Soprano Angela Meade is the winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award and the 2012 Beverly Sills Artist Award from the Metropolitan Opera. Less than four years after her professional debut, she has quickly become recognized as one of the outstanding vocalists of her generation. Meade is from Washington State where she was a pre-med major before discovering her love of singing. … [Read more...]
Daniel Ellsberg: On whistleblowing, leaks and secrecy
Daniel Ellsberg was an anonymous military analyst working for a conservative think tank until 1971, when he ignited a national firestorm by releasing the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret expose of government decision-making about the Vietnam War. The epic document, detailing some 22 years worth of sensitive information, established a precedent for conscientious whistleblowers that … [Read more...]
Boca Symphonia enters Age of Philippe
The French pianist Philippe Entremont was born in 1934 in Rheims, France, to two musicians, and found fame early, entering the Paris Conservatoire at 12 and winning first prizes in solfège, chamber music and piano performance by the time he was 15. He made his American debut in 1953, and has enjoyed a career as one of the world’s leading pianists, with numerous recordings and … [Read more...]
Peter Nero, still exploring the intersection of musical styles
Born in Brooklyn in 1934, pops pianist Peter Nero (né Bernard Nierow) began his formal musical education at the age of 7. At 14, he was accepted to New York City’s prestigious High School of Music and Art and won a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music. A two-time Grammy award winner and 10-time nominee, Nero has released 68 albums over a career of 50 years. His early … [Read more...]
Shelly Isaacs, making the case for international film
Shelly Isaacs is a veteran advertising man who wrote the first TV commercial for Duracell batteries in the 1970s. But he’s much better-known these days as one of South Florida’s most accessible experts on foreign-language film. The founder of Café Cinematheque International, Isaacs is a Bronx native who earned his undergraduate degree in psychology and marketing from the City … [Read more...]
William Kentridge, on looking, drawing and knowing
“Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting,” Willem DeKooning said of his fellow abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock. “He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.” In the same way, William Kentridge has revolutionized the practice of drawing. Using charcoal on paper, repeatedly erased and redrawn, as the vehicle for … [Read more...]
New Norton chief aiming her museum for the top
A couple of weeks separate the Norton Museum from its new chief: Hope Alswang, a New York City native with a first name that sounds like a promise. This is who the museum's board of trustees chose as director and chief executive officer after conducting a national search that begun soon after Christina Orr-Cahall left in May of last year. The announcement came last month. … [Read more...]
Doris Kearns Goodwin: On Lincoln, Obama and LBJ
By Chauncey Mabe Doris Kearns Goodwin is a historian with a great sense of timing. Already a Pulitzer Prize winner for No Ordinary Time, her 1995 dual biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Goodwin was basking in the fading glow of her 2005 Abraham Lincoln book, Team of Rivals, when she received a call from an upstart presidential candidate named Barack Obama. “He … [Read more...]
Marie Hale still dancing, teaching after Ballet Florida’s demise
Ballet Florida canceled the remainder of its season in March 2009. Wrecked by severe cash flow problems and long-term debt, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in July. Yet for 23 years, Ballet Florida was the resident contemporary and classical ballet company of West Palm Beach. Its fine balance of the new and the traditional made it a one-of-a-kind. … [Read more...]
Lou Tyrrell sees a great new future for Florida Stage at the Rinker
On Nov. 30, Florida Stage and the Kravis Center announced a partnership agreement in which the Manalapan theater company that specializes in developing new plays would move its operation to the Rinker Playhouse, a flexible “black box” performance space within the West Palm Beach complex, beginning in July 2010. In mid-December, Palm Beach ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein sat down … [Read more...]