{"id":115157,"date":"2026-01-12T16:05:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T16:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/115157\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T16:05:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T16:05:33","slug":"andrew-grams-leads-miami-jazz-classical-night-at-the-arsht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/115157\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Grams Leads Miami Jazz-Classical Night at the Arsht"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend at the Adrienne Arsht Center<\/a>, Andrew Grams stood before the New World Symphony <\/a>as the guest ensemble with the ease of someone who understands both the weight of history and the thrill of reinvention. The program, an ambitious exploration of jazz <\/a>and classical music\u2019s long, intertwined dialogue, felt less like a museum piece and more like a living conversation, pulsing with improvisation, memory, and distinctly American spirit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grams, former music director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra and a familiar presence in major concert halls, marked a personal milestone with the performance. While New World Symphony is based at the Frank Gehry\u2013designed New World Center in Miami Beach, the ensemble regularly appears as a guest orchestra at major venues, including the Adrienne Arsht Center downtown. Though he has spent decades inside the Arsht, this weekend marked his first time conducting there since the venue opened nearly 20 years ago, when he appeared as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the concert halls, but not as a conductor,\u201d he said in an interview with New Times. \u201cThis will be my first time conducting since it opened twenty years ago.\u201d The return carried emotional resonance, underscoring the sense of continuity that ran throughout the evening\u2019s repertoire.<\/p>\n

The concert, presented at the Adrienne Arsht Center with the New World Symphony as the guest orchestra, centered on works that exist at the intersection of classical tradition and jazz innovation. Duke Ellington\u2019s reimagining of Tchaikovsky\u2019s Nutcracker Suite opened the night, immediately setting the tone. Ellington\u2019s version doesn\u2019t merely reinterpret the ballet \u2014 it reframes it, infusing Tchaikovsky\u2019s melodies with swing, blues harmonies, and rhythmic elasticity. In Grams\u2019 hands, the piece felt playful yet pointed, a reminder that American music has always been shaped by the convergence of European forms and the African diaspora. As Grams noted, Ellington \u201cbrilliantly marries classical and jazz and tells an epic story, which is symphonic in scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

That idea of storytelling emerged again and again. \u201cSymphony orchestras require the audience to focus on a piece\u2019s oral history,\u201d Grams explains, a concept that resonated strongly in Ellington\u2019s monumental Black, Brown and Beige. Written as a sweeping narrative of Black life in America, the work unfolded with gravity and pride, reclaiming space within the symphonic canon for histories long marginalized. Under Grams\u2019 direction, the New World Symphony Fellows approached the piece not as an artifact, but as a living document.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the evening was George Gershwin\u2019s Rhapsody in Blue, performed with the Marcus Roberts Trio. \u201cRhapsody in Blue is Americana at its finest,\u201d Grams says, and the performance affirmed that claim. Gershwin\u2019s iconic opening clarinet glissando gave way to a work that is at once mindful and deeply emotional. \u201cThe jazz element that Gershwin uses throughout the piece is both intellectual and heartfelt,\u201d Grams notes, a balance that the orchestra and trio captured with remarkable clarity.<\/p>\n

Marcus Roberts, a South Florida native, former member of Wynton Marsalis\u2019 bands, and professor of jazz piano at Florida State University, brought his celebrated interpretation of the piece to the stage. His approach, first recorded on the critically acclaimed 1996 album Portraits in Blue, leans heavily into improvisation, allowing the music to breathe and evolve in real time. Alongside drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Rodney Jordan, Roberts transformed Rhapsody in Blue into a shared dialogue, with each musician shaping tempo, texture, and mood on the fly. Their improvisational moments injected spontaneity into the symphonic framework, blurring boundaries in a way Gershwin himself would likely have applauded.<\/p>\n

The program also included Darius Milhaud\u2019s La cr\u00e9ation du monde, a jazz-inflected work inspired by the composer\u2019s experiences in 1920s Harlem. Its angular rhythms and bold harmonies sounded strikingly modern, even a century later. James P. Johnson\u2019s Victory Stride closed the evening on an exuberant note, swinging with confidence and joy.<\/p>\n

For Grams, working with the New World Symphony Fellows \u2014 members of America\u2019s Orchestral Academy \u2014 is as meaningful as the repertoire itself. \u201cIt\u2019s a joy working with young fellows and witnessing their evolution as musicians,\u201d he says. The NWS fellowship program, which brings together musicians typically aged 22 to 30 for intensive three-year residencies, emphasizes not only technical excellence but also entrepreneurial thinking and community engagement. \u201cIt\u2019s important for young musicians to learn not just about the greats of classical music like Beethoven,\u201d Grams adds, \u201cbut also the greats of jazz like Mary Lou Williams as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That openness to perspective runs both ways. \u201cI enjoy learning how kids see the world,\u201d Grams says, underscoring the reciprocal nature of mentorship at NWS. The Fellows\u2019 curiosity and willingness to question tradition infused the performance with urgency and relevance.<\/p>\n

Hovering over the evening was a quote often attributed to Igor Stravinsky: \u201cGood composers borrow, great composers steal.\u201d The line felt particularly apt for a program that celebrated transformation rather than purity. Gershwin borrowed from jazz, Ellington stole from classical forms and made them his own, and Milhaud absorbed Harlem\u2019s soundscape into European modernism. What emerged was not imitation, but innovation.<\/p>\n

As the final notes faded, the audience was left with a sense that American music, like America itself, is defined by exchange, adaptation, and reinvention. Under Andrew Grams\u2019 thoughtful and energetic leadership, the New World Symphony reminded listeners that the past is not something to preserve behind glass, but rather something to engage with, challenge, and reimagine in the present.<\/p>\n

That spirit of reinvention continues later this month as New World Symphony returns home to the New World Center for a major two-program event celebrating the music of composer John Adams. On Saturday, January 17 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, January 18 at 2 p.m., NWS Artistic Director St\u00e9phane Den\u00e8ve joins Adams himself on the podium, alongside Icelandic pianist V\u00edkingur \u00d3lafsson, for a retrospective that spans Adams\u2019 bold, genre-defying career. The January 17 performance will also be presented as a WALLCAST\u00ae concert, livestreamed for free via NWS Inside and projected in 4K onto the New World Center\u2019s iconic exterior wall in SoundScape Park. As New World Symphony marks the 15th anniversary of its Frank Gehry\u2013designed home, the Adams programs, blending innovation, accessibility, and deep musical inquiry, stand as a fitting continuation of the ideas explored at the Arsht: that American music is most powerful when it remains open, evolving, and in dialogue with its time.<\/p>\n

John Adams with Den\u00e9ve & \u00d3lafsson. Saturday, January 17; 7:30 pm and Sunday, January 18;\u00a0 2:00 pm at the New World Symphony, 500 17th St, Miami Beach; 305-673-3330. Tickets range from $25.00 to $170 and are on sale now at www.nws.edu<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This weekend at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Andrew Grams stood before the New World Symphony as the guest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1823,225,227,226,2311],"class_list":{"0":"post-115157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-concert-reviews","9":"tag-hialeah","10":"tag-hialeah-headlines","11":"tag-hialeah-news","12":"tag-local-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}