Members of the Palm Beach Chamber Festival. If you’re seeking from relief from the summer heat in a cool Sunday afternoon concert of music from woodwinds and strings, check out the front row of the balcony at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach this July. That’s where you’ll find Anton Bernath, who’s been coming to the concerts of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival since it … [Read more...]
Weak Handel, strong Rimsky at Lynn Phil’s final season concert
The Arabian Nights, by Anton Pieck. By Greg Stepanich The current season of the Lynn Philharmonia, which ended April 17 with a concert at the Wold Performing Arts Center, has been largely triumphant. Continuing on its path of notable improvement under the direction of conductor Guillermo Figueroa, the students of the Lynn Conservatory have displayed impressive chops and … [Read more...]
Choral clarity, soloists stand out in Seraphic Fire’s Brahms
Dashon Burton. By Robert Croan In its original form, Johannes Brahms’s A German Requiem, composed in the 1860s, is his longest, biggest work, lasting just over an hour, scored for full orchestra, large chorus and soprano and baritone soloists. Patrick Dupré Quigley, the creative and enterprising director of Seraphic Fire, likes to perform authentic small versions of … [Read more...]
Pop and Jazz Happenings: April 2016
The Natty Bos. Gary Rowan has presented his annual Uncle Gary’s Rock & Rib Fest (www.UncleGarysRockandRibFest.com) for a decade, and watched the event grow exponentially. Yet he wishes he never had to. The festival honors his only child, daughter Ashley, who succumbed to the rare childhood liver cancer hepatoblastoma in 2002 at age 3. “This is truly a labor of love; my … [Read more...]
Artist Ren draws attention to vanishing animals
Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon, by Agata Ren. By Lucy Lazarony Agata Ren wants to raise awareness of endangered and extinct animals and plants with her art. Her subjects include an Eastern cougar, a Northern rockhopper penguin, a Florida green turtle, and a south Florida rainbow snake. And she is doing it with sparkle. There is lots of glitter in her work, and bright … [Read more...]
PB County takes lion’s share of Carbonells; Maltz gets seven
A scene from Les Miserables at The Maltz Jupiter Theatre. Palm Beach County residents did not have far to drive to see the best professional resident theater in South Florida last year. Of the 20 Carbonell Awards for theater excellence given out at the Broward Center on Monday evening, 13 went to companies in the county. And of those 13 awards, seven were picked up by the … [Read more...]
Brilliant, absorbing ‘The Passenger’ marks FGO milestone
A scene from The Passenger. (Photo by Brittany Mazzurco-Muscato) Florida Grand Opera’s current production of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Holocaust opera The Passenger is more than just a show that opera devotees and fans of the arts in general should make sure to see in its brief run this week at the Ziff Ballet Opera House. The Passenger is a milestone for FGO’s 75th season in … [Read more...]
Picture this: Photo and video from the DeWoody Collection, at the Norton
New York, New York (World Trade Center) (1979), by Tseng Kwong Chi. By Sandra Schulman Businesswoman, philanthropist and Norton supporter Beth Rudin DeWoody has so much incredible art in her collection the Norton has curated a second show from it. The first exhibit was 2015’s The Triumph of Love, which featured witty sculpture and drawings and even a decked-out disco … [Read more...]
Talented cast makes most of weak score in Wick’s ‘Curtains’
Angie Radosh in Curtains. (Photo by Amy Pasquantonio) There are multiple murders in the backstage mystery musical Curtains, yet it is one of the most light-hearted shows ever written by the long-running collaboration between composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb. The team that gave us such milestone, dark-toned materials as Cabaret, Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman … [Read more...]
The View From Home 76: Pietrangeli and Winterbottom, BFFs and the death penalty, and a hilarious Guest
Stefania Sandrelli in I Knew Her Well. (1965) I Knew Her Well: The merciless, soul-crushing world of celebrity aspiration is at the core of director Antonio Pietrangeli’s 1965 inverse/repudiation of La Dolce Vita (Criterion, $26.19 Blu-ray, $19.69 DVD), which alternates between the blackly comic and beautifully dolorous. Stefania Sandrelli, still riding the box-office … [Read more...]