South Florida Symphony Expands Concert Series Into West Palm Beach
By Palm Beach ArtsPaper Staff
Tuesday – September 7th, 2010
Violinist Chee-Yun
The South Florida Symphony, in its role as concert presenter, has announced a lineup of classical music programs for the season that for the first time will reach Palm Beach County.
The orchestra, which until earlier this year was the Key West Symphony, has presented similar series in Monroe County for more than a decade, but last year began hosting them further north. For the second season, the orchestra is welcoming two high-profile violinists, one each to the first two of its five concerts.
Chee-Yun, the celebrated South Korean violinist, will perform the Violin Concerto of Beethoven (in D, Op. 61) with the orchestra on Oct. 6 in Key West, on Oct. 7 at the Broward Center and Oct. 9 at the Lincoln Theatre on Miami Beach. Conductor Sebrina Maria Alfonso will also lead the group in the Academic Festival Overture of Brahms and the Enigma Variations of Sir Edward Elgar.
The fine Canadian violinist Lara St. John appears Dec. 1 at Key West’s Tennessee Williams Theatre, on Dec. 2 at the Broward Center and Dec. 5 at the Lincoln Theatre. She’ll perform Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 (in G, K. 216) and Sarasate’s Ziegunerweisen; Alfonso will lead the orchestra in the Beethoven Fourth Symphony (in B-flat, Op. 60).
Pianist Barry Douglas, a frequent South Florida concert guest during the season, handles the huge Brahms Second Concerto (in B-flat, Op. 83) in a concert at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach on Jan. 30. He’s in Key West on Jan. 28 and at the Broward Center Feb. 1, and the orchestra also will perform the Masquerade Suite of Aram Khachaturian and the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Miami native and part-time Pompano Beach resident Ellen Taaffe Zwilich sees two of her pieces on the fourth and fifth concerts in the series. The Sima Trio performs the Zwilich Septet for piano trio and string quartet, which had its Florida premiere earlier this year at the Kravis. Also on the program are the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 of Bach and the String Sextet No. 2 (in G, Op. 36) of Brahms. Concerts are set for March 2 in Key West, March 3 at the Broward Center, and March 7 on the new Frank Gehry-designed campus of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach.
Pianist Adam Golka joins the orchestra on April 29 in Key West, May 1 at the Broward Center, and May 2 at the Gehry campus for the perennially popular Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1 (in B-flat minor, Op. 23). Zwilich’s Fifth Symphony also is on the program with the Festive Overture of Dmitri Shostakovich.
Alfonso said the concert series marks a move by the orchestra to raise its arts profile.
“We are committed to becoming leaders in the cultural landscape of South Florida by striving to present high-level classical programming, world-class guest artists, introducing new works and most importantly to become a leader in music education for the area,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “We are seeking grants, sponsorships and partnerships that will allow us this privilege.”
