Film: Surely one of the best films of 2012 and a shoo-in for Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress is Zero Dark Thirty, the tense, suspenseful, well-researched and somewhat conjectural tale of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It comes from filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow ― the only woman to win an Oscar for feature direction ― and screenwriter Mark … [Read more...]
Weekend picks: Dec. 22-24
Theater: Finally, some good news. The Kravis Center and the stagehands’ union have come to an agreement which will allow the remainder of the three-week run of Jersey Boys to proceed, after four performances had been canceled. The long-running Tony-winning musical biography tells the surprisingly involving story of the rise to fame of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony season opens with high spirits, powerful playing
The Palm Beach Symphony opened a new era for itself Sunday afternoon with an effervescent, powerful concert of 20th-century orchestral works, performed by a newly restaffed ensemble that stands fair to carry out the group’s mission of expanded cultural influence. The group of musicians that took the stage of the Gubelmann Auditorium at Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts is … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony reaches out to youth with Stravinsky
Time was, in the late 1950s, that a charismatic conductor could start a TV series in which he introduced young people to the world of classical music, and build himself a legend as well as permanently influence the lives of millions of those youths. But Leonard Bernstein is no longer with us, and neither is the middlebrow consensus that led to the televising of the Young … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire concert shows greatness of American choral foundation
There’s something profoundly satisfying about hearing early American choral music, even if the listener doesn’t identify with the white Protestant tradition that informs it. Drawing on the modes of the British Isles and harmonized in a plain-lumber, honest-nails fashion, it speaks to our national history in a way that calls up images of hardworking, straightforward people in … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2012-13: New leadership at MCB raises dance stakes
Although Ballet Florida is now long-gone, the world of South Florida dance is seeing other big changes, most notably the arrival at Miami City Ballet of a new director following the sidelining and then departure of the company’s founder, Edward Villella. But there are small, scrappy companies hereabouts making their marks in the dance world, and the major area venues are … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Symphony commissions composer Muhly
The Palm Beach Symphony has commissioned one of the most celebrated young composers in the country to write a fanfare for the ensemble’s 40th anniversary in 2013. Nico Muhly, 30, a Vermont-born composer who studied at the Juilliard School, is perhaps best-known for his score for The Reader, the 2008 Stephen Daldry film starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. He’s written … [Read more...]
April 2012 Arts Calendar
Editor’s note: This is the calendar from the print version of Palm Beach ArtsPaper, out today. Through an inadvertent error in the production process, the calendar in the print paper is an incomplete version of the March calendar. The correct April calendar is posted here.) Events are listed through May 4 and were current as of March 30. Please check with the presenting agency … [Read more...]
Maltz Jupiter Theatre celebrates decade, looks to endowment
All in all, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s 10th anniversary season is shaping up to be a milestone for the largest regional theater in South Florida. The Maltz recently passed the 7,000-subscriber mark, counts 70,000 theatergoers annually, and earlier this month announced the launch of a $10 million endowment campaign. Last month, the theater received 25 Carbonell nominations, … [Read more...]
Seraphic Fire’s astonishing Bach not to be missed
Even if Seraphic Fire does not win either of the Grammy Awards it is being considered for Sunday, the performances the concert choir is giving this week of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor are nothing less than a milestone in South Florida culture. Not everything was perfect Friday night at All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale for the first of the three performances of the Mass, … [Read more...]