By Dale King
Not all that ago, the Festival of the Arts Boca ended its weekly run with a gala performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, led by violinist Itzhak Perlman.
This year, for the ninth version of the performing arts-and-literature gathering that commandeers the west end of Mizner Park, Beethoven’s Ninth will again bring the festival — at least the musical events — to a close.
But this year, the Festival Orchestra will be joined by the Master Chorale of South Florida and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City for the symphony, a work that had a huge impact on all the composers who came after the piece’s premiere in May of 1824.
Soloists will include soprano Melody Moore, mezzo-soprano Margaret Mezzacappa, tenor Joseph Kaiser and bass Salomon Howard; the March 14 concert will be conducted by festival music director Constantine Kitsopoulos.
The entire festival, which opened March 6 and lasts through March 15, is under the direction of Joanna Marie Kaye, who as “Joanna Marie” interviewed many a classical musician for more than 10 years at WXEL-90.7 FM.
It’s a job that helped give her a wide knowledge of the area’s arts climate.
“I have been involved with it for many years,” said Kaye, who now works for the people she used to converse with on the radio, festival chairmen and co-directors Charlie Siemon and Wendy Larsen. She got the job last July when she returned to Boca after a two-year gig as managing director at WQED in Pittsburgh.
Schooled in broadcasting, and with a degree in music performance, Kaye is never far from the arts scene. Her husband, trumpeter Jeffrey Kaye, is artistic director and principal trumpeter of the Symphonia Boca Raton.
For its final day, the festival will feature National Public Radio personality Martin Goldsmith discussing his book, “Alex’s Wake.” Kaye said planners had hoped for a last-minute performance to fill the vacant March 15 spot, but it didn’t happen. Still, she noted, ending the mainstage events with the Beethoven Ninth “is an excellent closing.”
The festival opens Friday with a screening of the film version of Leonard Bernstein’s musical West Side Story, accompanied live by the Festival Orchestra Boca, keeping its original vocals and dialogue intact. It’s something Jamie Bernstein, one of Bernstein’s two daughters, says is “so vibrant when it’s live, even if you aren’t familiar with the musical.”
One of the songs from that show, “Somewhere,” will return on the March 14 concert along with the Beethoven Ninth. Jamie Bernstein, a narrator, writer and broadcaster, gave a talk about her father and his work as a festival preview Wednesday.
“He was so multi-faceted. We all know he was a composer, but he wrote for musical theater, symphonies and ballets… and he was a conductor,” she said. “He was also into education. Everything he did was a form of teaching.”
West Side Story, she said, “is an extraordinary work. It is popular for a reason, because it is incredibly sophisticated. It was interesting how my father put music together. He borrowed from the classics. He wanted to take the walls down between the genres.”
Musically, the festival has other important performers, including Sir James Galway, master of the flute, who returns to the festival he helped launch in 2007 for a Mozart gala March 13 that also features pianist and composer Conrad Tao, who at 13 years old made his debut at the 2008 festival, and violinist Arnaud Sussmann, a Perlman protégé. They’ll also be joined by Kitsopoulos and the Festival Orchestra.
The great banjoist and bluegrass artist Bela Fleck is featured Saturday along with his wife, Abigail Washburn, and on Sunday, it’s a dance program called Stars of International Ballet.
While the musical events take place on the amphitheater stage under a large tent, the literary events convene at the Cultural Arts Center on the east end of Mizner Park in the old Cartoon Museum building. The lineup here is impressive, with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (March 11, in the amphitheater), Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction master Richard Ford (Sunday), and physician and cancer “biographer” Siddharta Mukherjee (March 9).
Also on tap are journalist Lucinda Franks (March 13), technology expert Clive Thompson (March 10) and Time correspondent Michael Grunwald (March 12).
Tickets range from $15 to $125 per person and are available at www.festivalboca.com or by calling (866) 571-ARTS (866-571-2787). The All-Authors pass is $152 per person or $244 per person for premium seating.
The festival schedule includes:
Wednesday, March 4 – 7 p.m.
A conversation with Jamie Bernstein: West Side Story and her father’s legacy
Cultural Arts Center
Friday, March 6 – 7:30 p.m.
West Side Story; movie accompanied by the Festival Orchestra Boca, conducted by Jayce Ogren
Amphitheater
Saturday, March 7 – 3 p.m.
Girl Rising (documentary film)
Cultural Arts Center
Saturday, March 7 – 7:30 p.m.
Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn, banjoists
Amphitheater
Sunday, March 8 – 4 p.m.
Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Let Me Be Frank with You
Cultural Arts Center
Sunday, March 8 – 7 p.m.
Stars of International Ballet
Amphitheater
Monday, March 9 – 7 p.m.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, physician, researcher and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, speaks on “The Cancer Puzzle”
Cultural Arts Center
Tuesday, March 10 – 7 p.m.
Clive Thompson, journalist and technology expert, Smarter than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better
Amphitheater
Wednesday, March 11 – 7 p.m.
Thomas Friedman, journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, That Used to Be Us
Amphitheater
Thursday, March 12 – 7 p.m.
Michael Grunwald, Time correspondent and author, Saving Paradise
Cultural Arts Center
Saturday, March 13 – 4 p.m.
Lucinda Franks, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, speaks on “Love and Politics”
Cultural Arts Center
Friday, March 13 – 7:30 p.m.
Mozart Gala: James Galway, Conrad Tao and Arnaud Sussmann
with Festival Orchestra Boca, Constantine Kitsopoulos, conductor Amphitheater
Saturday, March 14 – 7:30 p.m.
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9; Young People’s Chorus of New York City, Master Chorale of South Florida and Festival Orchestra Boca, Constantine Kitsopoulos, conductor
Amphitheater
Sunday, March 15 – 4 p.m.
Martin Goldsmith, broadcaster and author, Alex’s Wake
Cultural Arts Center