Sharon Kennedy Wynne, Tampa Bay Times, 31st December 2015
“I love how fancy it makes me sound to say that my favorite concert of the year was the debut of Michael Francis as music director of the Florida Orchestra. The Oct. 2 Masterworks concert featured a dazzling pianist on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and 86 musicians parading Aaron Copland’s iconic American Symphony No. 3.
It’s because I’m more of a Green Day kind of gal that this show ended up being my favorite, thanks to the mini music appreciation class from Professor Francis.
Like all of this season’s Masterworks concerts, if you arrive early, you get to hear a talk with inside stories about the music and the composers. Francis is a charming speaker, and when he got wound up in describing Copland’s music he was riveting. He described how the first movement embodies an internal clash with trombones, “almost like the heartbeat of the soul of the nation.”
With his vivid descriptions in my head, I had a clear vision as the music played of the wide American plain, the tick-tock of the Industrial Revolution, the tragedy of war and the post-war optimism of Fanfare for the Common Man.
He also prepared us for Rachmaninoff and what pianists call the Mount Everest of concertos. Guest pianist Valentina Lisitsa, a classical star of YouTube, delivered the complex performance needed, her fingers sprinting down the keys with blinding speed.
Francis is only the fourth in the orchestra’s 48-year history, but this British import clearly has the soul of a teacher and a broad democratic view of music’s appeal. Previous directors have viewed their role as curators of the best in classical music, not to be popular.
Francis, with his many pops shows on the season’s calendar, has taken his orchestra to shopping malls and hospitals and clearly plans on giving the common man more than a little fanfare in Tampa Bay.”
