Steppenwolf Theatre's Hot L Baltimore a tribute to hope

Steppenwolf Theater presents "The Hot L Baltimore by Lanford Wilson

Photos by Michael Brosilow/Steppenwolf Theatre

1. (left to right) Allison Torem with ensemble member Jon Michael Hill

2. (left to right) Ensemble member Kate Arrington with de’Adre Aziza

3. (left to right) Namir Smallwood with ensemble member Alana Arenas

By Entertainment Reporter Jessica Tinianow

The play begins on Memorial Day 1973. The war in Vietnam has just ended. The Paris Peace Accords are signed. Nixon is President.

The air hangs heavy in a decaying, run-down Hotel Baltimore. Once the swankiest place in town, it is now slated for demolition.

Time has not been kind to the Hotel Baltimore. Signs of decay are everywhere. The "e" is missing from the hotel's neon sign. This small detail is critical. It signifies the beginning of the end for both the hotel and its residents.

As decayed as the physical structure of the hotel is, the stories and the lives of the people inside are rich in color and contradiction. Inside lives a community of society's marginal characters. They are a group of misfits, down on their luck, who dare to dream.

Eviction notices are issued, signaling an end to the Hotel Baltimore and their cozy little cocoon. This is where Lanford shines. He transforms an ordinary tale into an epic that resonates with truths about the human condition.

Hot L Baltimore is playwright Lanford Wilson's masterwork. The fact that he passed away just a few weeks before opening night makes Steppenwolf’s production a tribute to the greatness of his works.

The cast of 13 colorful characters and one" ghost', are in perpetual verbal and physical motion. The simultaneous action and dialogue takes place in the hotel lobby and its upstairs rooms, which are all made visible thanks to the staging wizardry of director Tina Landau and the artful scenic design of James Schuette. There is never a dull moment.

The director remains faithful to Landon's original writing, which uses overlapping dialogue and musical interludes. The resulting audio "babble" is hard at times to decipher, but the seeming chaos works perfectly within the context of the play’s story line. It reflects the chaos and uncertainty of the character's lives. It is therefore up to the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions.

At time comedic. At others tragic, Hotel L Baltimore gives the audience a ‘fly on the wall’ view of the pathetic, yet heroic lives of its inhabitants. At times evoking laughter, at others, pity, the play ultimately leaves the audience empathizing with their circumstance. In a “there but the Grace of God” kind of way, the twists and turns of Wilson’s character’s lives are not that far removed from the lives of anyone else. The audience is left feeling a profound sense of pity, knowing none of the characters will ever reach their utopia.

Among the hotel residents are two prostitutes, one sweet and innocent, the other hardened and bitter. Kate Arrington shines as Suzy, the most optimistic of the pair. de"Adre Aziza is a standout as the vibrant April.

The other characters run the emotional gamut. Molly Regan plays an elderly, forlorn woman who is consumed by her memories. Yasen Peyankov is a classic curmudgeon. Alana Arenas is a grifter who, paradoxically, eats organic.

All this is overseen by two apathetic hotel managers played with smarmy brilliance by James Vincent Meredith and TaRon Patton, who protect their own emotions by distancing themselves with witty barbs and biting innuendo.

A ghostly figure, known only as The Man (Sean Krill), wears a low brim hat and lurks upstairs, in the shadows. He roams from room to room rifling through the tenant's personal affects and randomly moving their furnishings while singing nostalgic 1930's songs. One wonders what he represents.

Is he the playwright’s muse or a symbol of the randomness and fragility of the protagonists’ lives?

April, the cynical prostitute, is the emotional counterpoint to the other character’s optimism.

As the theater goes dark, the play causes one to ask the question: is the past is really the past or is it only a different version of the present?

For that lingering thought alone, Steppenwolf's Hot L Baltimore is a worthwhile production not to be missed.

For more information, visit www.steppenwolf.org.

Met Live in HD Lucia Di Lammermoor a vivid portrait of love gone mad

Photos:

1. & 2. Joseph Calleja as Edgardo, Natalie Dessay as Lucia

3. Ludovic Tezier as Enrico

4. Kwangchul Youn as Chaplain Raimondo with Natalie Dessay

5. Joseph Calleja as Edgardo

6. Natalie Dessay in the title role of Lucia in the famous "mad" scene

Story by Dwight Casimere

Photos by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Miami—Soprano Natalie Dessay is the vocal engine that drives this powerhouse performance of Gaetano Donizetti’s tragic masterpiece, Lucia Di Lammermoor.

Set in early 19^th Century Scotland, this brooding tapestry of forbidden love, family intrigue, madness and death, is based on Sir Walter Scott’s then-shocking novel, The Bride of Lammermoor. Set amongst the bogs and ancient castles of Scotland, the character of Lucia and the plot itself are driven by visions of ghosts.

The plot centers around a feud between the Scottish families of Ravenswood and Lammermoor. Enrico, Lord Henry Ashton of Lammermoor (Ludovic Tezier) has taken over the estate of Edgardo, Edgar of Ravenswood (the stellar tenor Joseph Calleja) by killing his kinsmen in battle. Enrico has fallen on hard times (maybe he lost out in Scottish Madoff futures!?) and is banking everything on a scheme to force his sister Lucia, Lucy Ashton (Natalie Dessay) to marry Arturo, Lord Arthur Bucklaw, in order to bolster his fortunes. Lucia has her eye on Edgardo and has a ghostly premonition that her love for him will end in tragedy.

Forced to marry Arturo, Lucia vows to end her life. During a lavish wedding ceremony, Lucia goes mad and murders her new husband. In the opera’s most riveting moment, Dessay gives the performance of a lifetime in the famous mad scene. This alone is worth the price of admission.

Baritone Kwangchul Youn is exceptional as the chaplain Raimondo, who is sort of the ‘heavy’ here, urging Lucia to sign a marriage contract and wed Arturo in order to save his family fortune.

Tony Award-winning Director Mary Zimmerman brilliantly stages Lucia Di Lammermoor with stunning sets by Daniel Ostling and lavish Costumes by Mara Blumenfeld. Live in HD Director Barbara Willis Sweete gives her most loving visual attention to detail in this masterfully executed production. The whole thing will be reprised in an Encore Live in HD presentation at local theatres, including Miami’s Regal South Beach 18 on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida and Cinemark Seven Bridges in Woodridge in suburban Chicago. Showtime is Wednesday, April 6 at 6:30pm local time. For tickets and information, visit, www.metopera.org or www.fathomevents.com.

Chicago Symphony Center Jazz presents Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard: New Orleans' musical "blood brothers"

Photo credits:

1. Branford Marsalis-photo by Ronaldo Martinez/Getty Images

2. Terence Blanchard-photo by Morice Blackwell

3. Dianne Reeves-photo by Christian Lantry/Alverno presents

Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard: two New Orleans musical “blood brothers” in Symphony Center Jazz

Chicago--Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard are musical “blood brothers.” Although their lives and careers are virtual mirror images of each other, the two have only recently begun collaborating. This year, they embarked on their first joint national concert tour.

The two first met in elementary school in their native New Orleans. Both studied under Marsalis’ father, the legendary jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis(still teaching and performing at 76 and a regular at Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro in New Orleans’ French Quarter), apprenticed in Art Blakey’s “Young Lions” band and have collaborated on projects, including Jeff “Train” Watts 2009 album Watts, and the soundtrack for Spike Lee’s 1990 jazz homage Mo’ Better Blues, starring Denzel Washington.

The two then took divergent paths to fame and glory. Marsalis became a household name as leader of the Tonight Show orchestra, Blanchard became almost ubiquitous as a film scorer, composing music for more than 50 film soundtracks and garnering a Golden Globe nomination (Spike Lee’s 25^th Hour) and five Grammys along the way. He has just been named Artistic Director of the prestigious Henry Mancini Institute (HMI) at the University of Miami Frost School of Music in Coral Gables, Florida, near Miami, a community considered to be the Beverly Hills of Florida.

Each, in his own way, has reshaped the contour of modern jazz history while simultaneously maintaining a meteoric profile in mass media. It is no surprise that Symphony Center was filled to the rafters with adoring fans and jazz aficionados, which included a near majority of affluent African American music lovers and a healthy component of young, affluent Lincoln Park types, a welcome and healthy change from the normal main-line crowd at Symphony Center.

The two stellar artists did not disappoint. Marsalis and his adventurous quartet, led by music director and pianist/composer Joey Calderazzo, opened the night’s program. “We’re making a record together in July,” Marsalis let the cat out of the bag during a break after the first number, “so we’re still sort of arranging things as we go along.” To show how spontaneous the process is, Calderazzo quickly corrected the bandleader who said the previous song was untitled. “Well, I guess I stand corrected!” Marsalis said good-naturedly.

Marsalis is an explosive talent with technique and finesse to back up his “chops.” After a somewhat angular and dissonant opening piano solo that bordered on Thelonius Monk’s inspired ramblings, the mood shifted to a hard driving soprano sax solo by Marsalis that recalled the early Village Vanguard years of John Coltrane, and his legendary quartet that included Elvin Jones on Drums, McCoy Tyner on piano and Jim Garrison on Bass. Marsalis looked back on those golden years for a few moments and then proceeded to take the music into the stratosphere.

The audience was worked up into a frenzy, shouting its approval like celebrants at a Gospel Revival.

At times, the audible power of the music threatened to overwhelm the cavernous space. The bright acoustics of the auditorium and the over amplification of the band at times seemed to work against Marsalis’ efforts, but he managed to get his musical message across, anyway.

Terence Blanchard is the modern day equivalent to the late Elmer Bernstein when it comes to film scoring. Bernstein composed the scores to more than 200 films in his 50 year career. He won an Academy Award in 1967 for the film, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and continued composing for films practically up to his death in 2004.

Terence Blanchard was nominated for a Golden Globe for his film scoring efforts(Best Original Score, Spike Lee’s 25^th Hour-2002) and has scored more than 50 in his still burgeoning career. His best known film efforts are Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever and Malcolm X, and the films Barbershop and Love & Basketball.

The lives and careers of Blanchard and fellow New Orleans trumpet virtuoso, Wynton Marsalis, Branford’s younger brother (by one year), have been intertwined since childhood as well. Wynton and Blanchard played trumpet side-by-side at band camp. Since then, Blanchard has matched him note-for-note, career-wise. Both went from playing trumpet on the playground in New Orleans to become commanding presences on the world’s leading concert stages.

Blanchards sole Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumentalist was for his performance on the Lp “Illuminations” by the thunderous piano jazz legend McCoy Tyner, who was mentioned earlier in this review. Unlike Marsalis, who now lives in New York, Blanchard has maintained his New Orleans roots and still resides in the Crescent City’s storied Garden District with his wife and four children.

Blanchard’s trumpet playing is rooted in solid musical ground. His opening solo was a musical discourse on the modern jazz trumpet, paying homage to the legends before him, with echoes of Diz’ and Miles, Arturo Sandoval and a touch of Randy Brecker thrown into the mix. Once again, over amplification threatened to take over his most ambitious efforts, but the fluid, Debussy-like runs of his pianist, Fabian Almazan and the luminous rhapsodizing of Joe Sanders on Bass, kept the momentum and the music at a fever pitch. It was a virtuostic performance!

Dianne Reeves graces the Armour Stage Friday, April 15. The Grammy Award-winning diva will appear with an All-Star lineup, including Reginald Veal on Bass, Terreon Gully on Drum and percussion, Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo and music director and acclaimed jazz pianist Peter Martin. It should be another memorable night of Symphony Center Jazz Sponsored by Harris Bank. For tickets and information, visit cso.org.

Chicago Symphony-Leif Ove Andsnes in majestic Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2

1. Guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda

2. Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes

3. Van Cliburn performs the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 before a packed Moscow concert hall in 1958 at the height of the Cold War

by Dwight Casimere

CHICAGO—A luminous full moon hovering high over Symphony Center on Michigan Avenue was portentous. On a night marked by warm, spring-like temperatures that melted the remnants of winter’s deadly snows. The night’s program of Stravinsky’s Divertimento, Suite from The Fairy’s Kiss, Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, sounded more like one of the programs I would have heard when my parents were bringing me to Orchestra Hall as a reluctant pre-teen than anything programmed today. It is also like a program you’d hear today at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, where the Milan-born Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda became the first foreign-born Principal
Guest Conductor in 1997.

Inside Orchestra Hall, I was seated next to a woman whose husband had served in the violin section of the CSO for 48 years. Previewing the program, I commented that it had been more than 15 years since I’d heard the Borodin performed on the Armour Stage. (Program notes affirmed April 17, 1994 under conductor Valery Gergiev as the most recent CSO performance at Orchestra Hall). The names of Fritz Reiner, who recorded the Stravinsky with the CSO in 1958, and Van Cliburn, who recorded the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with Reiner and the CSO in 1961, naturally entered the conversation. This was truly an ‘Old School’ program, we both agreed. It was one that the audience would enjoy every moment of.

Stravinsky wrote “The Fairy’s Kiss:” as homage to his favorite composer, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Noseda invested in it all of the whimsy and fantasy at his disposal, dispensing dance-like rhythms like magic dust. The Scherzo, in particular, sparkled.

Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor is rarely heard in concert halls these days. It’s a lovely work that centers around a lavish romantic theme that was once a popular hit for the pop singer Johnny Mathis, based on a re-working of the famous oboe melody for the Broadway hit “Kismet.”

Normally, the solo concerto is played with the guest artist in the first half of the program, before intermission. Noseda chose to program differently, saving the best for last, the way I remember it being done many times in European concert halls. Leif Ove Andsnes, lent the force of his significant prowess to the Brahm’s infusing it with all of the majesty, power and elegance it deserved. He displayed particular insight in the slow second passages and brought to mind the elegant playing of the great Van Cliburn in his performances with the Moscow Philharmonic. The simpatico exchange between Andsnes and cellist John Sharp in the Andante was transfixing.

“Nice band,” my seatmate said, tongue-in-cheek as the audience’s ovation subsided.

As I exited Orchestra Hall into the near-balmy night and stared up at the full moon, I wondered if perhaps Van Cliburn and Reiner might have transcended time and space to ‘sit in’ for the evening’s performance.

Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct’s a program of Wagner ‘s Preludes to Die Meistersinger, Donatoni’s Esa and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E Major, Thursday, March 3, Saturday, March 5, and Sunday, March 6. Monday, March 7, violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman joins members of the CSO and Rotary International for a benefit performance supporting the final push to end polio worldwide. A post-concert reception with the artist takes place in the Grainger Ballroom. Polio eradication resonates strongly with Mr. Perlman. He contracted the disease at age four and overcame serious physical challenges to become one of the world’s most celebrated musicians. For tickets and information, visit. www.cso.org.

Stewart Goodyear turns massive New World Symphony Hall into French salon

1. Stewart Goodyear file photo

2-4. New World Center images by Dwight Casimere

Story and photos by Dwight Casimere

MIAMI BEACH-George Sand and Marcel Proust would have felt right at home, although a bit visually bedazzled, had they time-traveled to this emerald city’s Frank Gehry –designed New World Symphony Center. The massive billowy sailed concert hall had been scaled down to an intimate French salon for an afternoon of chamber music featuring the music of three diverse, forward-thinking French composers who made their mark over the last two centuries.

The works explored the musings of Francis Poulenc and his Sextet for Piano and Winds (1832-39), Chicago Symphony Orchestra Conductor Emeritus Pierre Boulez’s Derive (1984) and Memoriale (1985) and Ernest Chausson’s probative Quartet in A major for Piano and Strings, Op. 30 (1897) with the Promethean Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear at the helm of an ensemble featuring the New World’s Crème de la Crème of stringed instrument players.

France in the 1920s was the entertainment nexus of the world. Josephine Baker was a household name. This electrifying black American singer and dancer led a wave of black expatriate artists to the City of Light, many of the hailing from the speakeasies and dance halls of Harlem and New Orlean’s French Quarter. New music and new art sprang up in every corner. A new world order of artistic expression had waged war on the prim and proper Victorian era that preceded it. Jazz became the vernacular of musicians such as Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt and Darius Milhaud. Cubism and Modernism with Picasso and Cezanne at the forefront, began to deconstruct the art world and Paris and its Latin Quarter became the expatriate home to a new age of literary voices, including the African American writers Langston Hughes and later, James Baldwin. A cultural war was being waged in the City of Light and Montmartre was its beachhead.

Enter Francis Poulenc, leader of a rising tide of French composers known as “Les Six.” Poulenc was a terrific pianist and a prolific composer with a penchant for experimentation. The NWS sextet, with its most expressive voices residing in Clint Foreman on flute and Marnie Hauschildt on piano, captured the composer’s restless mood and chattering excitement.

Pierre Boulez remains as one of the most controversial voices in modern music, even at 85 years old. His Derive (1984) and Memoriale (1985) are shining examples of his explorations into atonality and minimalism and the young musicians of the NWS approached them with eloquence.

“Canadian Cannonball” Stewart Goodyear reigned in his considerable Niagran force on the piano to produced a restrained and pensive performance of Ernest Chausson’s Quartet in A major for Piano and Strings. With Karla Donehew-Perez playing an emotionally soaring violin at the forefront of a stellar quartet including Lotem Beider, viola and David Meyer, cello, the performers transcended the notes on the page to produce a performance of unbridled emotion. Their measured approach achieved a climax that smoldered with emotional intensity. Only the amber glow of lights along the River Seine could rival the warm afterglow felt by the audience as the music echoed into silence.

In the weeks ahead, the New World Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas will explore the music of Tchaikovsky (Feb 19-20) and host a Special Presentation, NWS WALLCASTtm: Concerto Showcase, Saturday, March 5 at 7:30pm that is free to the public in Miami Beach Soundscape on the lawn of the New World Symphony Center. It’s worth a trip to South Beach for the experience. For information, visit www.nws.edu.

Met Live in HD Nixon in China packs theaters worldwide

Story by Dwight Casimere

Miami—From the moment composer John Adams took the podium before the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in the Met Live HD transmission and lifted the baton to his first-ever conducting effort to his opera “Nixon in China,” it was obvious that something historic and totally breathtaking was about to take place.

The opening strains of the opera were suspenseful, dramatic and fraught with fear of the unknown. The music pulsated with constantly shifting meters. It ebbed and flowed like the waters of the mighty Yangtze River, alternating subsiding into silent tide pools only to surge forward in a mighty torrent.

The opening chorus, so expertly honed into a cohesive, single voice by Chorus Master Donald Palumbo, intones “The people are the heroes now, Behemoth pulls the peasant’s plow.” At times, the modal chord structure and rhythmic pattern resemble that of the old Negro Spirituals, further grounding the idea that this is the “people’s music” and the sentiments of the common man and woman in the new, revolutionary China.

In Nixon’s opening aria, after alighting from the Presidential plane, Spirit of ’76, on that historic day, February 21, 1972, baritone James Maddalena, who originated the role, pronounced in Max Headroom verbal glitches and repetition, “the News is a mystery….”

Soprano Kathleen Kim gave the most stunning performance of the afternoon as the blood-curdling Chiang Ch’ing, Madame Mao. British mezzo Janis Kelly was the stately, morally sensitive Pat Nixon, who reacts with shock and sadness at the brutality that underlies the philosophical platitudes of the Cultural Revolution.

Choreographer Mark Morris’s riveting ballet “The Red Detachment of Women,” graphically paints a moving mural of the Cultural Revolution, which etches its slogans in the blood of its detractors.

Speaking to backstage interviewer and Met Opera baritone Thomas Hampson, Adam’s collaborator, Peter Sellars, who also directed the production for Live HD transmission, with composer Adams at the podium, expounded on the ideas behind the opera, which was originally his idea.

“The opera is full of contradictions, and the music expresses that so vividly with all these layers upon layers. You have Nixon who is slavishly trying to discuss the issues and Mao wants to rail on and on about philosophy. We’re not sure if he’s just being cagey and doing this to avoid getting down to basics. We see him going further into this cosmos of ideas that almost cease to have any real meaning, except in his own twisted reality and inflated ego.”

Composer Adams offered Hampson this summation:” Twenty-five years ago, Nixon was in disgrace and was pretty much reduced to the level of late-night television comedian jokes. The more I thought about it, the collision of cultures-Communism vs. Capitalism, East vs. West-we haven’t met Madame Mao yet, but we will in the Second Act. I think I was so young, so naïve and so green, that I had no idea what I was taking on. If I had thought about it, I probably would have freaked out!”

In talking about the characterizations, Adams said; “the Nixon I knew as a college kid had this very precise way of talking. He repeats himself constantly in the opening ‘News’ aria. Pat, as we see her in Act Two, going around China, she’s very sweet. Madame Mao, I kind of see her as a kind of shrieking, very fiery coloratura and Mao, as you can see, I thought of him as an over-the-top kind of Helden-Tenor. You see him as the ‘Leader of the People,’ whose really only listening to himself.”

What makes the opera important in his eyes, Adams further expounded, is the fact that events surrounding Nixon in China are still fresh in everyone’s mind. “It’s part of the themes of our lives. The events are ripped right out of the headlines and are prescient to what’s happening today. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t hear about terrorists or the President.”

Director and collaborator Sellars echoed the sentiment, pointing out,” how timely that this worldwide broadcast today is happening on the same weekend as the historic revolution in Egypt. It could not have been more to the point!”

Nixon in China played to packed houses in theatres around the word. There was not a seat to be found in the Regal 18 in South Beach, Miami, Florida where I saw the production. An encore performance will be held Wednesday, March 2 at 6:30pm. Visit www.fathomevents.com or www.metopera.org for tickets.

Miami's New World Symphony unveils "Super Bowl" of concert experiences

Story and photos by Dwight Casimere

Miami Beach—Super Bowl Weekend brought a pair of “All Star” performances from this sun-kissed city’s New World Symphony Orchestra and the second introduction of a new technology designed to bring the concert experience inside to the public lawn outside the dazzling new Frank Gehry designed New World Center free of charge.

Founder and Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas conducted a wide-ranging program that included two works by the groundbreaking twentieth century composer Charles Ives, From the Steeples to the Mountains (1905-06) and The Unanswered Question (1906-08), Bella Bartok’s Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra (1938) with Hamburg-born violin virtuosos Christian Tetzlaff and a brilliant performance of Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D major, by the New World Symphony orchestra.

Maestro Thomas made full use of the new symphony hall’s “in the round” configuration by positioning the trumpet soloists on balconies that towered above the concert stage and the audience. It created a dynamic ‘echo’ affect that underlined the emotional dynamics of the musical. It served for particularly poignant effect in “The Unanswered Question,” which Maestro Thomas earlier explained, was the express role of the trumpet solo.

The $160 million concert hall and school was developed by the Walt Disney Los Angeles Symphony Concert Hall team of architect Frank Gehry (Guggenheim Art Museums, New York and Bilbao, Spain) and acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota. The concert hall employs multi-media technology inside, with program text and corresponding video images shown simultaneous to the orchestra’s performance. A high definition video WALLCAST” projects the concert inside to the 7,000 square foot façade of the building. A sound system of 167 individually tuned loudspeakers delivers the concert to the audience outside.

The inside of the New World Center is one of the most innovative in the world and has become a cultural focus in Miami. Architect Gehry has incorporated an interactive setting into the design of the symphony hall. Seating is positioned in a ‘vineyard pattern’ that weaves around the orchestra, completely surrounding it. No seat is more than 13 rows from the stage, creating a truly dynamic ‘live’ experience. The music comes at you from every angle. The sounds of the horns, drums, even the slightest touch of the strings in the quieter moments, seem to ‘ping’ on the ear as if you were sitting right there among the members of the orchestra. Huge curvilinear ‘sails’ hang from the ceiling that further enhance the acoustics and are also used to project video images and animation. It is truly an all-encompassing concert experience like no other I have had in my 30 years of writing about serious music in the world’s leading concert halls, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Covent Garden, the Royal Philharmonic, Royal Albert Hall and Barbican Center in London.

The Saturday evening concert featured re-introduction of live concert WALLCASTStm, a giant exterior projection on the outside wall of New World Center to the beautifully landscaped pubic park of the campus where the outdoor audience is enveloped in a high-quality audio system while watching the concert simulcast through cameras inside the concert hall. Folks brought their picnic blankets and chairs, along with picnic dinners and take-out from nearby Lincoln Road restaurants. They brought their entire families, including young children and even the family dog to experience the musical treat. A smattering of bicycles, skateboards and baby strollers added to the summer’s eve atmosphere.

At times, the sound of sirens and the din of weekend traffic drowned out the quieter moments of the Ives pieces, but the piercing energy of Tetzlaff’s violin solos riveted the audience’s attention. The thunderous applause at the conclusion of the Bartok was as much for the performance as it was for the innovative WALLCASTtm. At the conclusion of the emotional performance, one concertgoer was overheard saying to anyone who’d listen. “At last. I feel like we finally live in a real city!” Amen to that!

Sunday’s performance saw Tetzlaff in championship form. He invested the Bartok, with its soaring, sonorous melodies and flashes of difficult, expressive runs, with the totality of his emotional being. His fingers seemed to dart across the violin’s soundboard as he executed the complex runs with alacrity. He dispatched the dizzying progression of double and triple stops with ease and forged ahead to an explosive conclusion.

Maestro Thomas and the New World Symphony gave a thoughtful, measured reading of the Brahms Symphony No. 2. He payed particular attention to the dance-like tempos in the third movement Allegretto graziosos (Quasi andantino), even swaying in time to the music to emphasize it lilting character. The finale, Allegro con spirito, was true to the notation, lively with spirited expression. It was a performance that reflected the sparkling vitality of the surroundings of the New World Symphony Center campus.

The weekend of February 11 an 12, the New World Center will see a performance of “Revolution: The Music of Igor Stravinsky” with Teddy Abrams, who marks his third season as Conducting Fellow, as guest conductor and Jamie Bernstein, as host/narrator. Ms. Bernstein is the daughter of musical icon Leonard Bernstein and producer of the symphony pops concert hit production “Bernstein on Broadway” produced with conductor Michael Barrett. The Valentine’s Day weekend is rounded out by a matinee performance of “French Legacies” featuring the music of Francis Poulenc, Pierre Boulez and Ernest Chausson with the dynamic Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear as soloist. February 19-20 sees weekend concerts, “Tchaikovsky: The Fateful Fourth,” with legendary Maestro Sir Neville Mariner as conductor and dazzling soloist Isabelle van Keulen on her 1734 Guarnerius del Gesu violin, playing the Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn (1844).

The dazzling New World Symphony Center has quickly become a cultural landmark in Miami. It is worth a special trip, especially one to get away from Chicago and New York’s winter deep-freeze. With the sluggish economy and slump in tourism there are lots of deals on airfares and hotels that make a visit here affordable. I highly recommend it. For tickets and information,

Visit www.nws.edu.