, an Itzhak Perlman protégé, plays the Barber Violin Concerto on Feb. 5 (also on the program is the Beethoven Second Symphony). Pianist Sebastian Knauer joins Entremont on March 18 for the Double Concerto of Mozart and also plays the Bach E major Concerto. (All concerts are at the Roberts Theater, St. Andrew’s School, Boca Raton.)
Spanish conductor Ramon Tebar, who will conduct Zhulla and the Boca Symphonia, has his hands full as well with his directing duties for Florida Grand Opera and the Palm Beach Symphony. The Palm Beachers will again play in different venues for each of their six concerts, opening at the Society of the Four Arts (Dec. 7) with the last symphony of Mozart (Jupiter) and the first by Beethoven (No. 1 in C, Op. 21).
Two big late Romantic symphonies are planned for Jan. 30 at the DeSantis Family Chapel on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University: Dvorak’s Ninth (From the New World) and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth. A Spanish-themed program is set for Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church on Feb. 13, with music by Turina and Chavarri, Boccherini’s Night Music of the Streets of Madrid, and Rodion Shchedrin’s version of the Carmen Suite of Bizet. And the International Certificate of Piano Artists competition joins forces with the strings of the Symphony for an all-Bach program that features all the two-keyboard concerti and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (DeSantis Chapel, Feb. 27.
The season ends March 7 at the Flagler Museum with Haydn (Symphony No. 104) and Beethoven (Symphony No. 8). A gala benefit concert also is planned for April 10 at the Kravis Center, featuring Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony and the flamboyant Uzbek pianist Lola Astanova in the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1. The conductor will be the veteran Jahja Ling, now at the San Diego Symphony, and a longtime director of the Florida Orchestra in Tampa.
The Lynn Philharmonia, the orchestra of Lynn University’s Conservatory of Music, has roughly 75 players, which makes it a full-size rather than a chamber orchestra, and its season is ambitious and full.
One of the most challenging programs comes Jan. 28 and 29, when the orchestra takes on the Symphony No. 1 of John Corigliano, a major contemporary landmark (the program also includes John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine and the Weber Clarinet Concerto, with soloist Jon Manasse). Conductor Albert-George Schram has scheduled another popular American piece, Jennifer Higdon’s Blue Cathedral, for March 24 and 25; the late Divertimento of Leonard Bernstein, Respighi’s Pines of Rome, and the Horn Concerto No. 1 of Richard Strauss, with soloist Gregory Miller, fill out the rest of the program.
The Philharmonia’s annual concerto competition concerts are set for Dec. 3 and 4, and two symphonies by Beethoven – Nos. 5 and 6 – are scheduled for Nov. 5 and 6. Lynn Conservatory chief Jon Robertson, a fine pianist, is joined by David and Carol Cole (cello and violin) for the Beethoven Triple Concerto on Feb. 18 and 19 (the Dvorak Seventh Symphony also is scheduled), and on March 17 and 18, the orchestra is joined by young artists from the Florida Grand Opera for concerts of popular opera arias.
Also on the horizon is the South Florida Symphony, based in Fort Lauderdale and the reincarnation of the Key West Symphony Orchestra. The group has been plagued with money problems, in particular a litany of complaints about its failure to pay its players. But orchestra officials insist that’s in the past, and they’re moving ahead with a three-program season – each played at four different venues — and an affiliated chamber music series at the Arts Garage in Delray Beach.
Cellist Zuill Bailey joins the orchestra (Dec. 1-6; Dec. 4 at the Crest Theatre, Delray Beach) for the Haydn Cello Concerto in the first program, followed by the excellent violinist Chee-Yun (Jan. 25-30; Jan. 28 at the Crest) in two works by Saint-Saens: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso and Havanaise. The series ends March 8-12 (March 11 at the Crest) with pianist Jeffrey Chappell in the Brahms Second Concerto on a program with the Fifth Symphony of Miami’s own Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
Another local orchestra worth investigating is the Symphony of the Americas under James Brooks-Bruzzese, which premieres a new piece by Eduardo Magallenes on Oct. 18 at the Broward Center, and on Jan. 24 offers two expert teenage soloists: pianist Conrad Tao in the Rachmaninov Second Concerto, and cellist Anna Litvinenko in the Saint-Saens First Concerto. And on Feb. 28, the 9-year-old Austrian violin prodigy Elisso Gogibedaschwilli performs the Bruch First Concerto.
Further south, the Miami Symphony Orchestra under Eduardo Marturet plans 10 concerts, including world premieres of music by Sam Hyken (Oct. 23) and a guitar concerto by Alexander Berti (March 10-11). Marturet leads the orchestra in the Mahler First Symphony and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht on March 31 and April 1, and welcomes Brazilian pianist Simone Leitao for the Prokofiev First Concerto on Dec. 10 and 11.
Most ambitious of all is the New World Symphony on Miami Beach, with its beautiful New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry, on 17th Street. Director Michael Tilson Thomas closes the season with the Mahler Ninth Symphony (May 5-6) as part of his continuing examination of the composer’s works, and the season formally opens (it started informally Sept. 16) with a world premiere of James Lee III’s Sukkot Through Orion’s Nebula. A remarkable variety of first-class soloists and conductors is planned, including violinists James Ehnes in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (Jan. 7-8) and Gil Shaham in the Prokofiev Second Concerto (Feb. 17-18); cellist Johannes Moser in the Dvorak Concerto on Dec. 10-11; and French pianist Helene Grimaud and conductor Leonard Slatkin in the Beethoven Fourth (April 13-14). Soprano Christine Brewer sings Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder on Oct. 29, and mezzo Amanda Crider essays Ravel’s difficult Songs of Madagascar on Dec. 18.
The marvelous Dutch contemporary music specialist Reinbert de Leeuw conducts Messaien’s massive Turangalila on March 17, and there’s an all-John Cage concert scheduled Dec. 1, to coincide with Art Basel. Also look for Esa-Pekka Salonen, pursuing his compositional career April 7 when he leads a performance of his own Nyx on a program with the Firebird Suite of Igor Stravinsky.
Up north, the Atlantic Classical Orchestra under Stewart Robertson brings pianist Lindsay Garritson to the stage for the Saint-Saens Second Concerto (Jan. 5-6) in Vero Beach and Stuart. Schumann’s almost-symphony, the Overture, Scherzo and Finale is heard Feb. 2 and 3; violinist Elmar Oliveira plays another Schumann rarity, his Violin Concerto, on Feb. 29 and March 2, and the season closes March 29 and 30 with bassist Luis Gomez in the Koussevitzky Double Bass Concerto.
The season wouldn’t be complete without visits from touring orchestras, and this year, the Cleveland Orchestra comes north from its Miami residency at the Arsht Center with pianist Yefim Bronfman in the Brahms Second Concerto; director Franz Welser-Möst also leads the band in Sean Shepherd’s Wanderlust and the Shostakovich Sixth Symphony (Jan. 25, and Jan. 27-28 in Miami). In Miami, the orchestra is joined by soprano Dawn Upshaw in the Three Songs by Osvaldo Golijov (March 2-3), and on March 23 and 24, Argentine pianist Gabriela Montero plays the Grieg Concerto with the orchestra under Giancarlo Guerrero.
Osmo Vanska brings the Minnesota Orchestra to town March 11 with violinist Midori, who will play the Sibelius Violin Concerto (March 10 in Miami). Philippe Entremont leads the Munich Symphony and the Gloriae Dei Cantores choir in the Mozart Requiem (Nov. 15), Britain’s Royal Philharmonic and Pinchas Zukerman arrive Jan. 4 and 5 (Jan. 3 at the Broward Center), and the Tchaikovsky St. Petersburg Orchestra, with pianist Alexander Pirozhenko, appears Jan. 24 (Jan. 31 in Broward).
SOLOISTS: One of the opera world’s greatest elder statesmen, Jose Carreras, returns to South Florida for the first time since an allergic reaction shut down his recital in March 2009 at the Kravis Center after he’d sung only a few numbers. He’ll appear March 7 to start off the Festival of the Arts Boca, accompanied by a full orchestra, officials said.
The Regional Arts series at the Kravis Center offers violinistic firepower: Joshua Bell (Jan. 31) and Itzhak Perlman (March 8); pianists, too: Garrick Ohlsson appears Feb. 8 and 9 with Poland’s Wroclaw Symphony, and Menahem Pressler joins the New York Chamber Soloists on March 28. Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman appears with the New Yorkers the day before, on March 27.
At the Broward Center, the great American violinist Hilary Hahn comes to town with pianist Valentina Lisitsa on Nov. 6, and soprano Denyce Graves appears March 18. And Judy Drucker, the longtime South Florida impresaria whose Concert Association of Florida went under in 2007, returns to the stage this year with a four-concert program called the Great Artists Series. Baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Jan. 3) appears at the Knight Concert Hall, while pianist Vladimir Feltsman (Feb. 19), Zukerman and his wife, cellist Amanda Forsyth (March 27) and pianist Evgeny Kissin (April 15) play the New World Center.
Pianist Orion Weiss plays the Duncan Theatre’s Classical Café series Jan. 4, and pianist Arnaldo Cohen offers a recital at the Society of the Four Arts on Feb. 1. The Kravis, meanwhile, celebrates young stars with guitarist Robert Belinic (Nov. 21), violinist Hye-Jin Kim (Jan. 9), pianist Haochen Zhang (Feb. 23) and Phoebus Three, a clarinet, bassoon and piano trio (March 12). And Valentina Lisitsa takes a solo bow March 14 with Jon Robertson and the Lynn Philharmonia at the Festival of the Arts Boca. Pianist Xiayin Wang returns to the Lyric Theatre in Stuart on Jan. 21, Pinchas Zukerman is there Feb. 11, and pianist Navah Perlman (daughter of Itzhak) appears March 22.
CHAMBER MUSIC: The Delray String Quartet returns to the commissioning table again this year, this time for the new String Quartet No. 5 of Kenneth Fuchs, a Fort Lauderdale native. The quartet played Fuchs’ lighthearted Fourth Quartet last season, and this season presents the new work for the first time on Jan. 15 at the Colony Hotel in downtown Delray Beach. It also will play the work at All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale (Jan. 20) and St. Stephen’s Episcopal in Coconut Grove (Jan. 22).
The quartet will continue its three-venue, three-county regimen, welcoming clarinetist Paul Green for the Weber Clarinet Quintet (Dec. 2, 4, and 11, and an additional performance Nov. 27 for Art at St. John’s in Miami Beach), violist Chauncey Patterson for quintets by Brahms and Dvorak (Feb. 12, 17 and 19), and pianist Tao Lin for the Schubert Trout Quintet and the Schumann Piano Quartet (April 22, 24 and 29).
The Society of the Four Arts and the Flagler Museum offer some of the best chamber music performances each season, often highlighting groups still building their reputations. The Four Arts has the Brentano (Jan. 8), Faure (Feb. 19), Jerusalem (March 11) and Modigliani quartets (March 18), as well as Trio Solisti (Jan. 29), Miles Hoffman’s American Chamber Players (Jan. 15), and a return appearance by cellist David Finckel, pianist Wu Han and violinist Philip Setzer (Feb. 26), in works by Mendelssohn.
The Flagler series offers the Euclid (Jan. 24), Stradivari (Feb. 7) and Moscow (Feb. 21) string quartets, the Adaskin String Trio (Jan. 10), and violinist Johanna Marie Frankel (March 6), with pianist Gregory DeTurck. Over at the Duncan Theatre, Miami’s own Amernet String Quartet (Jan. 18) and the Afiara String Quartet (March 14) enliven the classical series, and at the Kravis, the stellar Emerson String Quartet arrives Dec. 6 (they also play Stuart’s Lyric Theatre on April 5), and the eminent Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio performs Feb. 28.
Iris van Eck’s Chameleon Musicians return for a 10th season to Fort Lauderdale’s Leiser Opera Center, with music for string trio by Bach and Reger (Oct. 9) and van Eck herself in the cello spotlight on Dec. 4. Clarinetist Michael Norsworthy joins van Eck and pianist Misha Dacic on Jan. 29 for a program that includes music by the Croatian composer Marko Tajcevic. The Amernet Quartet appears March 11, and the series ends May 6 with Schubert’s Trout Quintet.
A newcomer, the South Florida Chamber Players, debuts this season with a 10-concert series that includes regular outings at the Unitarian Church of Boca Raton. The group plays there Oct. 1, at Fort Lauderdale’s Sunshine Cathedral on Oct. 3, and the Miami Beach Community Church on Oct. 6, offering the Beethoven A minor Quartet (Op. 132), Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 13, and the Wolf Italian Serenade.
The Barber String Quartet is on tap for the third concert (Nov. 13-15), the rarely heard Fourth Quartet of Paul Hindemith on the fifth program (Jan. 21, 25 and Feb. 4), Prokofiev’s Second Quartet on the seventh program (March 19, 20 and 22), and the Second Quartet of Ralph Vaughan Williams on the ninth program (May 14, 15 and 17).
And chamber musicians from the South Florida Symphony play music by Schubert and Boccherini (Oct. 2), Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with Jeffrey Chappell (Nov. 11), Dvorak (Dec. 15), and Schumann (Jan. 15), all at the Arts Garage.
Keith Paulson-Thorp’s Music at St. Paul’s series includes two performances by the Delray Beach church’s Baroque ensemble Camerata del Re, in music from Italy (Nov. 20), the Czech lands (Aug. 19), and an afternoon of music by Georg Philipp Telemann (May 20). Also, the medieval-music ensemble Trefoil appears Jan. 8 in a concert devoted to Christmas music from medieval Italy.
CHORAL ENSEMBLES: The biggest news here is the return to Palm Beach County of Miami’s Seraphic Fire concert choir, which this season has scheduled a series of concerts at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton, and one concert at the Royal Poinciana Chapel on Palm Beach.
Now in its 10th season, Seraphic Fire is riding high on the success of its last two discs, the Brahms Requiem in its London chamber version, and Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, both of which rode to the top of the iTunes classical charts. This year, Patrick Dupre Quigley’s chorus tackles the B minor Mass of J.S. Bach (Feb. 10-12), Renaissance requiem music to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Tomas Luis de Victoria (Oct. 19-23), music from the Latin American Baroque (May 9-13), and music from Tudor England (March 14-18). Also scheduled is a new version of its annual Christmas concert (Dec. 7-11), and a 10th anniversary celebration of the group (Jan. 11-15).
Karen Kennedy, newly in charge of the Master Chorale of South Florida, teams with the Miami Symphony Nov. 18-20 for a holiday concert that includes the Bach Magnificat, and with the Boca Raton Symphonia April 20-22 for music written for or by royals, including a song by King Henry VIII as well as John Rutter’s This Is the Day, composed for the wedding this past April of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The exceptional 12-voice all-male choir Chanticleer returns to South Florida after an absence of some years for two appearances, one at the Vero Beach Community Church (April 17), and a second at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale (April 18).
The Masterworks Chorus of the Palm Beaches plans John Rutter’s Mass of the Children (Nov. 20), its annual singalong concert of Handel’s Messiah (Dec. 18), and a program of choral music from television and film (April 15).