South Florida Classical Review

James K. Bass will lead his first concerts as artistic director of Seraphic Fire October 15-18. Photo: Jonathan Young

Music of Vaughan Williams, Whitacre and Shaw
Seraphic Fire/James K. Bass
October 15-18

James K. Bass makes his debut as artistic director of Seraphic Fire with a varied and challenging program of works new to South Florida audiences. Bass leads the stellar chamber choir in Vaughan Williams’ infrequently heard Serenade to Music. Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands offers a modernist take on Buxtehude, and Eric Whitacre’s When David Heard brings a more populist form of choral composition. seraphicfire.org  (LB)

“Two-Piano Extravaganza”
Miami International Piano Festival
October 18

A feast of duo-piano music opens the Miami International Piano Festival season. Six pianists will take the stage at the Aventura Art and Culture Center. Albert Cano Smit and Julien Lieber offer Mozart’s Sonata in D Major and Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Stephen Beus and Reed Tetzloff play Samuel Barber’s elegant Souvenirs and Percy Grainger’s Fantasy on Themes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Ilya Itin and Kemal Gekic conclude the proceedings with Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 1 and Ravel’s La Valse. miamipianofest.com (LB)

Music of Reich, Stravinsky and Glass 
New World Symphony/Daniel Bjamason with Jennifer Koh. October 24-25

Icelandic conductor-composer Daniel Bjamason directs the New World fellows in a bracing matchup of minimalist classics and a Stravinsky masterpiece. The 90^th birthdays of two founding fathers of musical minimalism are celebrated with Steve Reich’s Three Movements for Orchestra and Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Contemporary music specialist Jennifer Koh does the solo honors. Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements illustrates neo-classicism in its darkest iteration. nws.edu (LB)

Music of Beethoven and Strauss
Cleveland Orchestra/Franz-Welser-Möst
January 23, 2027

Franz Welser-Möst concludes a 25-year tenure at the helm of the Cleveland Orchestra this season. The first of two programs in his final Miami residency should serve to demonstrate the high artistic standards and affinity for the core Central European repertoire that have marked this conductor- orchestra relationship. Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and perennial Symphony No. 5 illuminate victory over fate and oppression. Strauss’ darkly ruminative Metamorphosen is a threnody for the carnage and destruction of World War II. arshtcenter.org (LB)

Ravel: L’enfant et les sortiléges. 
New World Symphony/Stéphane Denève with Isabel Leonard
January 30-31

Ravel’s fairy tale opera about a misbehaving child who is taught humility and compassion mixes luminous impressionism with traces of American jazz and popular dance. A passion project for New World Symphony artistic director Stéphane Denève, the opera will be staged with projections and immersive technology. The exceptional mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard sings the role of the child. Stravinsky’s ballet score Pétrouchka precedes the one-act opera. nws.edu (LB)

Stéphane Denève will conduct Ravel’s opera L’enfant et les sortiléges with the New World Symphony January 30 & 31, 2027. Photo: Dario Acosta

Music of Creston, Theofanidis and Beethoven. 
Frost Symphony Orchestra/Gerard Schwarz with Tessa Lark and Svet Stoyanov
February 6

Gerard Schwarz, a longtime exponent of the American symphonic canon, conducts the Frost students in a revival of Symphony No. 3 (“Three Mysteries”) by Paul Creston, an important American composer whose scores have faded from the repertoire. Gemini Sun – Concerto for violin, percussion and orchestra by the talented Christopher Theofanidis features Tessa Lark, a violinist equally proficient in classical and bluegrass genres, and Frost percussion faculty member Svet Stoyanov. Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) completes the stimulating program. frost.um.edu (LB)

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
Daniil Trifonov with Palm Beach Symphony/Gerard Schwarz
February 10

The last time Daniil Trifonov appeared at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, playing the delicate 18th-century composition with style and lyricism. This season, he will play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, one of those thundering 19th-century works with which he achieved his reputation as one of this era’s leading pianists. The rest of the Palm Beach Symphony program brings Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6 and Masquerade by Anna Clyne. palmbeachsymphony.org (DF)

Music of Clyne, Walton and Rachmaninoff
New World Symphony/Leonard Slatkin with Steven Isserlis
February 13

Veteran American conductor Leonard Slatkin takes the New World Symphony podium to direct two of his specialties – British and Russian music. Anna Clyne’s raucous Masquerade precedes British cello virtuoso Steven Isserlis in William Walton’s rarely heard Cello Concerto. Rachmaninoff’s richly melodic Symphony No. 2, long a Slatkin showpiece, completes the bill of fare. nws.edu (LB)

Music of Elgar, Strauss and Maconchy
London Symphony Orchestra/Antonio Pappano with Alisa Weilerstein
March 7

The London Symphony Orchestra, which is consistently ranked among Europe’s top orchestras, will perform two concerts at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. The orchestra’s Sunday matinee will feature the renowned cellist Alisa Weilerstein in one of the greatest works for her instrument, Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Another English work, the Nocturne for Orchestra by Elizabeth Maconchy, and Richard Strauss’s grandiose Ein Heldenleben fill out the program. kravis.org. (DF)

Verdi: Nabucco
Florida Grand Opera
April 17-20

Nabucco was the opera that put Verdi on the international map. The chorus of the Hebrew slaves. “Va Pensiero,” became an anthem of the Risorgimento, the movement to unite Italy. In this quasi-Biblical epic, baritone Andrew Manea and soprano Vanessa Golkoetxea, who have sung leading roles in major European opera houses, play the title Babylonian king and the vengeful Abigaille. fgo.org (LB)

Daniil Trifonov will perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Gerard Schwarz and the Palm Beach Symphony February 10. Photo: Dario Acosta

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