MORE STORIES

• Two notable debuts at piano festival

  Since its origins, the Miami International Piano Festival's ''Discovery Series'' has been a showcase principally for young 20-something artists at the beginning of their careers ---- and sometimes even those in their teens, in the case of the French pianist Lise de la Salle who performed here a year ago.

• Bravo! | Miami International Piano Festival

  The Miami International Piano Festival continues through Sunday with three wide-ranging recitals and the traditional Concerto Night closer.

• CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW

  Piano fest opens with flair

  In the 20th-century the Eurocentric keyboard literature of Chopin, Beethoven, and Brahms was enriched by an unexpected profusion of works created by Spanish and South American composers.

• CLASSICAL MUSIC

  Seraphic Fire to unveil chamber orchestra this fall

  Seraphic Fire's 2008-2009 season will feature the debut of its chamber orchestra, an expansion to nine programs, and a return to performances in Palm Beach County.

• PERFORMING ARTS

  3 classical concerts canceled

  The Concert Association of Florida has canceled three classical events slated for the 2008-09 season at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, indicating a burgeoning fiscal and artistic crisis at the Miami presenting organization.

• WAGNER FESTIVAL

  After six decades, Wagner steps down from namesake event

  Wolfgang Wagner, the longtime director of the annual festival of Richard Wagner's operas, will step down after leading the event for nearly six decades.

• New World wraps season in brilliant style

  For two decades, the New World Symphony has provided local audiences with first-class performances, but it is the organization's educational mission that has had the most far-reaching impact. New World alums have taken up positions around the globe, many in first-rank ensembles, an eloquent testament to the quality of post-conservatory professional training provided by artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World staff.

• CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW

  Philharmonia soars with Mahler

  The Philharmonia Orchestra is a rare symphonic hybrid, an English orchestra with a firm Austro-German tradition. Founded in 1945 by the legendary producer Walter Legge as a studio ensemble, the Philharmonia quickly established a strong reputation with several magnificent recordings and live concerts by postwar luminaries Otto Klemperer and Herbert von Karajan.

• Bravo! | New World Symphony

  Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony will wrap up their 20th anniversary season Saturday night with a reunion concert at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Twenty NWS alumni who have gone on to take positions in leading orchestras around the country will join Tilson Thomas and the New World for an all-Russian program of ballet music featuring Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Act 3 of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Concert time is 8 p.m. at the Knight Concert Hall, 1300 Biscayne...

• CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW

  A smart, quirky pairing

  In their contrasts, Franz Schubert and Alban Berg make a complementary pair. Both composers were, in very different ways, intrinsically Viennese and each man died young -- Schubert, most tragically, at 31. Schubert's genius added harmonic complexity and metaphysical angst to Biedermeier-era complacency. Berg's lyricism and emotional depth put a human face on the chilly serialism of the Second Viennese School.

• Hail, 'Caesar'! Stylish Handel closes FGO season

  George Frideric Handel viewed opera as grand entertainment chock full of music, drama, extravagant stage effects and, of course, sensational singing.

• Miami Symphony soars with Sibelius

  In many ways, the Miami Symphony Orchestra remains a work in progress as it approaches its 20th season. The orchestra has gradually built up an impressive string section while woodwinds remain variable, and horns, bar-to-bar, can be a sometime thing.

• CLASSICAL MUSIC

  German conductor makes belated Miami debut

  It's taken a long, successful lifetime for Christoph von Dohnányi to make his Miami debut. Yet for the last two years, local concertgoers have been the vicarious beneficiaries of the German conductor's leadership by virtue of the Cleveland Orchestra's Miami residency.

• BEHIND THE SCENES | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

  Catch 'The Accomplices' at GableStage

  Bernard Weinraub retired from his job as The New York Times' Hollywood reporter in 2005, but the longtime Times man hasn't been idle. When his 2007 first play, The Accomplices, opens this weekend at GableStage, Weinraub will be among those in the audience.

• Bravo! | Florida Grand Opera

  Reversing the usual sequence, for classical aficionados, April came in like a lamb and it's going out like a lion. In addition to Florida Grand Opera opening its production of Handel's Julius Caesar on Saturday night, the New World Symphony is offering an intensive three-program Viennese festival, and there are several other worthy events.

• CLASSICAL MUSICAL REVIEW

  Bach Society wraps season with rarity

  The Baroque revival of the last 40 years has restored a great deal of neglected music to the regular repertory, not least the operas of Handel and Monteverdi.

• New World Students sail on a 'Cosi' cruise

  Created by the Florida Legislature, the New World School of the Arts has provided successful artistic education and training for innumerable students over the last two decades. The school's achievement in the pursuit of artistic excellence is manifest in the fact that 99 percent of its students graduate from high school and 95 percent go on to college.

• CLASSICAL MUSIC

  Conductor's debut to praise 'Caesar'

  When one thinks of Miami's most daring, cutting-edge musical institutions, Florida Grand Opera is not the first name that leaps to mind. Yet eight years ago, the company mounted a wildly theatrical, highly acclaimed staging of Handel's Julius Caesar with a remarkable cast, including countertenor David Daniels singing the title role just before his breakout career success.

• BEHIND THE SCENES | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

  St. Thomas honors Cuban artist

  Cuban artist Héctor Molné, whose colorful paintings depict scenes of Cuban folklore, was honored at St. Thomas University with the Presidential Award of Excellence for outstanding achievements and cultural contributions to fine arts.

• Cachao season is in full swing

  Cachao season is in full swing. We can expect homages to the late master bassist/composer who passed away last month, including a major one later this year, which was meant not as conmemorative concert but one in which the Cuban maestro would perform.

• Bravo! | 'Cosi fan tutte'

  In addition to its esteemed national reputation for training gifted student singers and instrumentalists, the New World School of the Arts offers a number of events that are open to the public. This weekend, the school's College Opera Ensemble will present Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in two fully staged performances.

• CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW

  Maestros turn in memorable performance

  Although there was a time when few pianists willingly took on the massive technical challenges of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, today's well-equipped keyboard wizards perform it frequently.

• OPERA REVIEW

  Miami's Mimi a highlight in FGO's lackluster 'La boheme'

  As the consumptive Mimi took her last breath Saturday night, the hushed, poignant moment was immediately shattered by a rude horn blat in the first ominous death chord.

• Florida Grand Opera fires its orchestra contractor

  Florida Grand Opera has officially fired its orchestra contractor Sunset Entertainment of Delray Beach and has hired Miami Symphonic Services to provide its pit musicians for the 2008-2009 season.