South Florida Classical Review

2013 Van Cliburn Competition Gold Medal winner Vadym Kholodenko will perform at Festival Miami November 4.

In the last two seasons Festival Miami appeared to recapture some of the verve and audacious spirit of its salad days, with Florida premieres, contemporary works and a bracing range of classical repertory.

Against that background, the 2014 installment of the University of Miami Frost School of Music series—running from October 10-November 9—looks like a case of retrenchment, with the festival overall ceding even more ground to pop and jazz events than in the recent past.

The most intriguing classical program takes place opening night on October 10. Thomas Sleeper leads the Frost Symphony Orchestra in “Made in America,” a program of homegrown music featuring two concertos. Michael Ludwig will perform Samuel Barber’s popular Violin Concerto and Dale Underwood will be the soloist in Paul Creston’s rarely heard Saxophone Concerto. The program will also feature Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, Carl Ruggles’ Sun-Treader and the world premiere of Matthew Evan Taylor’s Three Glorious Days.

Vadym Kholodenko, gold medal winner of the 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will present a recital November 4 featuring music of Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Balakirev.

Soprano Dawn Upshaw will present the Florida premiere of Maria Schneider’s song cycle Winter Morning Walks with the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra on October 25. The second half of the program features other Schneider works performed by Frost students.

On October 15 the Pulse chamber trio will offer an international program with music by Bright Sheng, Rene Touzet, Derek Bermel, Alexander Arutiunian, Victoria Bond and the world premiere of Heroic Measures by Dorothy Hindman.

Classical guitar’s two greatest hits will be heard October 21 with Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and Fantasía para un gentilhombre. The evening will feature a quartet of guitarists: Rafael Padron, Rene Izquierdo, Isaac Bustos and Federic Musgrove.

Also on tap this year is the piano duo Genova and Dimitrov October 29, crossover cellist Dave Eggar October 26 and the Emerging Composers concert October 27.

Other events include the Frost Wind Ensemble in an all-Gershwin program November 2 with violinist Mark O’Connor and Frost dean, pianist Shelly Berg; and the crossover trio Time for Three October 12 (“music from Brahms and Bach to their own arrangements of The Beatles, Katy Perry, Kanye West and Justin Timberlake”).

Though not part of the scheduled events, Festival Miami is cosponsoring Seraphic Fire’s November 7 appearance at Gusman Hall with The Sebastians.

Log on to festivalmiami.com.

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