South Florida Classical Review

For an organization that performs just four works in its main spring festival, Sarasota Opera has been more adventurous than most major or regional companies. [...]

Read More

The Miami International Piano Festival Master Series continued on Monday night at the Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater with a recital by Gulsin Onay. The Turkish [...]

Read More

Even with—or perhaps because of— its radiant music, childish innocence, and spiritual theme, Hansel und Gretel has fallen on hard times.
Oh, Engelbert Humperdinck’s children’s opera [...]

Read More

Ilya Itin is well known to Miami audiences, having appeared at the Miami International Piano Festival many times. The Russian-born pianist is a powerhouse musician, [...]

Read More

In its expanded program of concerts this season, the Delray String Quartet has explored music of South America, earlier with one of the quartets of [...]

Read More

As perhaps the best-known star in opera today, Renée Fleming could probably coast on her looks, voice and rapport with audiences.
And if ever there was [...]

Read More

Even with their enduring popularity, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci are difficult works to bring off. While complementary in their unbridled vocal demands and tales of [...]

Read More

On Friday afternoon four students from the University of Miami Frost School of Music had the dream opportunity to receive coaching from one of the [...]

Read More

Moving to fill the void in local classical programming left by the demise of the Concert Association of Florida, the Broward Center for the Performing [...]

Read More

For nearly four decades Dame Kiri te Kanawa’s star has shone brightly on the international opera and concert stages.
Yet, while recent seasons have found most [...]

Read More

String quartets rarely inspire mid-concert standing ovations. But Berlin’s celebrated Artemis Quartet achieved one Wednesday from the Friends of Chamber Music crowd, a knowledgeable audience [...]

Read More

The world-class Russian National Orchestra was the marquee attraction of the Regional Arts Series’ Wednesday matinee at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. But [...]

Read More

On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Frederic Chopin’s birth, the New World Symphony paid tribute to the romantic poet of the piano with [...]

Read More

March 12
New World Symphony
Concerto Showcase I
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Renee DeBoer, bassoonist
Lotem Beider, violist
Jason Shafer, clarinetist
Weber: Andante and Hungarian Rondo
Walton: Viola Concerto
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
7:30 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, [...]

Read More

The competition was grueling, certainly for the audience, which heard five performances of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in E Minor over the course of two days.
In [...]

Read More

The Miami Bach Society’s eleventh annual Tropical Baroque Music Festival commenced with a winning evening of vocal and instrumental scores from the Italian Baroque Saturday [...]

Read More

Palm Beach Opera’s effective new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni skips the usual approaches to a work encrusted with tradition.
The highly regarded young Italian director [...]

Read More

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has offered infinite interpretive possibilities to performing artists. From the spectacular Hollywood sound of Leopold Stokowski’s orchestral transcriptions to [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera’s “Evening to Remember” gala honoring Robert Heuer’s twenty-five years as general director on Wednesday night at the Arsht Center mirrored Heuer’s tenure [...]

Read More

The Ying Quartet jettisoned the originally announced scores by Schumann and Beethoven Tuesday night in favor of rare Haydn and late Mendelssohn string quartets. With [...]

Read More

Performances of Rossini’s Barber of Seville rarely err on the side of subtlety, and such was the case with the Florida Grand Opera production that [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera has announced four operas for next season, sticking with the shortened schedule imposed on it by the difficult economy.
The schedule includes two [...]

Read More

The University of Miami’s Frost Symphony Orchestra played to a capacity crowd Saturday evening at Gusman Concert Hall, presenting two sonic blockbusters and the premiere [...]

Read More

Robert Spano is one of America’s finest conductors.  A first-class orchestral technician, Spano leads a wide array of repertoire with flair and bracing vitality. Music [...]

Read More

“A Valentine’s Nostalgia” was the theme of the Miami  Symphony Orchestra’s concert Friday night at Gusman Concert Hall.
The tragic story of Romeo and Juliet might [...]

Read More

The music of Frederic Chopin has exerted a unique spell on pianists for over one hundred and fifty years. Chopin’s  synthesis of Polish musical nationalism [...]

Read More

Late in life Johannes Brahms developed an affection for the clarinet, producing several chamber works built around the wind instrument’s capacity for melancholy lyricism.
The well-known Israeli-American [...]

Read More

Joshua Bell has attempted to balance the dual careers of concert violinist and crossover celebrity, including a series of recordings of film music and questionable [...]

Read More

Sunday afternoon brought Alexander Platt’s final appearance as the Boca Raton Symphonia’s principal conductor. Next year Phillipe Entremont takes the helm of what has become [...]

Read More

In programming Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Florida tour, music director Leonard Slatkin clearly knew how to show off his orchestra.
This [...]

Read More

A large audience turned out on Sunday afternoon for a concert by the Claremont Trio at the Society of Four Arts in Palm Beach. A [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony has sold the Lincoln Theatre to a company that plans to gut the theater interior and renovate the space for retail [...]

Read More

Dvorak’s Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor remains one of his most celebrated chamber works. Titled the “Dumky,” because of its use of several [...]

Read More

The Russian composer Alexander Glazunov is remembered today primarily for his Violin Concerto, his ballets and his mentorship of the young Shostakovich.
But this late romantic [...]

Read More

As Super Bowl madness gripped South Florida, it might still be possible to forget all that and escape into Miami Beach’s Lincoln Theatre Friday evening [...]

Read More

When Leonard Slatkin became music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the winter of 2008, he soon made a change in the life of [...]

Read More

At this late date, it may be asking too much of most people to sit for two hours with nothing more visually stimulating in front [...]

Read More

February 28
Palm Beach Opera
Mozart: Don Giovanni
Gezim Myshketa, Pamela Armstrong, Juliana Di Giacomo, Denis Sedov, Vale Rideout, Irene Roberts, Bradley Smoak, Peter Volpe/Bruno Aprea, conductor
2 p.m. [...]

Read More

In the fourth year of its winter residency in Miami, the Cleveland Orchestra is showing greater confidence in its approach to its audience. While the [...]

Read More

Patrick Dupre Quigley certainly has a lot to say.  This gifted and prodigiously well-informed conductor of the vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire gave spoken introductions to [...]

Read More

The heart sank with the first wind chord of the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, as it opened the Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra’s all-Tchaikovsky program [...]

Read More

If you make regular rounds of the many chamber music performances available during the season, you’re going to encounter a wide range of good-to-excellent concerts, [...]

Read More

The Cleveland Orchestra and New World Symphony will join forces Wednesday for a concert to raise money for medical care in earthquake-stricken Haiti.
The hastily organized [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony hit the Finnish theme hard in their marketing campaign for Saturday’s Sounds of the Times concert featuring music of Kaija Saariaho [...]

Read More

As traditionally performed, Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor is two-and-a-half hours of Scottish castles, mist-shrouded lakes, swordsmanship and tragedy.
Florida Grand Opera swept most of this [...]

Read More

Many opera fans learn to live with partial successes, accepting the difficulty of achieving excellence in such a collaborative art form. But Friday evening at [...]

Read More

Following a one-day strike by the musicians and late-night contract settlement earlier this week, the Cleveland Orchestra opened its annual Miami residency on Friday night [...]

Read More

 After a 30-hour negotiating session, striking Cleveland Orchestra musicians and management reached an agreement early Tuesday morning, bringing the ensemble’s 24-hour strike to an end [...]

Read More

The stormy opening of Verdi’s Otello clangs from an upright piano. About two dozen people in street clothes, looking as ordinary as citizens showing up [...]

Read More

While quartets and trios abound in the chamber music literature, septets are extremely rare. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich created just such a work for the unusual [...]

Read More

The musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra went on strike Monday, fulfilling their vow to carry through with a work stoppage over an ongoing wage dispute [...]

Read More

In the collective hands of soloist Adda Kridler and the one-year-old Firebird Chamber Orchestra, Vivaldi’s hopelessly overplayed Four Seasons emerged Friday night as the bizarrely [...]

Read More

From the presentation of the first half of his Palm Beach recital Wednesday night, it wasn’t hard to imagine that Richard Goode had invited the [...]

Read More

After five decades on the concert stage, Itzhak Perlman has become an iconic, larger than life artistic personality and entertainer. A near-capacity audience for his [...]

Read More

In a series of concerts in South Florida this week, the Firebird Chamber Orchestra will perform Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, a work you may haveheard in airports, [...]

Read More

Many years have passed since the saxophone became a “legitimate” instrument for inclusion on non-jazz recital programs. More composers have contributed to the instrument’s repertoire [...]

Read More

When musicians attempt to conduct from the keyboard or concertmaster’s chair, the results are sometimes successful, sometimes a crude expedition in which everyone seems happy [...]

Read More

Talks have broken down between the Cleveland Orchestra’s union and management, paving the way for a musicians’ strike to take place on January 18. That’s [...]

Read More

Throw together three first-rate musicians for a chamber music concert and you never can predict what you’ll get. Will their sounds mesh? Will they go [...]

Read More

The string quartet is among the most austere musical forms, attracting the most serious-minded composers and the most mature, intellectual audiences. It is classical music’s classical [...]

Read More

January 31
Florida Grand Opera
Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Eglise Gutierrez, Israel Lozano, Mark Walters
Ramon Tebar, conductor
2 p.m. Arsht Center/Ziff Ballet Opera House, Miami
Seraphic Fire
Kisses of his Mouth: [...]

Read More

This year’s South Florida Classical Review top ten list is a joint effort with the baton handoff on reviewing duties coming in early May.  WIthout [...]

Read More

As the audience at Gusman Concert Hall listened to a performance of Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor on Monday evening, there was [...]

Read More

Seraphic Fire’s Messiah has quickly become a Christmas tradition in South Florida. With so many different performing versions of this masterpiece to choose from, what [...]

Read More

The Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian brought to the University of Miami’s Gusman Hall a luxuriant soprano voice of a quality rarely heard on South Florida’s [...]

Read More

Violinist-conductor Pinchas Zukerman, one of the stars to emerge from Israel’s intense classical music culture, came to Miami with Israel’s finest orchestra Wednesday for a [...]

Read More

Judging from his recital Sunday in Coral Gables, the young Russian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg is a competent interpreter of Beethoven and a fine one of [...]

Read More

The Tempest Trio offered an afternoon of bracing, high-wire chamber music performances Sunday afternoon at the elegant auditorium of Society of the Four Arts in [...]

Read More

Many wives learn to tolerate their husbands’ irritating habits. And then there is the unique burden borne by Amanda Forsyth, wife of the eminent Israeli-born [...]

Read More

It was unusual enough for the Palm Beach Opera to open its season with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony rather than, say, Carmen or La Traviata. But [...]

Read More

The atmosphere was medieval, dark and lit only by candles. From the back of the church, male voices began a solemn plainchant, singing Pater noster, [...]

Read More

When you think of a Christmas concert, what may come to mind is an evening that starts with We Wish You a Merry Christmas, continues [...]

Read More

James Judd, a bit grayer but still an energetic presence on the podium, returned to the stage of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts [...]

Read More

The conductor Osmo Vänskä, a product of Finland’s white-hot classical music scene, took the podium in South Beach Friday to lead the New World Symphony [...]

Read More

The Palm Beach County-based Delray String Quartet began an ambitious program of expansion to Broward and Miami-Dade counties with a concert Friday night at St. [...]

Read More

The Miami choir Seraphic Fire announced Wednesday it will go on its first international tour next year, with a seven-day visit to Mexico.
The eight-year-old ensemble, [...]

Read More

On a quiet street in Davie, in a living room crammed with musical memorabilia including a glowering bust of Beethoven, members of the Delray String [...]

Read More

December 21
Friends of Chamber Music
Elmar Oliviera, violinist; Andres Cardenas, violinist; Roberto Diaz violist, Andres Diaz, cellist, William De Rosa, cellist
Beethoven: String Trio No. 1 in [...]

Read More

The converted garage in the home off Las Olas Boulevard is clearly the lair of a master musician. The upper shelves are stuffed with CDs [...]

Read More

A conductor must be ready for any emergency — a soloist who suffers a memory lapse, a hacking fit in the audience during that soft [...]

Read More

The new Brazilian Classical Series made an auspicious debut Friday night at the Arsht Center with “Amazon Inspirations,” a tribute to Heitor Villa-Lobos. Founded by [...]

Read More

The internationally known pianist and conductor Philippe Entremont will become principal conductor of the Boca Raton Symphonia, replacing Alexander Platt.
Entremont has been music director of [...]

Read More

On opening night, the popular image of opera as a world of gowns and tuxedos approaches reality. The elegantly dressed crowd at Florida Grand Opera’s [...]

Read More

                          Argentine-born composer Osvaldo Golijov has made his reputation as a fusion artist, often combining Judaic, Latin, gypsy and contemporary classical idioms in his scores. [...]

Read More

Imagine Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony shorn of its great choral finale and ending after the three orchestral movements. To an extent, that’s similar to what was [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony’s Sounds of the Times series delved into the New York state of mind with a sampling of contemporary scores by members [...]

Read More

Seraphic Fire celebrated American roots with “I’ll Fly Away,” a program of gospel and folk music Friday night at First United Methodist Church in Coral [...]

Read More

The contemporary music scene of New York comes to Miami Beach this weekend, as the New World Symphony adds an electric guitar to its roster [...]

Read More

The excellent musicians of the New World Symphony put on a subpar performance Sunday, as they left behind the grandeur of the full orchestra for [...]

Read More

            Festival Miami concluded with a swinging party on Friday that brought jazz greats John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton to the Gusman Concert Hall stage. Leaders [...]

Read More

November 28
Florida Grand Opera
Leoncavallo: Pagliacci
Puccini: Suor Angelica
Kelly Kaduce, Jay Hunter Morris, Mark Rucker; Andrew Bisantz, conductor
8 p.m. Arsht Center/Ziff Ballet Opera House
fgo.org; 800-741-1010

Read More

Festival Miami and the Chopin Foundation presented an evening of “Chopin Reflections” Wednesday night, spotlighting Kevin Kenner, a major prizewinner at Warsaw’s Chopin International Piano [...]

Read More

            
The New World Symphony celebrated Beethoven the humanist on Saturday at the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall. Excerpts from the opera Fidelio, a rescue-drama parable [...]

Read More

        Since his 2001 professional debut, Luca Pisaroni has made headlines in the musical press around the world. The Italian opera singer won the “Newcomer [...]

Read More

As the Miami Symphony Orchestra rehearses Dvorak’s Cello Concerto the soloist sways to the music, carefully eyeing the conductor’s beat and dynamics. This is a [...]

Read More

At the end of World War II, the heroism and suffering of the Soviet people demanded a monumental work from their leading composer, and Dmitri [...]

Read More

Locked in a desperate war with a totalitarian enemy, a nation’s leaders gathered to seek inspiration from one of the greatest works of Western music.
It’s [...]

Read More

 
The Frost Wind Ensemble presented a concert of 21st century American music on Wednesday at Festival Miami. This snapshot of works from the past decade [...]

Read More

         Festival Miami presented “Six Operas in Sixty Minutes,” an innovative program by the Frost Opera Theater, on Tuesday at Gusman Concert Hall. Lukas Foss perfected this [...]

Read More

Festival Miami can usually be counted on for some interesting programs, and this was certainly the case Sunday night, when the Bergonzi String Quartet was [...]

Read More

Attendants in the lobby offered free flutes of champagne. The house was sold out, with a waiting list for returned tickets. The conductor raised his [...]

Read More

The Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater in Fort Lauderdale was sold out. A couple of women in their 20s whispered excitedly to each other. A pre-teen [...]

Read More

    A Boca Raton brew pub and hookah bar may seem an unlikely location for performances of Ravel, Ligeti and Ysaye, but a couple of [...]

Read More

A brilliant, exuberant performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 on Friday marked the first night of Festival Miami, the traditional start of the South [...]

Read More

In these challenging times, arts organizations do what they must to sell tickets.  And so on Thursday the Miami choir Seraphic Fire opened its eighth [...]

Read More

October 30
Festival Miami finale
Jeff Hamilton
John Clayton
Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra
Frost Concert Jazz Band Miami
8 p.m. Gusman Concert Hall, Coral Gables
www.festivalmiami.com; 305-284-4940

Read More

          Georges Bizet’s  operatic masterwork Carmen is virtually indestructible.  Even in less than stellar performances, this tale of a gypsy temptress who brings down a [...]

Read More

With opening night two weeks away, the young musicians of the University of Miami’s Frost Symphony Orchestra are sitting on stage in T-shirts and shorts [...]

Read More

NEW YORK: The audience’s reaction to the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Tosca, which opened the company’s new season Monday night, shows what general manager Peter [...]

Read More

The American violinist Robert McDuffie walked on stage Sunday with his Guarnerius and an imaginative view of what constitutes appropriate fare for a violin recital.
 There [...]

Read More

            The Center for the Arts at Mizner Park has announced the lineup for the fourth annual Festival of the Arts Boca, which will be presented [...]

Read More

       It’s still possible for a concert violinist to make a living touring the world just playing the concertos of Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, and Bruch. But [...]

Read More

September 26
New World Symphony
Alasdair Neale, conductor
Free preseason concert
Adams: The Chairman Dances
Elgar: In the South
A. Schoenberg: Finding Rothko
Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
7:30 p.m. Lincoln [...]

Read More

Take an old-time saloon pianist and give him a classical virtuoso’s chops and you’ll have a fair idea of what it’s like to attend a [...]

Read More

 With DVD, Otello finally has the right medium to appreciate Verdi’s masterpiece in all its rich detail and full glory. An operatic milestone with a supreme [...]

Read More

Festival Miami, the music series that marks the traditional start of the fall concert season, is scaling back a bit this year but still offers [...]

Read More

SANTA FE:  Joshua Habermann is a busy man.  Last fall he was hired as director of choral studies at the University of Miami Frost School [...]

Read More

SANTA FE:  Paul Moravec’s The Letter, commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, is the most newsworthy production of the company’s 53rd season. But for old-fashioned, scenery-chewing [...]

Read More

SANTA FE:  When a composer opens an opera with screams and six loud gunshots,  it’s fair to say he’s  grabbed the attention of his audience.
 Fortunately, [...]

Read More

SANTA FE: In addition to offering the most unique setting for opera performance in North America, Santa Fe Opera is a company that historically enjoys [...]

Read More

In the warmth of the summer evening, with the smiles of people waiting to enter the Persson Hall at Palm Beach Atlantic University Friday night, [...]

Read More

August 30
Seraphic Fire Presents: Pianist Richard Dowling performs and discusses American ragtime, Rhapsody in Blue and other Gershwin works.
4 p.m. Miami Beach Community Church
www.seraphicfire.org; 305-285-9060.

Read More

Miami Lyric Opera works at a disadvantage with its shoestring budget. Sets and staging are minimal, and the undernourished orchestral forces cannot compete with those [...]

Read More

 
The Arsht Center has revealed details of its new classical and dance series, which will present Lang Lang, Itzhak Perlman, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra [...]

Read More

The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival has reached the penultimate concert of its summer season. Friday’s program, at the Helen K. Persson Hall at Palm [...]

Read More

We may be in the doldrums of summer, but thanks to Seraphic Fire, we have a summer concert series of considerable interest to enlighten and [...]

Read More

Imagine that Frederick Loewe, aspiring to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, removed all the dialogue from My Fair Lady and reworked the musical into [...]

Read More

In a well-performed evening of light, elegant works Friday, the musicians of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival showcased two composers most people have never [...]

Read More

The guitar occupies a difficult place in the classical music world. Long a preeminent pop music instrument, it has a relatively small classical repertoire, a [...]

Read More

A piece for three bassoons. A serenade by Bohuslav Martinu for strings and clarinets. A rarely heard work by the young Beethoven. It must be [...]

Read More

Some musicians play in such a literal style that you can almost see the treble clefs, staffs, sharps and flats before you, as they efficiently [...]

Read More

July 31
Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival
Saint-Saens: Fantaisie in A Major
Casella: Serenata
Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 2
8 p.m.: Helen K. Persson Recital Hall, West Palm Beach
www.pbcmf.org; 800-330-6874
August [...]

Read More

The Broward Center for the Performing Arts will launch a new classical series this fall, partly filling the void left by the demise of the [...]

Read More

The setting was gorgeous: the Spanish-revival interior of Coral Gables Congregational Church, a place of colonnades, pews, chandeliers and candelabras. And the soloist in Thursday evening’s [...]

Read More

The typical young virtuoso comes off best in flashy pieces designed to show off technical skills and youthful energy. But the 26-year-old violinist Giora Schmidt [...]

Read More

A couple of bad things can happen when classically trained singers venture onto popular turf: they can smother songs in plummy, operatic voices, or they [...]

Read More

 Although the young violinist Giora Schmidt is a product of Itzhak Perlman’s studio at Juilliard, he does not aspire to be an exact replica of [...]

Read More

Orchestra Miami has cancelled Saturday night’s scheduled concert at the Lincoln Theatre due to “unforeseen circumstances,” said artistic director Elaine Rinaldi. The program was to [...]

Read More

The Holocaust must never be forgotten. As an example of man’s inhumanity towards man, it is one of history’s most savage and brutal attempts at [...]

Read More

June 18
Anne Akiko Meyers, violinist; Reiko Uchida, pianist
Miyagi: Haru no Umi (Sea in Spring)
Taki: Kojo no Tsuki (Moonlight over the Ruined Castle)
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. [...]

Read More

The scrappy, low-budget Miami Lyric Opera presented two works Thursday in performances that for sheer operatic power blew away many glossier productions.
At the Colony Theater [...]

Read More

A new recording on the Naxos label showcases the musicians of the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, with a portion of the revenue [...]

Read More

The closing concert of the Miami International Piano Festival’s Discovery series was an unusual one this season.  Presenting Pablo Ziegler and his ensemble, the Lincoln Theater [...]

Read More

 Balazs Szokolay, a professor at Budapest’s famous Franz Liszt Academy of Music, performs best at high speed.
 As the works on the Hungarian pianist’s program Saturday [...]

Read More

The young American pianist Stephen Beus clearly believes the Miami International Piano Festival is no place for false modesty.  After an obligatory nod to Bach [...]

Read More

Orchestra Miami often gets confused with its similar namesake, the Miami Symphony Orchestra. The latter was founded in 1989, while Orchestra Miami is the new [...]

Read More

In its final program of the season, the choir Seraphic Fire is taking us to the late Renaissance court of the Duke of Mantua, where [...]

Read More

Severin von Eckardstein returned to open the Miami International Piano Festival’s Discovery Series Thursday night at the Lincoln Theatre, two years after his successful local [...]

Read More

 Although they have played together since Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, the members of the Kalichstein Laredo Robinson Trio showed no trace of staleness in their performance [...]

Read More

A series of classical and jazz performances at the historic Coral Gables Congregational Church will help relieve the seasonal South Florida drought of live music.
 The [...]

Read More

A unique scholarship program for exceptional students will be set up at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, thanks to a donation from [...]

Read More

If April is the cruelest month, then perhaps May is the most populist—at least in terms of music programming in Miami, the better to attract [...]

Read More

I announced in March on this site that I would be moving back to my hometown of Chicago to start up Chicago Classical Review, a [...]

Read More

The final program of the Miami Symphony Orchestra’s 20th anniversary season reflects the ensemble’s past as well as its present, evolving status. Guitarist Angel Romero, [...]

Read More

May 31
Holocaust remembrance concert
Violinist Misha Vitenson; violist Michael Klotz; cellist Amit Peled; pianist Alon Goldstein
4 p.m. Gusman Concert Hall, Coral Gables
www.sundaymusicals.org. Ticketmaster: 305-358-5885; 954-523-3309; 561-966-3309.

Read More

Anyone looking for a common musical thread in the five American works served up by the New World Symphony in its final chamber program of [...]

Read More

 [L to R: Palm Beach Opera General Director Daniel Biaggi, Advanced Division 1st place winner Yannick-Muriel Noah, Conductor Eve Queler, and Junior Division 1st Place [...]

Read More

Seconds after the curtain fell Saturday night, a male usher at the back of the Ziff Ballet Opera House had his glasses off, and was [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera is pulling the plug on its Superstar Concert Series, a project launched with much hype and lavish promotion this season, due to [...]

Read More

 
Joshua Habermann assumed the post of Master Chorale of South Florida artistic director last summer, and it has been intriguing to see his influence on [...]

Read More

 
The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music will turn 70 on April 30, a significant anniversary that most people would probably find [...]

Read More

 
 Sunday Afternoons of Music will serve up yet another varied lineup of vocal, instrumental and chamber events in 2009-2010.
 Doreen Marx will open her 29th season [...]

Read More

The Boca Raton Symphonia closed its season Sunday at the Saint Andrew’s School with a contemporary Violin Concerto by Jonathan Leshnoff (b. 1973), composer-in-residence of [...]

Read More

 
Reinbert de Leeuw’s annual appearances with the New World Symphony have proven to be among the most enlightening and enjoyable events of the Miami Beach [...]

Read More

 
Despite the massive orchestral forces and fortissimo climaxes, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 abounds with intimate, exposed passages performed by just a few instruments.  It offers every [...]

Read More

One reason Seraphic Fire’s performances have remained fresh and stimulating for seven seasons is because Patrick Dupre Quigley’s programs have consistently defied expectations and challenged [...]

Read More

A valuable group of films documenting the backstage of classical music is part of the legacy of the media explosion from the eighties and early [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony program served up last weekend provided a conspicuous example of just why the Miami Beach orchestra has become the leading classical [...]

Read More

The final season of the Concert Association of Florida was, fittingly, framed by Russian orchestras: Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra last November and Vladimir [...]

Read More

 The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts will launch a new classical music series next season that will offer a range of national and international [...]

Read More

 
There is charisma and there is star power.  And then there is Bryn Terfel.
The celebrated opera singer is a force of nature, possessing an ample [...]

Read More

 
The Miami Symphony Orchestra’s performance Sunday night proved just how playful the orchestra can be under conductor Eduardo Marturet.
 The night started with Reynaldo Hahn’s rarely [...]

Read More

Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in A Minor is a warhorse of the novice repertoire, a work heard most frequently in performances by platoons of Suzuki violin [...]

Read More

 
The artists shivered in their garret, snow fell on the Café Momus and Mimi dropped her muff and died, as Palm Beach Opera put on [...]

Read More

As with wine and relationships, the Cleveland Orchestra’s Miami residency has required something of a maturation process to find its footing. In its first two [...]

Read More

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen  (”The Copenhagen Ring”) Decca 0743264 (7- DVD set)
 Half a century ago the first studio recording of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen [...]

Read More

 Somewhere in space, about eight billion miles from Earth, are two gold-plated records, which include Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 13 in B flat [...]

Read More

April 25
Florida Grand Opera: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly
Shu-Ying Li, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Katharine Goeldner, Jake Gardner; Stewart Robertson, conductor
7 p.m. Arsht Center/Ziff Ballet Opera House
www.fgo.org; 800-741-1010
Master Chorale [...]

Read More

Opera has always seized upon controversy, strong emotions, unbridled passion, and Grand Guignol. Berg’s Lulu, for example, introduces Jack the Ripper as one of its [...]

Read More

In 1964, Jack Ruby was convicted of killing Lee Harvey Oswald, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment in South Africa, and the Beatles were [...]

Read More

A significant part of the Western classical canon  is based on musical conflict: A and B themes, fast and slow tempos, varied dynamics, timbres and [...]

Read More

During a recent rehearsal of Revolution of Forms, his opera-in-progress on the Cuban revolution, the composer Anthony Davis made what he thought was an excellent [...]

Read More

For a time, it looked like Orchestra Miami was going to fall victim to the recession, and join the growing list of  small classical ensembles [...]

Read More

You have to give Raffaelle Cardone credit. Even in this parlous economy, the retired tenor-turned-impresario’s upstart Miami Lyric Opera is surviving and continues to fill [...]

Read More

Richard Goode sits quietly, peacefully at the piano. He moves comparatively little as he plays: no histrionics at the keyboard, no flashy leaps from the [...]

Read More

Consider this: what are the odds of hearing Anton Webern’s Langsamer Satz in two  different versions within 48 hours at the same venue in Miami [...]

Read More

 
 The Miami Symphony Orchestra’s programming has grown more conservative over the last two seasons, but Eduardo Marturet still manages to provide a couple of evenings [...]

Read More

While most casual concertgoers know Johannes Brahms’ concertos or symphonies, it is in his chamber and instrumental music that Brahms reveals himself most intimately. Written [...]

Read More

 
A lifetime of development within a short span of years awaited young Beethoven after the composition of his First Symphony. It’s only natural that he [...]

Read More

 
 For a choice example of why Florida Grand Opera’s fortunes have proven so variable over the past decade, one could hardly do better than point to the [...]

Read More

March 29
New World Symphony/Peter Oundjian
Barber: Adagio for Strings
Mozart: Symphony No. 40
Nielsen: Symphony No. 5
3 p.m. Lincoln Theatre, Miami Beach.
$27-$63. 305-673-3330; www.nws.edu
Ysaye Quartet
3 p.m. Society of [...]

Read More

 It has been nine exhausting and rewarding months since South Florida Classical Review was launched, and the website has achieved virtually all of its goals. [...]

Read More

At the movies, the recent live transmission of Madama Butterfly from the Metropolitan Opera House marked  the beginning of a time for Butterflys. The stunning production by [...]

Read More

 
When the teenage Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti issued her debut album in 2005, the major work on the disc was the Violin Concerto of Poland’s [...]

Read More

Miami has always been given a bum rap when it comes to culture. While this cannot be justified with the wide variety of concert activity [...]

Read More

 
 Kemal Gekic is not human.
The Croatian pianist opened this year’s Miami International Piano Festival Sunday with a  double-barreled display of stamina and virtuosity that even [...]

Read More

The third annual Boca Festival of the Arts reached its finale Sunday with a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. What makes this unusual is [...]

Read More

There were cellists aplenty in the audience—and a few violinists as well —for the return of Steven Isserlis, the British cellist who has not been [...]

Read More

 Sarasota–The received wisdom in opera is they comedy is tough and drama easy. The production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore currently running at Sarasota Opera disputes [...]

Read More

 SARASOTA—All opera aficionados live for those rare performances when everything—singing, acting, conducting and staging—comes together to create a  night in the theater that you never [...]

Read More

 
 SARASOTA—Pietro Mascagni possessed the rare talent and good fortune to create an operatic masterpiece at age 26 with his very first attempt—Cavalleria Rusticana. He then [...]

Read More

 
 SARASOTA. Epic sweep and breadth, a dozen roles, majestic court scenes, rousing choruses, and a tangled love quadrangle set against a treacherous milieu of deadly [...]

Read More

Founded 81 years ago, but now making its first North American tour, the Estonian National Symphony made an appearance Monday at the Broward Center for [...]

Read More

Those who aver that the art of genuine Italian opera singing is an endangered species were powerfully and decisively refuted with the triumphant return of [...]

Read More

WEST PALM BEACH — Spanish tenor Jose Carreras halted his recital here Monday evening toward the end of its first half, clearly struggling with what [...]

Read More

 
Since its founding in 1994, the Belcea Quartet has established itself as one of the leading young international chamber ensembles, with a string of award-winning [...]

Read More

Founded in Chicago in 1946, the Fine Arts Quartet quickly developed into one of the most distinguished ensembles of its kind. Over 60 years later [...]

Read More

It’s been a packed week for early music and Baroque enthusiasts. The Miami Bach Society served up a varied lineup at the Tropical Baroque Music Festival [...]

Read More

 
The Boca Festival of the Arts opened its third season at Mizner Park’s Count de Hoernle Amphitheater on Saturday with an impressive lineup of artists: pianist [...]

Read More

 
 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson was a rara avis, not the promotional diva du jour ,but a complete artist. Essentially American in every sense, she had impeccable [...]

Read More

One could hardly wish for a more choice pairing of forces for a memorable Beethoven evening than those assembled Friday at the Arsht Center: conductor [...]

Read More

 
  While the music world has enjoyed the artistry of countless celebrated tenors from around the globe—with the Latin contingent enjoying a current place of prominence—there are [...]

Read More

 The New World Symphony’s 2009-2010 season —the last to take place entirely in the Lincoln Theatre—will be a characteristically bracing mix of familiar and envelope-pushing [...]

Read More

 South Florida may not rank high on many people’s list of hotspots for early and Baroque music. Yet for a quarter-century the Miami Bach Society [...]

Read More

Of the world’s very greatest composers, Franz Joseph Haydn remains the most prolific, the most accessible, but, strangely, the least performed.
 While there are fleeting shadows [...]

Read More

In the film The Shawshank Redemption, a beautiful soprano duet rings across a grim prison yard—a surreal moment. Friday night, the same duet, ensconced in [...]

Read More

Mozart’s operas can handle a variety of approaches, and the Frost Opera Theater’s current chessboard production of Cosi fan tutte is as clever and eye-catching as [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera’s 69th season is not exactly one to strike a blow for adventurous programming.  The company has already announced it is going from [...]

Read More

The New York Philharmonic’s final tour with music director Lorin Maazel would normally provide plenty of significance by itself. But the ensemble’s  appearance at the [...]

Read More

 
It may have been serendipitous that Friends of Chamber Music of Miami was forced to move across Dixie Highway to Temple Judea on Tuesday night rather than [...]

Read More

 To see the St. Lawrence String Quartet these days is to see a seasoned ensemble at the height of its powers, performing beautifully, taking interpretive [...]

Read More

 The New World Symphony’s intensive Ives weekend concluded Sunday night with a program that showcased the pioneering American composer in all his anarchic, icon-smashing glory—the epic [...]

Read More

 
 Leo Delibes’ Lakme deserves a better fate than it has received. Granted, the 1883 opera comique is dramatically slender, with its formulaic scenario of the [...]

Read More

 Although trained at Yale in the “proper” way to do things musically, Charles Ives quickly veered from the correct path and became an iconoclast, determined [...]

Read More

One hundred and thirty-five years after his birth and more than a half-century after his death, Charles Ives remains a tough sell—even  to New World [...]

Read More

 Florida Grand Opera announced Thursday that Stewart Robertson will depart the company in May, a year earlier than his contract was to expire. Two weeks ago the [...]

Read More

For most of his lifetime, Charles Ives was regarded as something of a benighted crank. The Danbury, Connecticut, native was successful in the insurance business, [...]

Read More

 “Lakme, a neglected nosegay of 1883, is hardly a neglected masterpiece by modern standards,” sniffs the Metropolitan Opera Guide to Recorded Opera, which goes on [...]

Read More

As enjoyable as Seraphic Fire’s crossover ventures into gospel and American folk have been, Patrick Dupre Quigley and his singers are most impressive in European sacred music, where [...]

Read More

The Concert Association of Florida filed for bankruptcy on Friday, making the death of the storied presenting organization founded by Judy Drucker a reality.
The good news, [...]

Read More

 The program served up by the Talich Quartet Wednesday night at Gusman Concert Hall was an object lesson in everything chamber music should be: civilized, [...]

Read More

The cash-strapped Concert Association of Florida, leading presenter of classical music and dance for more than four decades in South Florida, is poised to file [...]

Read More

The Miami Symphony’s three-hour marathon, titled “Made in America,” was, in its way, a microcosm of the nation: sprawling, ambitious and wildly diverse, with elements [...]

Read More

The Boca Raton Symphonia has made yet another leap forward in presenting a program of mostly rare treats. Given the fine acoustics of the Roberts [...]

Read More

The hegemony of 19th-century violin Romanticism at this year’s New World Symphony Concerto Showcase weekend was decisively broken up by the crashing modernism of Witold Lutoslawski [...]

Read More

Strings are clearly the thing this year with six of the seven winners of the New World Symphony’s concerto competition comprised of five violinists and one [...]

Read More

Alasdair Neale has been such a familiar presence for so long as principal guest conductor of the New World Symphony that he’s one of those [...]

Read More

Stewart Robertson, the conductor who served as Florida Grand Opera’s music director for over a decade, will depart the company after the 2009-2010 season.
“Every artistic [...]

Read More

 On Sunday, February 1, the American music community lost one of its greatest advocates—composer, conductor, pianist and educator, Lukas Foss.
Lukas was an eclecticist in the [...]

Read More

 The trend toward making classical musicians into flamboyant pop celebrities is clearly something that has bypassed Radu Lupu. The acclaimed pianist rarely grants interviews, and [...]

Read More

It has been a couple months of milestones for the Delray String Quartet, which released its first commercial disc, an all-Dvorak program, in December.
On Sunday [...]

Read More

Feb. 28
Palm Beach Opera: Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro
Maurizio Lo Piccolo, Layla Claire, Timothy Kuhn, Sóla Braga, Patricia Risley; Bruno Aprea, conductor
7:30 p.m. Kravis Center, [...]

Read More

The Cleveland Orchestra opened their 2009 Miami season heard but unseen as the gold-plated pit band for Miami City Ballet’s Balanchine performances Thursday night at the [...]

Read More

The Adrienne Arsht Center was effectively converted into a cafe on the bank of the Danube Wednesday night with Tokay flowing freely, paprikash and palacsinta [...]

Read More

Consider this: the first classical vocalist to inaugurate the Knight Concert Hall is also a tireless musicologist, a singer equally at home performing opera and Weimar [...]

Read More

“Dying is easy, comedy is difficult,” said the actor Edmund Gwenn. Certainly that’s true on the opera stage as much as for legitimate theater. The [...]

Read More

In bel canto, unlike other operatic genres in which music can take a secondary role to the action, it’s critical that the singing be strong [...]

Read More

 The New World Symphony’s downtown concerts have become an effective recruiting poster for both classical music and the Miami Beach orchestra. The lineup of big-name soloists and [...]

Read More

In the words of an old Monty Python sketch, it really is “too silly, too silly.” Druids versus the Romans via an implausible love triangle, [...]

Read More

As they say in the sports world, Friends of Chamber Music of Miami is having a winning season. Julian Kreeger’s series presented charismatic singer Kate Lindsey [...]

Read More

Despite their growing popularity, guitar quartets simply aren’t that commonplace. So when a music series schedules this “other” string foursome not once, but three times [...]

Read More

The Concert Association of Florida will drop its Broward Center lineup next season, drawing the curtain on a series that brought the world’s top classical [...]

Read More

Music aficionados with an interest in first-class keyboard talent should make the trek to Florida International University Wednesday night to hear Yevgeny Sudbin make his [...]

Read More

 The third and final program of the Firebird Chamber Orchestra’s inaugural season served up just the kind of a smart, stylish, concise — less than [...]

Read More

In its appearance at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, the Naples (Florida) Philharmonic, under guest conductor Stuart Malina, chose a program of safety [...]

Read More

The bass clarinet is a strange beast, an instrument that resembles a chrome-plated gardening tool yet is capable of an array of sounds from floor-shaking [...]

Read More

Joshua Bell has been such a high-profile presence for so long on the international music scene, he’s one of those artists that sometimes is taken for [...]

Read More

Due to scheduling snafus at Gusman Concert Hall, Friends of Chamber Music has been forced to present two of this season’s events at Wertheim Performing [...]

Read More

In the lobby you could learn about tourism packages to the Emerald Isle, and in the program, there was a letter of welcome from the [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera will eliminate one production from its 2009-2010 season, presenting just four operas for the first time in decades.
 The cost-cutting move is in response [...]

Read More

 Itzhak Perlman was part raconteur, teacher and etiquette scold Monday night at his recital before a sold-out hall at the Kravis Center in West Palm [...]

Read More

The Boca Raton Symphonia introduced Dvorak’s Symphony No. 5 in what may well be its belated South Florida premiere,  Sunday at the attractive Roberts Theater [...]

Read More

We’re fortunate to have a variety of superb teaching musicians working in South Florida and Elmar Oliveira figures high on that list.
Artist-in-residence at Lynn University [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera’s Superstar Concert Series debuted Saturday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center with all the requisite vocal firepower, courtesy of Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
The new, [...]

Read More

 
For an example of the fine line between musical genius and madness, one can’t do much better than Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, the last [...]

Read More

If the vocal recital ranks high on the endangered species list alongside polite applause and the daily newspaper, someone forgot to tell Eglise Gutierrez.
 The Cuban-American [...]

Read More

From the vintage-1926 hotel music room to the drink-in-hand audience, the popular program selections and the show-tunes encores, there’s always a touch of the salon [...]

Read More

Jan 27
Budapest Festival Orchestra/Ivan Fischer
Violinists Jozsef Lendvay Sr., Jozsef Lendvay Jr.
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3
Brahms: Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 11 and 15
Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen
Brahms: Symphony No. [...]

Read More

TOP TEN PERFORMANCES OF 2008
Inspirational keyboard performances dominated local stages in 2008 with a third of the top ten performances coming from feats of pianistic [...]

Read More

The French horn is the wild card of the orchestra, an instrument that can be majestic, thrilling, evocative and richly expressive. It’s also a tortuous [...]

Read More

This weekend offers a unique opportunity to experience a musical form that is indigenous  to Spanish culture but remains as distant and mystifying to most [...]

Read More

 
Tradition is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior.” By that standard, Seraphic Fire’s performance of [...]

Read More

It’s hard to believe there was once a time when a commercial television network would not only air regular classical performances but actually commission a [...]

Read More

 
A decade ago, a teenage cellist performed a demanding recital of Bach, Brahms and Tchaikovsky at North Park College in Chicago. While interpretively unseasoned in [...]

Read More

 
Rigoletto ain’t pretty. Sorry to be so blunt. But for pretty, go to later Verdi calling cards, the likes of La Traviata, A Masked Ball, [...]

Read More

 It’s not for nothing that the twelfth string quartet published by Antonin Dvorak is one of the most popular works in the entire genre.
Few string [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony’s final orchestral program of 2008 centers on cornerstone German repertoire, with two works by Beethoven and Brahms that, surprisingly, have been [...]

Read More

What a bleak, pitiless landscape Rigoletto inhabits. Even by the standards of Verdi’s cold-eyed Realpolitik, the Mantua court is godless and unforgiving, a milieu where [...]

Read More

People coming together in order to accomplish something of a positive nature seems to be a rarity in these times. Yet the Master Chorale of [...]

Read More

Donald Rosenberg, former classical music critic of The Plain Dealer, is suing his paper and the parent company of the Cleveland Orchestra following his reassignment after protests [...]

Read More

 
The major piano suites of Maurice Ravel have for years been among the most reliable tests of a pianist’s technique.
 And judging by that criteria alone, [...]

Read More

Beyond paintings, palettes, and parking and traffic hassles, Art Basel has provided music audiences with some benefits, notably an added New World Symphony program timed [...]

Read More

The Ukrainian-born Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman gave a blazing performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto Sunday afternoon in Boca Raton, using the very violin once [...]

Read More

 Since taking over as Concert Association of Florida CEO from founder and long-time guiding light Judy Drucker, Al Milano’s tenure has been most visible on [...]

Read More

Conductor Eduardo Marturet has chosen a popular program with a Latin twist for his latest outing with the Miami Symphony Orchestra. Saturday’s concert at the University [...]

Read More

Few composers offer such a study in stark contrast between their art and their person as Morton Feldman. Burly and cigar-chomping, Feldman worked in the [...]

Read More

There is a plethora of musical events to choose from this Art Basel weekend, including Michael Tilson Thomas leading the New World Symphony in Beethoven’s mighty [...]

Read More

Dec. 4. Florida Grand Opera: Verdi’s La Traviata. Ailyn Perez, Leonardo Capalbo, Mark Walters/Aldo Sisillo 8 p.m. Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale. $21-$200. 800-741-1010; www.fgo.org.
 Dec. 5. [...]

Read More

Thirty-one cultural organizations, including several local music groups, are among the winners in the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s announcement of $8 million [...]

Read More

In these economically straitened times, most organizations are cutting back on the number of performances they present. The New World Symphony, however, is adding more [...]

Read More

Halfway through a spirited reading of the Schumann Piano Quartet, violist Michael Klotz turned to the audience just before his fellow Chameleon musicians began the [...]

Read More

Is there a finer wedding of voice to composer  today than Renee Fleming to Richard Strauss? The opulence, radiant tone, and strain of sadness in [...]

Read More

The Miami International Piano Festival is largely a spring entity with its Broward and Miami Beach events taking place in March and May, respectively. Yet [...]

Read More

Over the years, Florida Grand Opera has  occasionally booked second principals for some performances. But for the first time this season, the company has embarked [...]

Read More

CHICAGO: Like many a top-tier American ensemble, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has seen significant evolution in the last decade. Yet even with several key personnel [...]

Read More

CHICAGO:  “Someone could write an intriguing opera about her,” muses the composer Alwa about the deadly temptress Lulu. Of course, someone did, and Alban Berg’s [...]

Read More

If anyone still doubts the standing and international renown of the New World Symphony, all they need do is consider Saturday night’s event at the [...]

Read More

The Firebird Chamber Orchestra appears to be settling into its home at the Adrienne Arsht Center, and the smart, venturesome program presented Friday night — [...]

Read More

It is almost nine o’clock on the east coast, and three hours earlier in Los Angeles. Thomas Ades has just finished a rehearsal with the [...]

Read More

CHICAGO —It took a long pull to get here — more than seven decades — but like its crippled, determined protagonist, George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess [...]

Read More

It’s always a pleasure to hear Cuban-born pianist Jorge Luis Prats. Not only is his technique the equal of any pianist around today, but his [...]

Read More

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach has been providing classical music in its sanctuary for a couple decades now, but the current season marks [...]

Read More

Florida Grand Opera opened its 68th season Saturday at the Ziff Ballet Opera House on a night with more original elements than within recent memory: [...]

Read More

 The Master Chorale of South Florida’s performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah were scheduled before his appointment, but Joshua Habermann could hardly have wanted a more challenging [...]

Read More

Eleven years ago, a young woman arrived in Miami from Havana, and while singing in the Florida Grand Opera chorus for three years, became a [...]

Read More

Song was central to the art of Gustav Mahler, and he built huge orchestral structures out of music that began as one piano, one [...]

Read More

It proved a bit of serendipitous scheduling that in the wake of this past week’s historic election, the New World Symphony offered a program of [...]

Read More

When one considers American cultural destinations like New York, Boston, and Chicago, it’s clear that even with an entity like the New World Symphony, Miami [...]

Read More

         It wasn’t planned that way but this week’s historic presidential election provides a bit of serendipitous timing for an aptly celebratory program of American music.
 Alasdair [...]

Read More

           The New World Symphony has added two all-Beethoven events to its December schedule, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the orchestra during Art Basel weekend.
 MTT [...]

Read More

This has been an important year for a reassessment of the work of Sergei Prokofiev, with the Mark Morris Dance Group reviving the original version [...]

Read More

Valery Gergiev and the storied Mariinsky Orchestra opened their four-concert South Florida stand Monday evening at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts with a [...]

Read More

Monday’s grand finale Festival Miami concert was the second of two in honor of Alberto Ginastera. As with most of the concerts, it took place [...]

Read More

The 25th  installment of Festival Miami is closing with neither a bang nor a whimper, but rather with a Latin-flavored blast of bravura and musical [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony’s chamber music series usually kicks off before the orchestra’s first concert but is a bit belated this year, opening Sunday afternoon [...]

Read More

       Over its six seasons, Seraphic Fire has earned a well-deserved reputation for technical excellence and lively, innovative programming that makes the boundaries between musical genres [...]

Read More

One of the more heartening elements of Festival Miami is the exposure given to lesser-known music of the Americas, as well as the tradition of [...]

Read More

An extraordinarily varied lineup of music is in the offing this weekend, with several noteworthy events.
 Born on the Bayou 
 Patrick Quigley and Seraphic Fire will take [...]

Read More

SEATTLE: The squawking winds and ominous rumblings of brass emanating from the pit during pre-curtain warm-ups give an early hint that this will be no [...]

Read More

Through the centuries, the hero has been a central icon in German literature, bardic stanzas, paintings and tapestries–as well as in the country’s music, from [...]

Read More

 
Thursday, Oct. 30
1 p.m. Seraphic Fire: When the Saints Go Marching In: A musical tribute to New Orleans, jazz, Cajun and soul music. Bill Quigley, [...]

Read More

On Thursday, Ned Rorem, America’s greatest creator of art song and one of the finest of living composers, turned 85. Yet unlike five years ago [...]

Read More

 
 CONCERT CALENDAR
Friday, Sept. 19, 2008, 7:30 P.M. at Lincoln Theatre
Wind Ensemble Concert:
GRACEFUL GUSTS AND SCANDALOUS SONORITIES
Timothy Weiss, conductor
WEIR:  Musicians Wrestle Everywhere  
HARTMANN:  Serenade for Winds, [...]

Read More

20th ANNIVERSARY SEASON OPENING - October 18, 2008
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 8 pm
Knight Concert Hall 
Shostakovich - Festive Overture
Brahms - Violin Concerto
Ravel - [...]

Read More

Friends of Chamber Music of Miami
Monday, Oct. 13, 2008*
Cho Liang Lin, Adele Anthony (violins), Roberto Diaz (viola), William DeRosa (cello),
Joseph Kalichstein (piano)
 
 Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009 [...]

Read More

It’s striking that the New World Symphony and Miami Symphony Orchestra have each been fixtures on the circumscribed local music scene for twenty years while [...]

Read More

You’ve got to hand it to Leonid Treer who has once again come up with
an interesting program that travels the byways of music. In this [...]

Read More

Audience members streaming in to the Lincoln Theatre Friday night could observe the steel scaffolding rising ever higher off 17th Street, a symbolic and practical [...]

Read More

One of the best-kept secrets on the local music scene is the outstanding work Alan Johnson has brought to the Frost Opera Theater since his [...]

Read More

Welcome to the new home of South Florida Classical Review.
The web-based coverage of the region’s classical music scene that began in June on the previous blogspot site [...]

Read More

Chamber music is often defined as music among friends, which generally refers to the performers. That description took on a different, larger context with the [...]

Read More

Shelly Berg was the most prominent musician on the stage of Gusman Concert Hall Saturday night, as the third evening of Festival Miami showcased the [...]

Read More

It’s safe to say that few chamber orchestras are born in an opera rehearsal studio that has been converted into a nightclub cabaret with cash [...]

Read More

by Alan Becker
The Ritz Chamber Players, founded in 2002, is a group of African-American musicians dedicated to the exploration of the black heritage in classical [...]

Read More

By age 25, most young people are moving out of the house, striking out on their own, and starting new futures. So too has Festival [...]

Read More

The New World Symphony opens its 21st season next Friday night with Michael Tilson Thomas leading the Miami Beach orchestra in music of Ravel and [...]

Read More

This weekend marks the start of South Florida’s music season proper, with two competing events Thursday night: the debut of the Firebird Chamber Orchestra and [...]

Read More

Last month Patrick Dupre Quigley and Seraphic Fire opened their seventh season with a creative Latin program breezily segueing from the Cuban Baroque composer Esteban [...]

Read More

Festival Miami ushers in a new era this Thursday when the Frost School of Music’s concert series opens its 25th season with a celebration of [...]

Read More

Last week it was revealed that Cleveland’s leading newspaper, The Plain Dealer, had banned its music critic, Donald Rosenberg, from covering the Cleveland Orchestra due [...]

Read More

The experimental music scene in Miami is fairly circumscribed, compared to larger music centers like New York, Chicago or San Francisco. Yet, amazingly for a [...]

Read More

SAN FRANCISCO: The course of opera history is nearly biblical in its received wisdom and fixed chronological lineage: Monteverdi and Rameau begat Purcell who begat [...]

Read More

The music season is heating up this weekend with several worthy events, unfortunately, many competing at the same times.
7:30 p.m. Saturday: The New World Symphony [...]

Read More

The world’s popular songbooks of the 20th and 21st centuries have been notably enriched by the music of Spanish America, but that’s far less true [...]

Read More

SAN FRANCISCO: Of Verdi’s greatest works, Simon Boccanegra remains the least performed. After an unsuccessful 1857 premiere, the composer, much like his protagonist, continued to [...]

Read More

SAN FRANCISCO—”The guy needs a psychiatrist,” said one woman in the audience of Paul, the obsessed protagonist of Die tote Stadt. Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s once-celebrated, [...]

Read More

The Metropolitan Opera opened its 125th season Monday night with a glitzy, relentlessly promoted evening as Renee Fleming tackled a trio of favored roles in [...]

Read More

It’s a rare experience to encounter the music of Ligeti in South Florida but one will have that chance Saturday night when the composer comes [...]

Read More

Seraphic Fire opens its seventh season this week, one that should prove significant for Patrick Dupre Quigley (left) and his gifted singers. In addition to [...]

Read More

For the first time in history, you can attend the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night without having to travel to Manhattan. Monday night’s gala event with [...]

Read More

With Festival Miami starting in October this season, September is more musically barren than usual, but there are still some isolated events.
The New World Symphony [...]

Read More

The only constant in life is change and that surely applies to South Florida—the epicenter of transience—more than most places. Across three counties, the volatile, [...]

Read More

The string quartet has occupied a strange place in the American musical landscape. While it was the medium of choice for the deepest and most [...]

Read More

Even in a Latin cultural milieu like Miami, rarely does one encounter the classical music of Mexico. Once in a great while, Silvestre Revueltas’ Sensemaya [...]

Read More

Late notice but the talented Orpheus Duo is presenting an intriguing (and free) program of Mexican chamber music this week. Cellist Javier Arias and pianist [...]

Read More

Violinist Elmar Oliveira’s appearance at Gusman Concert Hall for Sunday Afternoons of Music has been cancelled due to the threat this weekend of Hurricane Ike. [...]

Read More

If anyone deserves credit for the lengthening music season in South Florida, it’s Doreen Marx. Last season Marx’s Sunday Afternoons of Music series stretched into [...]

Read More

The 25th anniversary of Festival Miami is the first to bear the imprint of Shelly Berg, jazz pianist and the Frost School of Music’s dean. [...]

Read More

When the Master Chorale of South Florida opens its fifth season this fall, it will also mark a new chapter in the organization’s history. The [...]

Read More

Remember Caballé? Remember the LP? If you don’t, now is the time to refresh your memory The lady is celebrating her 75th birthday and Sony/BMG [...]

Read More

If you love Itzhak Perlman, you’ll definitely like the 2009 installment of the Boca Festival of the Arts, which will fete the celebrated violinist in [...]

Read More

Vocal programs of isolated opera arias are often the musical equivalent of a chicken salad lunch—it sates the appetite, there’s nothing heavy, and usually no [...]

Read More

South Florida’s opera season is months away, but Miami Lyric Opera will offer a summer sampler this weekend with a showcase of popular arias. The [...]

Read More

I waited so long to write about the Jascha Heifetz Sony Original Jacket Collection ($79.98 at Amazon) that the label has since released three more [...]

Read More

Jack Zink, longtime theater critic and cultural affairs writer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, died today at 10:30 a.m. at his home, with his wife [...]

Read More

Notes from a week of opera in Santa Fe:

For opera fans who have yet to make the trip, a sojourn to New Mexico for Santa [...]

Read More

SANTA FE: The milieu of Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater is at once distant and uncomfortably familiar: a bleak, nocturnal landscape inhabited by rifle-carrying terrorists and [...]

Read More

SANTA FE: Even by the bewildering standard of Handel’s opera narratives, the plot of Radamisto is, well, Baroque.
Tiridate, king of Armenia, is in love with [...]

Read More

SANTA FE. While Peter Grimes was an instant success, Benjamin Britten’s second-most-performed opera, Billy Budd, took a while to secure its place in the repertoire. [...]

Read More

SANTA FE. Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro is operatic titanium, an indestructible three hours of some of the finest music every put to paper, spiced [...]

Read More

SANTA FE. You drive the 58 dusty miles from Albuquerque to Santa Fe across a barren desert landscape ringed by mountains and spotted with sagebrush [...]

Read More

A bit of background: In June Dan Chang reported in the Miami Herald that the Concert Association of Florida has made an offer to the [...]

Read More

The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival is concluding its four-week series on a high note, as demonstrated by the terrific concert Friday night at the [...]

Read More

Gaps on the local classical music scene are so numerous, that one sometimes isn’t even aware of a specific absence until the void is filled. [...]

Read More

When Mark Kosower takes the stage, or sanctuary, Thursday night at Coral Gables Congregational Church, his recital will offer fare by familiar names like Bach, [...]

Read More

By now Miami Lyric Opera regulars know what to expect. As with an eccentric but loveable, well-intentioned relative, you overlook the faults to focus on [...]

Read More

Puccini: La Boheme.Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, Nicole Cabell, Boaz DanielBavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and ChorusBertrand de Billy (Deutsche Grammophon)
Puccini: La BohemeNorah Amsellem, Marcus Haddock, Georgia [...]

Read More

In May, Miami Lyric Opera presented a startlingly good Lucia di Lammermoor, in a production that was well sung and dramatically compelling. Raffaele Cardone’s [...]

Read More

The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival presents another distinctive program this weekend, featuring Mozart’s Duo for violin and viola, Max Reger’s Flute Trio, Martinu’s delightful [...]

Read More

Feldman: The Viola in My Life I-IVMarek KonstantynowiczCikada EnsembleNorwegian Radio Orchestra/Christian Eggen(ECM)
The art of Morton Feldman, like the man himself, is a study in contrasts. [...]

Read More

The second program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival continues its juxtaposition of rarely heard music with more standard items. Once again, the Helen [...]

Read More

Part deux of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival spans the centuries with an emphasis on works inspired by or arranged for the salon, café, [...]

Read More

Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs comprise the most moving and unearthly beautiful song cycle since Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Like Strauss’s valedictory work, these five [...]

Read More

A personal note about my friend Jack Zink, theater, music and cultural affairs writer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. A fixture in the region’s [...]

Read More

The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival is the perfect answer for listeners feeling concert deprivation during the summer doldrums. Each of the four weekend programs [...]

Read More

Copland: The Tender Land Suite; Piano Concerto; Old American Songs, Sets 1 and 2.Benjamin Pasternack, pianistSt. Charles SingersRobert Hanson/Elgin Symphony OrchestraNaxosThe Naxos label’s invaluable American [...]

Read More

Yes, it’s peak summer in South Florida, and, yes, there is scant classical music happening. But for those of us unwilling or unable to escape [...]

Read More

Amazing Grace: A Gospel and Bluegrass JourneySeraphic FirePatrick Dupre Quigley, artistic directorFolk, bluegrass and gospel normally fall far outside the Classical Review’s charge. But even [...]

Read More

Hindson: Violin Concerto; Corigliano: Suite from The Red Violin; Liszt/Kennedy-St. John: Totentanz.
Lara St. JohnSarah Ioannides/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Ancalagon)
With her latest CD, Lara St. John serves [...]

Read More

A timely, thoughtful piece by Martin Bernheimer in the Financial Times. http://tinyurl.com/6yrgwg.

Read More

Today was my last as classical music critic of the Miami Herald, which means I am now free to devote my full attention to this [...]

Read More

The SoBe Music Institute is serving up an intriguing program of American music with a valedictory theme Friday night. Faculty musicians and guest artists will [...]

Read More

Miami Herald Drops Its Classical Critic
By Susan Elliott
MusicalAmerica.com
June 26, 2008
Last week it was the Kansas City Star; this week it’s the Miami Herald. When will [...]

Read More

Welcome. As many of you already know, I have been laid off by the Miami Herald through an “involuntary buyout” — an Orwellian phrase — [...]

Read More