The Palm Beach Symphony closed its 39th season in stunning fashion Tuesday night at the Kravis Center with a night of music inspired by Spain. The orchestra had 87 players, double its usual size, with a pianist, Tao Lin, and eight percussionists. The ensemble was led by its conductor, Ramon Tebar, a native son from Valencia, Spain, a city that can be justly proud of his recent … [Read more...]
Arts Garage wins Knight grants; Rudin prizewinner named
The Arts Garage has won two grants from the Knight Foundation of Miami totaling $50,000, including the foundation’s first-ever People’s Choice Award, which was won on the basis of texts. In a ceremony last month at the New World Center in Miami Beach, the Delray Beach arts engine, which has become a notable South Florida venue for jazz concerts, received a Knight Arts … [Read more...]
Director Seidelman’s ‘Musical Chairs’ launches in SoFla, NYC
As with her previous feature, 2006’s Boynton Beach Club, director Susan Seidelman has opted to use South Florida as a test market for the release of Musical Chairs, her new movie about wheelchair ballroom dance. Well-meaning but overly sentimental, it can expect a similar spotty critical and popular reception. Still, talent from the film arrived in the area earlier this week … [Read more...]
Music roundup 2: Cleveland Orchestra, Euclid Quartet, PB Opera gala
Editor’s note: Here are late reviews from recent concerts: Cleveland Orchestra (Jan. 25, Kravis Center) Slowly and surely since his death in 1975, the music of Dmitri Shostakovich has established itself as a vital and permanent part of the canon, with music from almost every genre in his output – with perhaps the exception of operetta and film scores – getting regular … [Read more...]
The View From Home 25: New releases on DVD
Araya (Milestone) Release date: May 10 Standard list price: $29.95 Milestone Films releases many different kinds of movies, but if the distributor has a signature style, it’s the merger of documentary and fiction – depictions of real life colored, in one way or another, with the aesthetic control of fiction. I am Cuba, The Exiles, On the Bowery and In This World all fulfill … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Two by Tracy Letts
In order to maximize the chances of being produced in these precarious economic times, most writers now limit themselves in their plays’ cast size and physical requirements. But every now and again comes an Angels in America or a Coast of Utopia, from playwrights who dare to think on a grand scale, resulting in works resulting in peak experiences for their audiences. Just … [Read more...]
‘Adjustment Bureau’ has little edge, but it’s enjoyable
If most of Philip K. Dick’s writing was ahead of its time, the latest movie adaptation of his work, The Adjustment Bureau, is behind it. The movie transforms Dick’s ̓50s short story The Adjustment Team from a politically conscious story about free will and Cold War panic to a quaint, love-conquers-all story about free will and following your heart, consequences be damned. It … [Read more...]
‘Secret Order’ director has faith in it, but play needs more work
Tom Bloom does not give up on a play easily. The New York actor-turned-director began helping to develop Bob Clyman’s Secret Order, a drama of ideas about a cure for cancer that runs into a buzzsaw of research politics, some 15 years ago. He not only directs the production that opened at the Caldwell Theatre this weekend, but when featured actor Gordon McConnell was … [Read more...]
Couple hosts cutting-edge art at home
Sometimes, the universe opens a window to a new world: If we step through it, our lives are changed. And sometimes, we just have to return a pager. Dr. Marvin Mordes was doing his neurology residency in Philadelphia, and had to bring a pager to his co-resident, who happened to be at an art gallery. "After I met my co-resident, I couldn’t leave the gallery because the skies … [Read more...]
Out among the quirks at Art Basel
The larger-than-life, realistic sculptures by the Canadian artist Evan Penny caused a stir at last year's Art Basel, with his nude self-portrait selling within the show's first days. At this year’s Art Basel, Penny is proving just as provocative. Penny’s sculptures aren’t simply lifelike reproductions, even though it may seem so when you first see them. From a different … [Read more...]