South Florida Symphony to Mark 20th Anniversary with Hemingway Concert in Key West
Classical music aficionados can celebrate the South Florida Symphony’s 20th anniversary season by joining the landmark orchestra in Key West for a concert and soiree inspired by Ernest Hemingway, the island city’s most famous literary resident.
The concert, titled “Mozart Meets Hemingway & Siudy Flamenco” pairs the critically acclaimed symphony with GRAMMY Award–winning cellist Zuill Bailey and the Siudy Flamenco Dance Theater. The unique evening of music, dance and creative collaboration is scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16, at the Glynn Archer Performing Arts Center at 2100 Flagler Ave. on the campus of Key West High School.
Guided by award-winning conductor and Key West native Sebrina María Alfonso, the symphony is a renowned professional orchestra that performs in Key West and other South Florida cities.
Launching its 20th masterworks series, the December concert is to showcase Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 “Haffner”; Manuel de Falla’s “El Amor Brujo: Ballet Suite,” incorporating the fiery flamenco mastery of Siudy Garrido; and Michael Daugherty’s “Tales of Hemingway” concerto for cello and orchestra, a musical interpretation of four Hemingway works featuring Bailey’s unparalleled musicianship.
In 2017 the live “Tales of Hemingway” album, highlighted by Bailey’s artistry, earned three prestigious GRAMMY Awards including one for the best classical instrumental solo.
Prior to the performance, the South Florida Symphony is to celebrate its 20th anniversary with a Dec. 14 soiree at Key West’s Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, located at 907 Whitehead St., where the famed American author lived and wrote for most of the 1930s.
Attendees at the 6 p.m. event can meet Bailey, Daugherty and Garrido’s lead dancers while also commemorating the orchestra’s Key West birth and ensuing triumphs.
Subsequent masterworks performances during the symphony’s 2017-18 season include “Martha Graham’s Dance of Life,” scheduled Sunday, Jan. 21; “Beethoven and Vivaldi’s Expressions of Nature,” Wednesday, Feb. 28; and “Symphonie Fantastique,” Thursday, April 19.
Each masterworks concert is to be preceded by an insightful “symphony chat” with classical pianist and music historian Edward Pitts.
The symphony also plans to pay homage to composer Leonard Bernstein and Tony Award–winning musicals with a pops concert Saturday, Feb. 10, titled “And the Tony Goes to …”
Masterworks series subscription packages, as well as tickets for individual performances and the 20th anniversary soiree, can be purchased online at southfloridasymphony.org.
Season information and calendar: southfloridasymphony.org