By Dennis D. Rooney Lynn University’s music conservatory inaugurated its 2018-19 series of concerts Sept. 8 in it its usual fashion, with a concert by its wind ensemble. “Crossover Concerti” was the title of the program, entirely devoted to concertos for woodwind and brass. Five composers were represented, four of them born between 1946 and 1973. The fifth was Igor … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 25-26
Art: The Palm Beach Photographic Centre in downtown West Palm Beach feels more like an office than an art gallery, but there’s almost always something worth seeing in its free shows. Opening today is the 22nd annual Members’ Show, which features the work of no less than 70 photographers, curated by Scott McKiernan, who heads the Zuma press agency. As with most photographic … [Read more...]
Arts briefs: Alswang to retire from Norton; Danis departs at FGO
WEST PALM BEACH — Hope Alswang, who has led the Norton Museum of Art since April 2010, will retire in March after it reopens following its massive expansion and renovation by the eminent British architect Norman Foster. Alswang, who led a $100 million capital campaign called The New Norton, has overseen an expansion of the institution’s collections, receiving donations of … [Read more...]
PB Opera offers nights of song and fun for the summer
By Dale King Summers are usually fairly quiet for the Palm Beach Opera, much less hectic than the regular season that will launch in December with a rising-stars concert followed after with three mainstage opera productions of works by Verdi, Mozart and Johann Strauss II. But this summer, the company is making its presence felt with a new series called Summer Opera … [Read more...]
Authentic South Florida flavor makes murder mystery tell
By Sharon Geltner “I was living through the worst time of my life. I was going to kill myself.” That statement is not from the west Broward mystery, The Other Side of Everything, the debut novel by Lauren Doyle Owens, a 10-year resident of the area. Instead, it’s what the author said about her own life. “I didn’t kill myself,” Doyle Owens said in a recent interview. … [Read more...]
Young thespians learn ‘Mockingbird’ lessons at Maltz
By Janis Fontaine It’s no easier to talk about race today than it was in 1960 when Harper Lee’s acclaimed novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published, or in rural Alabama in 1936, when the novel takes place. But conversations must be had. To jump-start those dialogues, a group of young professionals at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre are producing the play based on Lee’s … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 3-5
Theater: Oklahoman Woodrow Wilson Guthrie is the subject of a stirring musical revue, Woody Guthrie’s American Song, which celebrates this poet of the people who began by celebrating the nation but grew increasingly political as the Great Depression widened the economic inequities in the country. At Palm Beach Dramaworks, director Bruce Linser pulls together a multi-talented … [Read more...]
PBCMF IV: Charming American work tops festival finale
By Dennis D. Rooney The fourth and final program of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s 27th season was composed of a local premiere and two works of 20th-century composers on its first half, and Schubert’s Trout Quintet on its second. Clarinetist Michael Forte’s prefatory remarks mentioned that Piotr Szewczyk (b. 1978), composer of Three Summer Sketches that opened … [Read more...]
Broward Stage Door ends Margate residency with sparkling Sedaka
By Dale King Breaking up is hard to do, opined pop music legend Neil Sedaka in a hit tune he released in 1962, then re-issued in slower ballad style in 1975. The Broward Stage Door Theatre is not breaking up, but it is breaking away from the cement-walled, bunker-style, two-stage, former movie house behind a shopping plaza on West Sample Road in Margate that it has … [Read more...]
PBCMF III: All-American program features promising new nonet
By Dennis D. Rooney The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s third concert of its current summer series, seen July 22 at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach, was an “all-American” program. Works by three American composers, two of them living, and the American String Quartet (No. 12 in F, Op. 96) by Dvořák. Music by Eric Ewazen (b. 1954) opened it. Mosaics, for flute, … [Read more...]