“Will music go down easier with a story? Palm Beach Symphony will try out that concept next season with its new themed chamber music series,” writes Jan Sjostrom in Thursday’s (8/24) Palm Beach Daily News (Florida). “The series aims to attract new audiences with 75-minute performances featuring a narrator who sprinkles background and visuals between the music. The narratives push the concerts ‘into the realm of the dramatic,’ [Executive Director David] McClymont said. The series will begin Jan. 10 … with a concert honoring Black History Month and dedicated to the music of William Grant Still…. Still scholar Rufus Jones Jr. will narrate. Fifth-generation Floridian Harvey Oyer will narrate a Feb. 7 concert … inspired by the 1878 grounding of the Spanish vessel Providencia in Palm Beach…. A March 21 concert narrated by conductor Albert-George Schram … will honor the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth…. Music Director Ramon Tebar … will lead three of the symphony’s five Masterworks series concerts and the annual free concert in February at the Meyer Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. Guest conductors Schram and Robert Moody will direct the other Masterworks concerts…. Spurred by the success of its sold-out schools concerts, the symphony will boost the number of its children’s shows from four to seven.”
Posted August 24, 2017
