| 17 May 2010
Kendall Gladen and Adam Diegel in Act IV of Carmen. (Photo by Gaston de Cardenas)
The Florida Grand Opera closed its 69th season Saturday night in Fort Lauderdale with a production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen that was sometimes brilliant, sometimes risible, but that also offered reliably good singing and enough dramatic punch to give it real entertainment value.
In their bid to reinterpret this greatest of French operas, the Franco-Canadian team of André Barbe and Renaud Doucet spent time in Andalucia soaking up authentic Spanish culture, and it was those moments of the production that were most successful as departures from the norm. The two men brought in 15 flamenco dancers for this production, and they were used to excellent effect, particularly at the opening of the second act, in which the troupe danced on tabletops as the music started its slow build, and in the entr’acte to Act IV, which was accompanied by a couple’s dance lit in bright yellow.
The other major element of this Spanish Civil War-era starkly modern production, which was bereft of town square, factory, mountains and bullring in favor of a huge metallic wall with a door that served for all four acts, was chairs. The wall itself had silver-painted chairs mounted like windows, and throughout the production, cast members carried chairs wherever they went, dropping them into place for audience purposes or using them as props in dance moves.
José Junco, Julia Ebner, Kendall Gladen, Amanda Crider and Jorge Robledo in Act II of Carmen. (Photo by Gaston de Cardenas)
At times, especially at the opening of Act III for the smugglers’ chorus, which had the singers moving slowly across the stage, some in near-Monty Python walking style, with chairs in hand, drew chortles and grumbles from the audience near me, and in all truth it looked pretty silly. But then there were moments when Doucet’s conception became quite clear, such as in the second act, with men and women lining up on opposite sides in rows with their chairs, slamming them down in time: Here was the essential man-woman dynamic, as filtered through the haughty color of flamenco, writ large over the whole cast, augmenting and commenting on the Carmen-Don José relationship.
Another nice piece of stagecraft came at the final confrontation between Carmen and Don José, when José poured a red-paint bullring on the ground, and Carmen, in red dress, held the sides out, bullfighter style, then dodged the charging José in quick feints. Perhaps that, too, overreached a bit, but it was interesting, and certainly the most unusual, inventive Carmen I’ve seen in some time. That it tried too hard to incorporate the chairs into everything, and that it was only partly successful dramatically, does not detract from the boldness of this production, or make it any less worth doing.
As Carmen, the St. Louis native Kendall Gladen offered a smoky, silky mezzo, very attractive in its lowest reaches and quite well-suited to this role. Her voice is not very large, but it’s a pleasure to listen to. As an actress Gladen was at her best in the more petulant aspects of her character, such as her funny mockery of the bugle call that sounds the call to duty for a reluctant José.
Elaine Alvarez as Micaëla and Adam Diegel as Don José in Act I of Carmen. (Photo by Gaston de Cardenas)
Tenor Adam Diegel was a very fine Don José, with a strong, cutting voice that rang out from the first notes and never let him down after that. His Flower Song was passionate and vivid, and he made the most of his climactic exclamation in that great aria – Te revoir, ô Carmen – showing us the vulnerable, ardent side of this tortured character. He acted well, too, doing nice work in a stylized knife fight with Escamillo and acting properly desperate in his final meeting with Carmen.
Soprano Elaine Alvarez, a Miami native who was making her debut with her hometown company, showed off a lovely, mature sound as Micaëla, and an instrument with enough power to carry her aloft on the Gounod-style upper reaches of much of her character’s music. This is a voice whose bigness is evident even though it sounded somewhat tired at times Saturday night.
As Escamillo, the baritone Mark Walters sang capably and well, in a very French, tightly controlled style. He played the character with the dignity of a prominent, successful man, no doubt aided by the Fernando Lamas-like smoking jacket in which he first appears at Lillias Pastia’s tavern in Act II.
Soprano Julia Ebner, as Frasquita, and mezzo Amanda Crider, as Mercédès, were effective as Carmen’s comrades in arms; Ebner has the bigger sound, but she and Crider blended well vocally, and they were effective on stage. Bass Benjamin Clements was a capable Zuniga, as was baritone Graham Fandrei as Morales and Jonathan G. Michie as Dancairo.
Mark Walters as Escamillo in Carmen. (Photo by Gaston de Cardenas)
FGO’s orchestra was quite fine, with strong playing from the ensemble and solo instruments, particularly flute and horn. Willie Anthony Waters led them masterfully, and showed his long experience as a theater conductor in getting things back on track during at least one tricky moment at the end of Les tringles des sistres tintaient when the extra percussion of dancers’ feet and hand clapping threatened to throw everyone off.
The authentic Spanish costumes in Act IV of the bandilleros and picadors added an extra dose of strong regional flavor, and Gordon W. Olson’s lighting was smart and apt, particularly in how he was able to make a bonfire appear to flicker in a pile of chairs by using ribbons of orange light.
This production played Acts II and III without a break, which was hard for some of the audience to handle, and tougher than the more usually encountered staging of an unbroken Acts III and IV. One wonders why it is so rarely staged as it originally was, with four separate acts and three intermissions; each act is different enough for the opera to work just fine without having to keep everyone in their seats through two of them.
Barbe and Doucet will return to FGO next January for a production of Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, a story that offers all kinds of room for this team’s imaginative arsenal to make an impact. Both FGO and the Palm Beach Opera have staged radically different productions of popular operas this year, which says promising things about the willingness of local audiences to accept a more European approach of directorial conceptions for well-known works quite at odds with decades, even centuries of tradition.
Florida Grand Opera will open its 70th season Nov. 13-Dec. 4 with Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, his last and most spectacular opera. Jacques Offenbach’s final work, Tales of Hoffmann (like Turandot, unfinished at its composer’s death) follows Jan. 22-Feb. 12 and from April 16-May 14, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a production originally mounted for the Washington Opera. The fourth opera in the season is new, American composer David DiChiera’s Cyrano, a retelling of the Edmond Rostand play starring Leah Partridge and Marian Pop, who originated the roles for this opera at its Detroit premiere in 2007. Cyrano will be mounted only at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami from April 23-May 7. For more information, call 800-741-1010 or visit www.fgo.org.
| 12 May 2010
Jonathan Kreisberg. (Photo by Govert Driessen)
New York City-born guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg first showed an interest in music at age 10 after he’d moved to Miami with his family. He would go on to study at the New World School of the Arts, appear in Guitar Player and Down Beat magazines while in his teens, and earn a scholarship to the University of Miami, graduating from its esteemed music program.
He then played in successful South Florida progressive rock and fusion groups, achieving an impressive regional audience. But when it came to starting his traditional jazz career, Kreisberg decided there was no place like home.
Now living in Brooklyn, he’s released several CDs since moving back in 1997, including Trioing (New For Now) from 2002, the 2004 gem Nine Stories Wide (on Criss Cross, with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Bill Stewart), the 2007 disc The South of Everywhere (Mel Bay) and his latest, Night Songs (Criss Cross), a 2009 collection of jazz standards.
Kreisberg promises that his forthcoming eighth CD, recorded within the past few weeks, will blend all of his different musical tributaries like no other. And he’ll prove it by debuting some of the new material live on the upstairs stage at Tobacco Road in Miami with his quartet (in 9 and 10:30 p.m. shows on May 27, and a 7 p.m. all-ages show and 9 p.m. set on May 28). The $15 tickets are available at the door, and at www.jonathankreisberg.com, and are good for the entire evening.
“I'm not sure which label this CD will be on yet, and I only have a few different working titles for it now,” Kreisberg says. “But it'll be my own material, with one crazy arrangement of the standard ‘Nice Work If You Can Get It.’ Tradition is certainly part of the album, but it also goes in several different directions that make it un-standard. There's a lot of drive and forward motion, so it's a good document of what we've been doing live lately.”
Indeed, advance takes of tracks like Twenty-One (named for its 21/8 time signature) and Stir the Stars mix jazz tradition with the inherent modernism of a composer born in the 1970s. Kreisberg's liquid lines and tones show the influence of not only guitar predecessors like Allan Holdsworth, but also piano icons such as Keith Jarrett. And the interactive contributions of saxophonist Will Vinson, pianist Henry Hey, bassist Matt Penman and drummer Mark Ferber help stir the pot into a jazz/fusion/world music gumbo.
Vinson (who's worked with Madeleine Peyroux and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and also plays occasional keyboards with Kreisberg) and Penman (John Scofield, Joshua Redman) will be part of Kreisberg's quartet at Tobacco Road, with Eric Doob playing drums in place of Ferber (Norah Jones, Fred Hersch).
“Eric plays a lot with Paquito D'Rivera,” Kreisberg says, “so he's great with Latin rhythms. And I love the overall feel of his playing.”
Kreisberg's recording career started out with the 1995 independent CD Third Wish by Wyscan, a Miami-based rock quintet that blended the sounds of Yes, King Crimson and UK. He then recruited that band's rhythm section of bassist Javier Carrion and drummer Vince Verderame to record his independent self-titled fusion debut in 1996.
The guitarist's love for jazz standards emerged on that trio debut, which mixed Someday My Prince Will Come and We'll Be Together Again with muscular fusion originals and a cover of The Beatles’ Come Together. After several trio tours of the East Coast and Southeastern United States, Kreisberg decided to move back to New York City. Carrion stayed in South Florida, working with K.C. & the Sunshine Band, among others, and Verderame relocated to Las Vegas and eventually landed the drum slot with the Blue Man Group.
“The primary reason that trio didn't last longer was that I wanted to get up to New York and lean more into the jazz world,” Kreisberg says. “But I'm sure Javier will come to Tobacco Road if he's in town and doesn't have a gig.”
The current Kreisberg trio (usually with Penman and Ferber) plays a Wednesday night house gig at La Lanterna in Greenwich Village, at least when its leader isn't on the road. A look at Kreisberg's website shows forthcoming 2010 concerts by his various configurations around the United States, plus the latest of several European tours starting in September.
The guitarist also tours with the trio led by the iconic Hammond organist Dr. Lonnie Smith (and appears on Smith's new release, Spiral, on the Palmetto label). In addition, Kreisberg plays with drummer Ari Hoenig and his band Punk Bop, and will appear on their forthcoming live CD on the Smalls label.
“Vinson and I wil both be on Ari's record,” he says. “Ari and I go way back. He and I met before I even moved to New York. And Dr. Lonnie's trio also has a young, amazing drummer named Jamire Williams. I only played with Lonnie for the first time a couple years ago, even though we both lived in Florida at the same time. I'd heard him there, but never put together that this was the same guy who was playing amazing stuff with George Benson in the ‘60s. And Lonnie still sounds amazing. He's like a mad scientist; always trying new things. It's a special trio.”
Kreisberg also does occasional recording session work, and rounds out his career through teaching.
“I do workshops at a lot of the places where I travel,” he says. “I'll do one during this trip at Glades Guitars in Hollywood on Sunday, May 30. And I also teach through the New School University in New York.”
The last South Florida appearance by Kreisberg was in 2005; his last trip to the venerable Tobacco Road (Miami's oldest restaurant, established in 1912) was in 2002.
“It's been a long time,” he says. “But those were all shows that I put together with musicians from down there, or doing standards with faculty from Miami-Dade College. This will be the first time I'm bringing down musicians from New York to play my own music. And we're going to do it right.”
| 06 May 2010
Pianist Hyojin Ahn.
Although it was billed as a solo recital, pianist Hyojin Ahn’s concert Wednesday afternoon at the Duncan Theatre’s Stage West also featured a violinist in a major modernist work from the 1920s, and that piece as much as anything else Ahn did helped make this musical event a memorable one.
Ahn, 32, a South Korea-born musician who is a piano fellow at Miami Beach’s New World Symphony, appeared earlier this season in the Stage West series as accompanist to New World alumna Yuki Numata, a Canadian-born violinist. She distinguished herself then as an able, flexible accompanist, and she showed the same kind of range and skill by herself Wednesday.
Ahn opened the recital with Maurice Ravel’s Miroirs, long a milestone of the 20th-century piano repertoire for its difficulty and expressive power. It takes a strong technician to play the five pieces of this suite, and Ahn is certainly that, rattling off the repeated notes in the Alborada del Gracioso with snap and enviable finger-switching accuracy, and demonstrating a formidable left hand in the pitch and roll of Une barque sur l’océan.
She also has a fine grasp of Ravel’s variety of mood as exhibited in this work. The moths of Noctuelles flittered attractively under Ahn’s light, precise approach, and she gave the landscape of Oiseaux tristes a tightly controlled sense of space and desolation by keeping the back-and-forth chord progressions down to a murmur and then marking the bird calls crisply. In the closing La vallée des cloches, too, Ahn worked hard, and successfully, to give the music its sound of distant blurring.
What was missing here, though, was a sense of suavity and a fuller palette of color. Ahn’s ability to play all those notes and rhythms brilliantly was apparent and very impressive, but a piece like the Alborada also needs a sharper feeling of wit and style; that main theme is almost smirky, and it needs to come across that way, not just with clarity. And much of this music can sound quite similar from piece to piece if the all the shades of which the piano is capable are not brought into play, and here the two slower pieces (Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches) could have used more distinction from one another.
I would hazard a guess that Ahn has only recently added Miroirs to her recital programming, and that now that she has mastered the notes, some more interpretive depth will follow as she continues to play it.
The second half of the program opened with the Moritz Moszkowski arrangement of the Liebestod scene from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. This differs from the more frequently encountered Liszt version in that Moszkowski begins 20 bars or so of music from the opera’s prelude, which Ahn said in remarks to the audience that she thought made a good transition to the Liebestod, and indeed it does.
This transcription’s closing pages, while hugely virtuosic, are also less relentlessly bombastic than Liszt’s, which made it easier to hear how surely Wagner’s music builds to its plateau. Here again, Ahn had full command of the technical mastery needed to bring this off (a missed note at the top of one of the run-ups at the end notwithstanding), and her steady progress from the first notes of the Mild une leise to the end had a satisfying narrative strength. But the Prelude section was rather dry, partly a consequence of this music’s need for its orchestral garb, but also for Ahn’s need to figure out a richer way to play it; this, after all, is some of the most influential, important music in the whole Romantic repertoire, and fervid color is part of its DNA.
The concert ended with an appearance by violinist Ko Sugiyama, also a New World player, who joined Ahn for the three-part Mythes (Op. 30), written in 1921 by the great Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. These are extraordinary pieces, and Sugiyama and Ahn gave them a wonderful reading.
Both instruments in this near-decadent late Romantic work have monstrously difficult parts to play, and Sugiyama and Ahn appeared to bring out the best in each other as they made their way through the piece. The piano part is often quite similar to the Ravel in its figurations, though more astringent harmonically, while the violin part is showy and aggressive, with double and triple stop glissandos, long stretches of harmonics, and straining, striving music at the very top of the instrument’s register.
Sugiyama proved to be a marvelous player, completely capable of tackling Szymanowski’s virtuosic layout and the possessor of a highly communicative, intense tone that worked beautifully for the composer’s most ecstatic pages.
All three movements received excellent performances, of which the best perhaps was the second, Narcisse, which is unified by a four-note barcarolle-style motif that appear throughout, and which Ahn and Sugiyama used to build the climactic sections of the movement to powerful examples of musical partnership in the service of exceptionally demonstrative writing.
| 26 April 2010
Soprano Corinne Winters sings Sempre libera, from Verdi’s La Traviata.
The annual Palm Beach Opera vocal competition Grand Finals concerts are notable each year for two things above all: The atmosphere of fun and interactivity in the audience, and the exceptional level of youthful talent that soon will be replenishing the stores of the opera houses of the world.
Sunday’s concert, which was the 41st in the series that began in 1969, saw 13 young singers competing for about $77,000 in prizes, and it ended with the top awards of the afternoon going to a 23-year-old baritone from Ohio and a 27-year-old soprano from Maryland.
Michael Young, who sang Ford’s aria (È sogno? O realtà?) from Act II of Verdi’s Falstaff, and Corinne Winters, who sang the Ah, fors’è lui/Sempre libera scene that closes Act I of the same composer’s La Traviata, deservedly won top honors, and not least because these two singers already have internalized these pieces in a thoroughly operatic, stage-ready way.
Young, a singer with a strong, clear voice and a nice top range, was thoroughly believable as Ford, a man who thinks he’s being cuckolded. But this is also a set piece without a straight-ahead song (unlike all the other arias on the program), and Young handled its rapid changes of mood masterfully.
Baritone Michael Young sings Ford’s aria from Verdi’s Falstaff.
And Winters, who also was chosen the audience favorite by text message at the end of the contest, not only showed off a powerful high E-flat at the end of Sempre libera, she also demonstrated wide emotional range, even in the way she gulped out the syllables of “misterioso” in Ah, fors’è lui. Winters does not have a huge voice, but it’s a mature, affecting one, quite well-suited for dramatic roles and a pleasure to hear.
But there was much other good singing Sunday afternoon, which was heard to the accompaniment of the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra under the deft leadership of Metropolitan Opera staff conductor J. David Jackson. One of the most impressive moments came with the second-prize advanced division winner, mezzo-soprano Irene Roberts.
Roberts, 27, a member of the Palm Beach Opera’s Young Artists troupe, has been a familiar face this season, appearing on the mainstage as Elvira in Verdi’s Otello and as Mercédès in Bizet’s Carmen, as well as Dorabella in a workshop version of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. It seems to me that Roberts’ voice has blossomed over the season, and is now in a powerfully rich phase, with dark coloring and serious lung heft to boot.
The Sacramento, Calif., native did a smart thing with her choice of aria: Nobles seigneurs, salut!, from Act I of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. Many prominent mezzos have recorded this aria (Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade, to name two), but it’s rarely heard in the opera house these days, and it’s a well-constructed piece that allows the singer to show off some vocal display and long legato phrases, which Roberts did very well. Towards the end, coming off her trill, she demonstrated enviable breath control by holding the final note over into the recurrence of the aria’s main melody without stopping for air.
Other singers also showed a knowing sense of theatricality, perhaps none quite as charming as baritone R. Kenneth Stavert, 25, of Fullerton, Calif., who won sixth prize in the advanced division with his reading of the Largo al factotum from Rossini’s Barber of Seville. I would have given him a higher ranking than that (third or fourth), not just for his funny, audience-pleasing performance of this great comic aria, but for his confident stage manner and his big voice, which had a marked tenor quality to it.
I also liked tenor Edward Mout’s version of Ah, mes amis, quel jour de fête, from Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment. This aria is famous for its nine high Cs, which the San Diego, Calif., singer sang out with youthful, unforced vigor (and he added a couple others at the end, too). Mout, 30, who won fourth prize in the advanced division, has a good top register, a fine sense of phrasing and a forthright way of putting a song across.
Tenor Martin Bakari sings Spirito gentil, from Donizetti’s La Favorita.
Other notable moments: Bass Matthew Anchel’s forceful rendition of Sorge infausta una procella from Handel’s Orlando; soprano Betty Allison’s sweet, full-voiced performance of the Song to the Moon from Dvořák’s Rusalka; tenor Martin Bakari’s passionate version of Spirito gentil, from Donizetti’s La Favorita. Also, mezzo Sasha Hashemipour, of San Diego, who won sixth prize in the junior division, has a very large, beautiful voice that perhaps would have been shown to better effect with a different aria (she sang Laisse couler mes larmes from Massenet’s Werther). But she’s only 21, and I’m confident we’ll hear her again soon.
The Palm Beach Opera Orchestra played quite well throughout, especially in the Falstaff aria, and it did a creditable job with the two overtures – Weber’s Oberon and Rossini’s William Tell –it performed while the judges – Leonore Rosenberg, Richard Gaddes, Susana Meyer and Palm Beach Opera artistic director Bruno Aprea – were deliberating.
In the end, the feeling you had at the close of the concert was happiness and optimism, knowing that there is so much fine young talent out there working in this magnificent art form. It’s one of my favorite events of the season, and this year’s version did not disappoint.
Soprano Rebecca Nathanson sings Klänge der Heimat, from Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus.
***
Here is the list of the winners and prizes:
Junior division: Michael Young, 23, baritone, of Cortland, Ohio, first prize ($5,500); Martin Bakari, 23, tenor, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, second prize ($5,000); Matthew Anchel, 22, bass, New York City, third prize ($4,500); Rebecca Nathanson, 22, soprano, New Haven, Conn., fourth prize ($3,500); Joseph Lattanzi, 22, baritone, Macon, Ga., fifth prize ($3,000); Sasha Hashemipour, 21, mezzo-soprano, San Diego, Calif., sixth prize ($2,000).
Advanced division: Corinne Winters, 27, soprano, Frederick, Md., first prize ($8,500); Irene Roberts, 27, mezzo-soprano, Sacramento, Calif., second prize ($7,500); Zulimar López-Hernández, 30, soprano, San Juan, Puerto Rico, third prize ($6,000); Edward Mout, 30, tenor, San Diego, Calif., fourth prize ($5,000); Betty Allison, 28, soprano, Ladysmith, B.C., Canada, fifth prize ($4,500); R. Kenneth Stavert, 25, baritone, Fullerton, Calif., sixth prize ($4,000); Rena Harms, 25, soprano, Santa Fe, N.M., seventh prize ($3,000).
Finalists who did not place also shared a $15,000 Palm Beach Opera Guild Encouragement Award.
| 21 April 2010
Juan Arriaga (1806-1826).
The Delray String Quartet that finished its sixth season this past weekend at the Colony Hotel in its namesake’s historic downtown is a foursome that has been playing together more frequently than its earlier iterations, thanks to its expanded three-county performance schedule.
And the extra time together showed Sunday, with excellent performances of quartets by Arriaga and Tchaikovsky that were fully in the spirit and style of their very different composers. As a bonus, the quartet listed its programs for the upcoming seventh season, and it is a good series, with rarities, American works and core Germanic classics that make up concerts truly worth looking forward to.
Sunday’s program opened with the Quartet No. 2 (in A) of the sadly short-lived Spanish composer Juan Arriaga, “the Spanish Mozart,” who died 10 days shy of his 20th birthday. Arriaga was without doubt a major talent, and this quartet, one of three the teenage composer finished, offers a telling demonstration of the potential that was lost when he died.
This is a sunny, inventive, vigorous piece, and the Delray played it that way. The first movement chugged along in good Haydnesque fashion, with an admirable balance between motifs and accompaniments. In the opening section, for instance, second violinist Megan McClendon and violist Richard Fleischman kept the repeated chord figures delicate but persistent, setting an ideal backdrop for the first violinist Mei-Mei Luo’s playing of the main theme, and cellist Claudio Jaffé’s reading of the precisely etched falling figure that answered it.
The theme-and-variations second movement offered a good, well-played variety of styles, from the first violin’s florid elaboration of the theme in the first variation and the sparkle of McClendon and Jaffé’s leaping figures in the second, to the somber beauty of the minor-key variation, soulfully played by Fleischman, and the charm of the all-pizzicato fourth variation that followed.
The group gave the trio section of the third-movement minuet an almost Beethovenian sense of expectant stasis, which helped create maximum contrast for the headlong joy of the finale; the Delray played it closing pages particularly well, with a substantial head of steam before heading into the big arpeggio gesture of the last bars.
The second half of the concert was devoted to the String Quartet No. 1 (in D, Op. 11) of Tchaikovsky, one of the most popular of all quartets. Here, too, the Delray entered entirely into the world of this work, which is so suffused with indelible melody and effective instrumental color.
Of particular note was the well-known Andante cantabile second movement, whose secondary theme is so treacherous for the first violin in that it’s very plain, but it’s in a tough key and it’s completely exposed over the gentlest of accompaniments. This has often been a place for tuning to go awry, but on Sunday, Luo handled it with accuracy and elegance, so much so that the composer’s transition back to the main theme sounded logical rather than forced.
The Scherzo movement, essentially a folk dance, was played with strong, but not too strong, offbeat accents, and the closing movement had plenty of fire after the light, almost offhand interpretation of the opening bars. Jaffé was especially good in the beauty of his upper-register playing in the movement’s secondary folk tune, toward the end.
The Tchaikovsky received rapturous applause, and as an encore, the Delrays played a William Zinn arrangement of a rag by Scott Joplin: Country Club, published in 1909. It was a charming piece, ably performed, and it made a smile-inducing end to what has been a watershed season for this Palm Beach County ensemble.
***
Five programs are on the schedule for the Delray’s seventh season, which again will feature performances in Miami-Dade and Broward counties as well as the Colony. Two American works -- the Fourth Quartet of Kenneth Fuchs (in December) and the Second Quartet of Randall Thompson (in March) – are planned along with rarities such as the Piano Quintet of Jean Sibelius (in March), which will feature pianist Tao Lin. Canonical works by Haydn (No. 32 in C, The Bird), Beethoven (No. 6 in B-flat, Op. 18, No. 6), Brahms (No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2) and Schumann (No. 3 in A, Op. 41, No. 3) also are scheduled, along with works by Shostakovich (No. 7 in F-sharp minor, Op. 108) and Tchaikovsky ( No. 2 in F, Op. 22). For more information, call 213-4138 or visit www.delraystringquartet.com.
