South Florida Classical Review » Blog Archive » Miami Symphony opens season with Beatles-inspired premiere

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

The Miami Symphony Orchestra opened its season Sunday with the world premiere of Sam Hyken’s Beatles Guide to the Orchestra. Hyken, currently involved in the Miami Music Project Orchestral Academy, is the orchestra’s principal trumpet player and has a definite interest in the merging of disparate styles of music. The Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall provided the showcase for his skillful symphonic arrangement of several Beatles’ tunes into a narrated orchestral guide clearly modeled on that of Benjamin Britten.

The Beatles Guide is an eclectic piece in popular style, with elements of jazz. Opening with what sounded like Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ, Superstar, it quickly segued into Octopus’s Garden and took off from there.   The orchestration and arrangement were skillful and, if Britten got to the finish first, this imitation as the sincerest form of flattery even went so far as to include a fugue during the closing pages, as did Britten. The audience gave a standing ovation to Hyken and embraced this entertaining music with great enthusiasm. it would be surprising if the music does not emerge as a pop concert favorite. The orchestra, under Eduardo Marturet played with style and spirit.

Two popular warhorses completed the program. Tchaikovsky’s familiar Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor can sometimes seem a chore to sit through if routinely performed. from the opening bracing statement of the horns it was clear that both conductor and players aspired to something more.

Stewart Goodyear/ Photo: Andrew Garn

Pianist Stewart Goodyear, a student of Oxana Yablonskaya, Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman and Claude Frank, entered with muscular authority, and a determination to banish all thought of the ordinary. this he achieved by using his varied tone and fleet fingerwork to bring a new freshness to this jaded masterwork. Marturet gave his timpani player an unusual amount of sonic freedom, and the resultant strength of the music was underlined.

Goodyear played the Andantino with beautifully rapt expression, and the breakaway Prestissimo took off like lightening. a few clashes of tempo between orchestra and piano, here and in the final movement, almost threatened to disrupt things, but recovery was quick, with perfection sacrificed to the excitement of the moment. even with a cacophony of audience coughs and sneezes, what came through was a performance as fresh, vigorous, and thrilling as any to be heard.

Quickly re-entering from the wings, Marturet hopped onto the podium and immediately began the famous “fate” motif of Beethoven’s fifth Symphony. this was to be a no-nonsense performance, expressive of all the anger and frustration felt by the composer over his increasing deafness. Tempos were quick, all repeats taken, and the rousing horns sounding forth as if life depended on their sheer raw, bold power.  With the conductor refusing to rein in the timpani, the music took on a new, and more forceful dimension of power and excitement. by the time the trombones entered for the final Allegro, the performance had grown into quite an achievement for the Miami Symphony Orchestra, with only the reticent piccolo buried during the jubilant final moments.

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Review: "Tower heist" a large, high-profile occupied caper - on paper

In the new action comedy "Tower," plays Madoff-ish financier Alan Alda a Bernie, promotes its business acumen and lives a flashy lifestyle, complete with penthouse apartment and world-class art collection, but winds up a total amounted to is.

The character winds up has walking metaphor for the film himself, a superb cast, beautiful camera and a caper-stripes result, the action drives. It is a pity that when it has about you realize that the characters are not interesting and titular heist was not everything that moves.

Arthur Shaw (Alda) lives on the Tower, New York most expensive and exclusive high-rise where employee to the needs of its demanding tenants sees. Running that Josh of Kovács (Ben Stiller) is the staff, which his work, he seems to have little time for fun in addition to the online chess games, which he always on Shaw loses so dedicated.

Shaw gets arrested for fraud and Josh is forced to tell the staff he to invest Shaw, for they had given their pension fund, about. FBI special agent Claire (Téa Leoni) Josh says that they find no money in Shaw's flat, but Josh remembers that Shaw had installed safely hidden wall to years earlier.

Josh decides with blind faith that Shaw's emergency is locked nest egg in this safe, plan a robbery, know with which he and his brother-in-law, building Concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck), the Tower will have the money under the nose of the Shaw and the Feds, watching over him, while he is under house arrest.

on paper all the makings of a good comedy of one shot timely revenge on the rich guy story arc for great New York by Dante Spinotti to a jazzy Lalo Schifrin-esque result by Christophe Beck a snappy comic ensemble (includes also Eddie Murphy as Josh's childhood acquaintance enabled petty thief, Judd Hirsch as a humorless building manager, and Gabourey Sidibe as a girl with a talent for safe cracking).

where "Tower-Heist" apart goes in the direction of Brett Ratner and the script by Ted is Griffin and Jeff Nathanson - the biggest caper movies give us elaborately planned burglary, where each element of the system falls in place like the cups of a lock, but this one is shamelessly sloppy.

We are for example said that Thanksgiving the busiest day of the year in the Tower, with several dinner parties in the ongoing and catering truck (if the robbery is taking place) come and go all day; Why, then are the hallways and lobby of those staff as blank next to building? Security forces are not by the thieves planning, but redirected by pure chance. and why would Matthew Broderick sad sack finance analyst, have removed only from the building, are for the heist when he brings no special abilities to the table?

"Tower Heist" promises a lot more than it delivers; the film leads a manhunt by the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (NBCUniversal synergies at work, no doubt) and but then everything works the hustle and bustle of the event in action, what at the parade give Stiller and company to sneak in a door, while each Snoopy is just a moment.

not that the script better with people - sure, if you have all those involved in the crime, but a motivation they are? Murphy's and Sidibe of characters flirt, for five seconds, for example, but then it is never again mentioned.

It will take a cast of this talented meat from such lean characterizations. The MVP here should Michael Peña, brings his unique screwball comic skills (those who him the only one worth seeing "30 minutes or less" for) as operator for newly listed elevator, the integral is the robbery.

The hope was that "Tower-heist" Murphy's mark return to form, put it in the way of the action-comedy role, which originally brought him fame in movies like "48 hours" and "Beverly Hills Cop" and while he here everything only not embarrass himself, feels a little red and familiar at this time, like the Stiller closely wound type A guy.

The high-quality ingredients "Tower-Heist" make it, to sit, at least, painless and the film pull off a few set pieces for measures that are stunning exciting. It is a pity only that Ratner craftsmen enough to prevent that they reduce soufflé not.

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