Later this month at the Greenery Mall in Dadeland, a husband-and-wife team will open the doors to a new music school. But it’s not the kind of casual school you often find affiliated with a guitar shop or a similar business. Pianists Fabiana Claure and William Villaverde (pictured above) founded the Superior Academy of Music […]
Article · August 4, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
In talking the other day to Eduardo Marturet, music director of the Miami Symphony Orchestra, the conductor dropped a phrase I hadn’t heard before: “horizontal empowerment.” It’s central to the Miami Symphony’s operational strategy, he said, which spreads out the responsibilities involved in mounting concerts. “It’s a model for the symphony orchestra which doesn’t happen […]
Article · July 29, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
By the lights of mid-July, all of us having endured a spring and early summer of downbeat news in the form of brutal weather, a sordid trial and a miserable economy, the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in late April seems like a rare moment of unalloyed fun. One of the many […]
Article · July 20, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
Last September, the New World Symphony presented the world premiere of “Dancers, Dreamers and Presidents,” a symphonic work by Daniel Bernard Roumain inspired by the rise of Barack Obama. The work was commissioned by Detroit’s Sphinx Organization, a Knight Arts grantee which works to increase the involvement of African-Americans and Latinos in classical music. This […]
Article · July 14, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
The first important contact other than his teachers that the young Johannes Brahms made was with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Remenyi. The two toured together for about two years in the early 1850s, but it was the connection that Brahms formed with one of Remenyi’s former classmates, Joseph Joachim, that was to prove so important to […]
Article · July 6, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
The coming long weekend brings the Fourth of July, and, with it, an annual chance for Americans to focus on American music. And I don’t mean the kind of American music that conquered the world’s popular culture. That’s one of this country’s great contributions to the globe, and it can take care of itself. What […]
Article · June 30, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
This week, the University of Miami released the program information for the upcoming 28th iteration of Festival Miami, beginning Sept. 30. I’ll focus on the classical front, though there’s major news on the jazz side of things in an appearance by the legendary saxman Benny Golson (perhaps I’ll address this in a different post). One […]
Article · June 23, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
Although the guitar is now indelibly associated with popular music, it has a large and beautiful repertory as an acoustic instrument that stretches back centuries before Les Paul. Starting tomorrow night, the 2011 Miami International Guitar Festival comes to Clarke Recital Hall at the University of Miami for three concerts of music featuring current masters […]
Article · June 15, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
This past Sunday, I headed out to a local movie theater to catch a live broadcast of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in an all-Brahms afternoon under conductor Gustavo Dudamel. There was a sizable crowd in the theater (in southern Palm Beach County), and they seemed to really enjoy the concert, which was well presented by […]
Article · June 8, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
Starting today, a new group of specially trained choral singers will join with Seraphic Fire to record the so-called London version of the “German Requiem” of Johannes Brahms. This version, arranged by Brahms in 1869 for one piano, four hands, as the accompaniment, will also be heard in concert on Saturday evening in Tampa and […]
Article · June 1, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich
On Monday, Anna Litvinenko leaves for Russia, where she’ll take part in the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow as one of 25 cello contestants. At only 17 (she turns 18 in December), Litvinenko is making a good name for herself in greater Miami as a rising young star of the cello, and her entry in […]
Article · May 25, 2011 by Gregory Stepanich