Theater: What does a theater company do when it loses its prime asset? To find out, head to Jupiter’s Carlin Park this weekend and next to see a Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing, dedicated to its co-founder, longtime artistic director and leading man, Kevin Crawford, who died suddenly at the end of 2013. Crawford had edited the text in … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Chamber Festival set to open 23rd season
What is surely one of Palm Beach County’s longest-running summer concert series returns tonight for its 23rd season, as some of the area’s best-known classical musicians gather for four weekends of chamber music. The works on this year’s iteration of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival are perhaps more unfamiliar than usual, but the programming of music that’s off the beaten … [Read more...]
10 years on, Palm Beach Poetry Festival keeps delivering
“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years,” says Miles Coon from his home in Delray Beach. “Well, I can and I can’t.” Coon, founder of the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, likes to say that poetry “is the most human form of expression and spans all cultures and eras.” And for a decade, he’s been running a week of literary activity that shows just what that means. Beginning Monday, the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 29-Dec. 1
Dance: Cue the Mouse King. It’s time once again for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s indelible ballet, The Nutcracker, which premiered in 1892. Oddly enough, the composer didn’t care for it, thinking he had written himself out. No one would agree with that sentiment today, and his sparkling score has become particularly beloved for young ballet companies with lots of children. Lovers … [Read more...]
News briefs: ‘Of Mice and Men’ extended; student rockers salute vets
Because of audience demand, Palm Beach Dramaworks has added three new performance dates for Of Mice and Men at Don and Ann Brown Theatre in West Palm Beach. New performance dates include Friday, Nov. 15, at 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 16, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m. The theatre is located at 201 Clematis St. in downtown West Palm Beach. Set in author John Steinbeck’s … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The season in dance
The South Florida dance season for 2013-14 looks a good deal like it has been since the demise of Palm Beach County’s own Ballet Florida: One major company, a host of excellent touring out-of-towners, and many smaller troupes. The difference in the past couple years has been that some of the smaller companies are creating a lot of original dances, so fans of this athletic art … [Read more...]
On record: Local classical discs in review (Part 1)
One sign of the growing maturity of the area’s classical music scene is the appearance of recordings by local artists. Up until relatively recently, only the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival’s six recordings on the Klavier label and the first discs by the Delray String Quartet could lay claim to representing a substantial segment of local art music activity, although there … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 24-25
Theater: Yes, the pickings are few for theater at this time of year in South Florida, but while the few companies that are operating in the dog days of August opt for feather light fare, Maltz Jupiter Theatre offers Shakespeare’s weighty, downbeat tragedy, Hamlet. But not the usual production, for it is part of the free summer mentorship program where the student cast and … [Read more...]
Quintets hit high points in PB Chamber Fest’s Week 3
For all the different varieties of chamber music there can be, strings tend to be heard more often in quartets and winds in quintets. The 22nd edition of the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival has no string quartets on its programs this summer, but it came close Sunday at Delray Beach’s Crest Theatre, closing with a string quintet, and opening with two wind quintet miniatures. … [Read more...]
At the symphony II: Tenor joins returning performers for PB Symphony gala
For its gala fundraiser Thursday night at the Mar-a-Lago Club, the Palm Beach Symphony brought back two of its guest stars from last year, the Russian-American pianist Lola Astanova and conductor Jajha Ling of the San Diego Symphony. The orchestra also introduced to area audiences a fresh talent, Brazilian tenor Thiago Arancam, who sang a selection of arias and songs from the … [Read more...]