Classical DJ Julie Amacher, frequently heard on Miami’s WKCP. Earlier this month, the Classical South Florida radio station, which broadcasts at 89.7 FM, bought WXEL-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in Boynton Beach, for $3.85 million from its current owners, Barry University. That will mean two American Public Media stations in the area, and for […]

Claude Debussy, out for a picnic with his daughter Emma, known as Chouchou. Even though we’ve passed the halfway mark of April, classical events are still thick on the ground. This Saturday, Florida Grand Opera opens its production of Carmen, and on Sunday, the Palm Beach Opera holds its 41st annual Vocal Competition Grand Finals […]

Tomorrow night, the University of Miami’s Frost Opera Theater will present two one-act operas by American composers in what will be their South Florida premieres. Strawberry Fields, by Michael Torke, was broadcast on television about 10 years as part of a trilogy of American operas about New York’s Central Park, and it’s the sad but […]

Violinist David Garrett. Classical listeners are in for a good deal of crossover this week, beginning tonight with a return appearance at the Broward Center by German-American violinist David Garrett, who is fond of playing tunes by Metallica and the like in his high-energy shows. But he’s also quite capable of playing straight classical, and […]

Earlier this week — yesterday, in fact — a new album by a Broward County native who’s making good in the world of classical crossover was released. Daniel Bernard Roumain, a violinist who grew up in Margate, has just released Woodbox Beats & Balladry, which features tracks such as Sonata for Violin and Turntables, part […]

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). Now’s the time when major arts organizations start sending out their program lists for the coming season, making sure to get ticket commitments from winter residents who soon will be heading North again. The Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale and the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach have announced their classical lineups […]

Pianist Olga Kern. Time was not all that long ago when women classical pianists who were career performers were something of a novelty. For every Clara Schumann and Amy Beach, there were many more men with piano-playing careers, and it wasn’t until the latter part of the 20th century that this situation really started to […]

Thomas Morley (1557-1602). Starting Friday, Carson Kievman’s SoBe Institute of the Arts plunges audiences into the world of Shakespeare, and not incidentally, the world of English Renaissance music. Kievman’s production of the Bard’s Twelfth Night previews March 18 at the newly rehabbed Little Stage Theater, then runs for three consecutive weekends, closing April 4. But […]

Forgive me for staying with Baroque music for another week, but after attending last week’s crackerjack Brandenburg concerti done by the Firebird Chamber Orchestra, I’m thinking a lot about a local cantata pilgrimage. Back in 2000, the British conductor John Eliot Gardiner took his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists on the road for an […]

J.S. Bach (1685-1750). Peter Schickele once wrote that he’d be happy to give up some J.S. Bach cantatas for a few more Brandenburg concerti, even though he knew that was as close to heretical a statement as you could make. Beginning Friday, you can have both, when the Firebird Chamber Orchestra begins its Brandenburg Concerto […]

This Saturday at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium, the Eighth Annual Chopin Competition gets under way, as 21 young pianists vie for prizes and concert bookings before a jury of established figures in the world of classical music. This is the Chopin bicentenary year (he was born March 1, 1810), which adds special import to the […]