By Dennis D. Rooney The procession of string quartets to South County concert venues continued last Tuesday with a concert by the Tesla String Quartet. They chose a classic program: Bartók’s Third Quartet of 1927 was flanked by early and middle period quartets of Beethoven. Founded at New York’s Juilliard School in 2008, the Teslas quickly began to attract awards, … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2018
Philadelphia Orchestra’s Kim returns for genial Symphonia program
David Kim came back to Boca Raton on Sunday, and he got the kind of warm reception and enthusiasm people give long-absent friends when they finally get to see them after many moons have passed. Kim brought his violin and avuncular professionalism to center stage as soloist and conductor with the Symphonia Boca Raton for a program of 19th- and 20th-century Romanticism that … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 12-14
Music: Renée Fleming sang her last Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera last year, but she hasn’t left off performing. Tomorrow night she returns to South Florida for a recital program with pianist Gerald Martin Moore at the Kravis Center. A couple years back she appeared at the Festival of the Arts Boca and featured rare verismo arias, and in previous iterations of this … [Read more...]
Wick brings beloved ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ to the stage
In polls of moviegoers and film critics, 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain is invariably voted the best movie musical of all time. Similarly, the stage adaptation of the love story surrounding the early days of Hollywood talkies has been voted the show that Wick Theatre audiences most want to see. So in the spirit of giving them what they want – and in an effort to, as the film and … [Read more...]
Sharp performers pull off manic ‘Gentleman’s Guide’ at Broward Center
What’s with the class-conscious Brits and their enduring fables of impoverished blokes suddenly discovering that they are noble-born? That was the plot of 1937’s Me and My Girl as well as a more recent confection from three years ago, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. In the latter, commoner Monty Navarro not only learns of his exalted lineage, but also that he … [Read more...]
Gaugengigl: Flager exhibit revives interest in forgotten Boston painter
The winter exhibition coming to the Flagler Museum this January is a rescue mission of an obscure classically trained artist with no direct ties to Henry Flagler – although he would have loved the works. Masterfully Human: The Art of Gaugengigl examines the highly evocative body of work of Boston painter and etcher Ignaz Marcel Gaugengigl through 75 pieces that include … [Read more...]
Hoffman revisits ‘Too Jewish?’ at PGA Arts Center
By Dale King Avi Hoffman, the familiar singer, actor, comedian, storyteller, master of shtick and supporter of Jewish causes, is back on stage in Palm Beach County. He has dusted off his 24-year-old production of Too Jewish? And after tweaking, revising and refurbishing it, he’s performing it again, this time at the PGA Arts Center in Palm Beach Gardens. “‘Too Jewish?’ … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival explores America’s soundtrack
For 28 years – five of them under the direction of Ellen Wedner – The Donald M. Ephraim Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival has been bringing to the county an array of international movies that illuminate the Jewish experience. This year, as always, Wedner and her selection committee sought out the highest-quality films that fit that mission, without trying to feature a particular … [Read more...]
‘The Post’: Poignant, powerful and timely
Journalism movies have me at hello, especially the period pieces. The staccato clack of typewriter keys, the clangor of printing presses, the smoky newsrooms, the barking declarations of crusty editors with their feet on their desks and their ties askew. From His Girl Friday to Zodiac, Park Row to All the President’s Men, show me a shoe-leather reporter on a hot deadline, and … [Read more...]
Calidore Quartet outstanding in Shostakovich, Beethoven at Four Arts
By Dennis D. Rooney Founded in 2010 at Los Angeles’s Colburn Conservatory of Music, the Calidore String Quartet’s name is a pastiche of “Cali(fornia)” and “doré,” French for “golden.” Now based in New York, it has garnered a brace of prestigious awards and recently completed a residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center II. The group’s concert Sunday at … [Read more...]