WEST PALM BEACH —Palm Beach Atlantic University’s biennial concert series of new music, the Frontwave Festival, begins tonight at the college in West Palm Beach and runs through Saturday. The special guest for the festival is composer John Fitz Rogers, who teaches composition at the University of South Carolina. He holds degrees from Oberlin, Cornell and the Yale School of … [Read more...]
‘The Martian’: Breezy chronicle of the can-do spirit
Mars is hot right now. For mega-rich space cowboys like Elon Musk and Bas Lansdorp, the fourth rock from the sun is their next frontier, their Xanadu, their far-flung solution to climate change. But the founders of SpaceX and Mars One are not alone: Thousands have already applied for private space missions some 20 or 30 years down the line, even if it means never returning to … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 21-23
Theater: The Wick Theatre in Boca Raton is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get. In its brief three-production history, the company has served up extremes of quality and lack of quality, but at least there are more of the former so far. So our fingers remain crossed for the Wick this weekend as it opens with David Yazbek’s sly, … [Read more...]
A new, exciting chapter opens for Master Chorale
Something very important happened here last week for the classical music scene in South Florida: One of its performing organizations came into its own. The Master Chorale of South Florida, which rose out of the remains of the Florida Philharmonic some 10 years ago, has presented some fine programs over that time and enjoyed regular gigs backing Italian poperatic singer Andrea … [Read more...]
MCB opens first program in impeccable style
By Tara Mitton Catao Miami City Ballet’s Friday evening program began with George Balanchine’s Ballo Della Regina. Within just a few seconds, it was clear that this was a perfect opener to not only this evening’s program and the first of four programs to be presented at the Kravis, but also to the first season that is fully under the leadership and vision of Artistic Director … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 12-13, 2013
Music: Pianists and lovers of Bach are in a high state of excitement over Sunday afternoon’s concert at the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall featuring the great American pianist Simone Dinnerstein in a complete, uninterrupted performance of the Goldberg Variations. This is the work – a tremendously impressive display of compositional ingenuity ― that helped make Dinnerstein’s … [Read more...]
Carn opens Arts Garage jazz-blues series with piano dazzle
St. Augustine-raised, St. Augustine-based jazz keyboard master Doug Carn kicked off the nine-concert Jazz Project and Garage Blues series at the Arts Garage in Delray Beach on Saturday night. And the Florida resident’s quartet delivered an understated performance that combined jazz and blues to raise the venue’s temperature a few degrees on a humid June evening. Yet any of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 26-29
Film: The airwaves are full of reports of the current presidential campaign, but for an even more momentous election, check out Nanni Meretti’s drily comic film Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope). It begins with the College of Cardinals, assembled within the Sistine chapel, and a paper ballot vote, with most of the cardinals secretly praying they do not get elevated to the right … [Read more...]
Dramaworks opens new home in superb style with ‘All My Sons’
Arthur Miller’s 1947 drama All My Sons, his first commercial success on Broadway, has numerous thematic and narrative similarities to Death of a Salesman, the Pulitzer Prize winner that premiered two years later. But if the earlier play has been under the shadow of the playwright’s masterwork, you would never know it from the powerful new production at Palm Beach Dramaworks. … [Read more...]
Lovely ‘Sylphides’ opens FCBT’s 11th season
Before a painted scrim reminiscent of the 1975 Peter Weir film Picnic at Hanging Rock, Florida Classical Ballet Theatre opened its 11th anniversary season Saturday with a beautifully performed rendition of Michel Fokine’s 1909 ballet Les Sylphides. As part of a three-ballet program selected to evoke mood rather than tell stories, this classical ballet, which is given credit … [Read more...]