Music
Community Arts Series Has A Hot Summer Lineup for Its 40th Year
The Community Arts Program’s 40th season series kicks off Thursday, June 12 with the husband-and-wife duo Hot Fiddle, featuring Ashley Liberty and Daniel Strange. The six-concert series continues in Coral Gables through Thursday, Aug. 21. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
When the performing arts calendar slows down for the Miami summer, a six-concert music series plays every other Thursday inside a historic Coral Gables church.
From the clarinet stylings in a show remembering bandleader Benny Goodman to the transcendent sounds from a solo harp, the Community Arts Program (CAP) Summer Concert Series has going for it a varied program – something for everyone, you might say, along with the sublime setting of the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ.
Bridget Kibbey’s great musical instincts transcend the harp. She performs for CAP on June 26. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
There’s also the conversational aspect the performers bring to the series that gives CAP a homespun feeling.
“My goal as an artistic director, and as a musician myself, is to present artists that deliver not only a compelling performance, but also establish an inviting rapport with the audience,” says Mark Hart, executive and artistic director of CAP.
CAP is now in its 40th year and Hart says he chooses artists that “continue to stretch their abilities and offerings to draw in the concertgoer.”
The series kicks off Thursday, June 12 with the husband-and-wife duo Hot Fiddle, featuring violinist Ashley Liberty and pianist Daniel Strange.
Anthony Hervey’s appearance on July 10 as part of the Community Arts Program series is a bit of a homecoming. He graduated from Dillard High School, Fort Lauderdale. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
“It’s a very high energy performance. They go through a wide variety of music from classical and jazz to fiddle and rock; one of those really good celebratory backdrops to open up a series like this,” says Hart.
Shows are every other Thursday through Aug. 21. Harpist Bridget Kibbey is the second concert of the series on June 26, trumpeter Anthony Hervey on July 10, cellist Leland Ko on July 24 with pianist Adria Ye, clarinetist Ken Peplowski with pianist Rossano Sportiello and drummer Kevin Dorn on Aug. 7, and vocalist Tyreek McDole accompanied by piano, bass, and drums to close out the season.
Hart mentions Hervey’s performance as a homecoming. “He’s an original South Florida guy who went to Dillard High School. And the bass player in his group is a kid by the name of Sebastian Rio, who was part of the Community Arts Program as a kid. He was in our jazz ensemble and went with us to Jazz at Lincoln Center.”
Throughout the school year, the Community Arts Program (CAP) has an after-school music education program teaching music education to students from more than 58 Miami-Dade County schools with its CAP Conservatory for the Arts and its Miami Jazz Institute.
CAP’s All-Star Jazz Ensemble, made up of high school students, were three-time finalists in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
“No student is turned away,” says Hart. Tuition is based on a sliding scale. “All I ask is for interest and enthusiasm and commitment.”
On Friday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon, following some of the CAP concerts, musicians present CAP summer master classes and jam sessions, which Hart says always lead to “fun discoveries.” Bridget Kibbey, Anthony Harvey, Leland Ko and Ken Peplowski, will host the Friday morning master classes and jam sessions after their concerts, also held in the United Church of Christ sanctuary.
“We have Bridget and Leland on the classical side where they do more of a master class. Students come and play for them, but the public comes, too, and then they answer questions about their music and careers. Then on the jam side is Anthony and Ken, where they talk about their profession and we invite kids or anyone to bring their instruments for a jam session,” says Hart.
“When you grow up in Cleveland, Ohio, playing in a Polish polka band, you learn to think fast on your feet”, says Ken Peplowski, who played his first pro engagement when he was still in elementary school. Peplowski brings his tribute to Benny Goodman to CAP on Aug. 7 and will host a jam session on Aug. 8. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
The piano part of the Hot Fiddle duo, who open the series, Strange is the director of CAP’s All-Star Jazz Ensemble. Under Strange’s leadership, the student group released an album, “With A Swing!” and were three-time finalists in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival.
“We started the All-Star Jazz Ensemble in 2009. It was a big band originally, and four years in, when Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington Competition opened up to community bands, we scored an invite . . . and it was a life changing experience,” says Strange.
He is the Assistant Professor of Contemporary Keyboard and the MADE (Musicianship, Artistry Development and Entrepreneurship) program director at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he directs the award-winning American Music Ensemble.
The Community Arts Program (CAP) 2025 Summer Concert Series concludes with Haitian-American Tyreek McDole, only the second male singer to win the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
“One of my primary roles at Frost is working with young songwriters and composers in the commercial vein and I thought it was a missing element for high school instrumentalists because generally you show up to a group in your school and you learn the song,” says Strange.
He had a student who was a writer in the group who wanted to play their music.
“Other students said they wanted to write. The group is now Jazz Ensemble Plus with the plus being with the emphasis on composition. I’ve discovered some real talented writers. Over the last four years more than 30 pieces have been written. I guide them and give them my opinions, but it’s very collaborative like it would be in any real band situation,” says Strange.
The Hot Fiddle duo were once young music students themselves and actually met when they were youngsters.
“When we were kids, we played in chamber groups in summer camps. We lost touch for 10 years and reunited at a camp that I was working at in Maine,” says Strange.
Liberty had transferred from the Manhattan School of Music in the middle of her master’s degree to the Frost School of Music at University of Miami after an opportunity to be an assistant to violinist Glenn Basham.
By that time, the music duo was deeply in love, and she convinced him to follow her to the University of Miami. It wasn’t that difficult of a sell — Strange wanted to study piano with Shelley Berg, who became dean of the Frost School of Music in 2007.
Violinist Ashley Liberty and pianist Daniel Strange, the Hot Fiddle duo, met in Maine and moved to Miami to study at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where Strange is now an assistant professor, program director and directs the American Music Ensemble. He also oversees CAP’s All-Star Jazz Ensemble. (Photo courtesy of CAP)
Liberty plays as a professional violinist with multiple orchestras including stints with the Miami City Ballet orchestra and as an orchestra member with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra but says one of her proudest achievements as of late is working with the Southwood Orchestra at Southwood Middle School in Palmetto Bay. Other professional highlights include a regular gig with Andrea Bocelli when he’s in South Florida; she’ll join the Italian tenor when he comes to Miami’s Kaseya Center on Sunday, Dec. 21, and her appearance with Shakira in the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in Miami on Feb. 2, 2020.
The couple formed Hot Fiddle in 2007 after a show they performed in Maine. “We called that show Hot Fiddle and then we realized that it was a really great name for our artistry and who we are. And it kind of stuck from there,” says Strange.
Liberty says the name Hot Fiddle is the promise of something fun.
“We just love playing for audiences because we end up connecting with them. There’s just this undeniable connection and there’s a feeling of excitement. And that’s the ‘hot’ part, you know?” says Liberty.
WHAT: Community Arts Program 2025 Summer Concert Series
WHERE: Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd., Coral Gables
WHEN: Performances 7:30 p.m. every other Thursday from June 12 through Aug. 21. Master classes and jam sessions 10 a.m. Fridays on specific days through Aug. 8.
TICKETS: $35 in advance, $40 at the door. $50 advance, $55 at the door patron ticket includes reserved seating in rows 1 through 9. Series packages available. Master classes and jam sessions are free and audiences are invited to watch. Musicians who want to perform for jam should register.
INFORMATION: 305-448-7421 or communityartsprogram.org
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