South Florida Classical Review

Violinist Nicola Benedetti performs music of Brahms and Bruch with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in the Kravis Center’s 2016-17 season. Photo: Simon Fowler

The 2016-2017 season of the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach will feature nine touring orchestras, a solo keyboard recital and two chamber music programs.

The Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg under British conductor Matthew Halls leads off the Regional Arts concert series on December 3 and 4. Radovan Vlatkovic is soloist in  horn concertos by Strauss and Mozart. The Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio plays works by Mendelssohn and Schubert on December 14 and Beethoven, Shostakovich and Brahms on December 15. Lang Lang takes the solo recital spotlight on February 21, 2017 with a program to be announced.

The Philadelphia Orchestra returns on February 7 and 8, again with principal guest conductor Stephane Denève. Denis Kozhukhin, a top prize winner at Brussels’ Queen Elizabeth Competition who gave an impressive recital for Miami’s Friends of Chamber Music in 2014, solos in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the February 7 concert. Nikolai Lugansky plays Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 on February 20 with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic conducted by Yuri Temirkanov. Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, a score the orchestra premiered in 1953, completes the program. The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields plays on March 19 with Inon Barnatan soloing in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9.

Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National de Lyon bring French composer Guillaume Connesson’s Supernova, the only contemporary work on the series’ agenda, on February 26. Violin soloists are abundant with the touring ensembles. Gil Shaham offers Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Lyon orchestra. Sarah Chang, who has not appeared in South Florida in recent seasons, plays Dvorak’s Violin Concerto with the Prague Philharmonia under Emmanuel Villaume on January 10.

Mendelssohn’s oft-played Violin Concerto is the vehicle for Ray Chen on a program by the Bamberg Symphony on February 12 that also features Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Christoph Eschenbach conducts. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s January 16 program features Vadim Gluzman as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti plays Brahms’ concerto (March 14) and Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy (March 15) with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Peter Oundjian.

kravis.org; 800-572-8471.

Posted in News

Leave a Comment