When classical musicians return to first principles, they return to the music of “The 3 Great B’s”: J.S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms. The first two are more fundamental to the Western classical canon than Brahms, but the German Romantic remains one of the most frequently performed of all composers (though mostly for [...]
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 [...]
Earlier this month, the composer Carlos Rafael Rivera sent along an MP3 of his Concierto de Miami, a trumpet concerto that had its premiere in late October with the great jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval as the soloist. I wasn’t able to attend the concert, so I’m grateful to Rivera for sending me the recording. This [...]
Earlier in the year, I spent some time listening to two newer recordings with good South Florida connections, and I don’t know that they got a lot of attention at the time, so here’s my effort at redressing that. The first was a Naxos disc called Reflections of wind band music by the American composers [...]
Allison Eldredge solos with the Miami Symphony on Sunday. How does one go about rebranding a symphony orchestra? If you’re the Miami Symphony Orchestra, you get this message across: We want to be a world-class orchestra, and we’re taking big steps to get there. The group has hired its first director of development, has a [...]
