The Palm Beach International Film Festival, running April 4-11, turns 18 this year, and it reaches the age of maturity with a new emphasis on the films themselves. There will be 141 in all, including eight United States premieres and 26 world premieres from such diverse nations as Russia, Spain, Thailand, Palestine, Ethiopia and Nepal. As she was putting the final touches on … [Read more...]
Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Palm Beach County lead Carbonell nominations
Palm Beach County theaters, and particularly the Maltz Jupiter, dominated the nominations for this year’s 37th annual Carbonell Awards, announced on Friday. The Maltz will be competing for 23 of the statuettes for excellence in South Florida professional theater, almost twice as many as the next highest nomination-getter ― Coral Gables’ Actors’ Playhouse ― which received 12. … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 5-6, 2013
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...]
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...]
West Palm library exhibit explores censorship and the Holocaust
By Tara Farquhar James Bachner can attest to the destructive and redemptive power of books. Born and raised in Berlin, Bachner remembers the book burnings in the German capital in May 1933 vividly. “I was only 11 years old at the time, but I was very aware of what was going on,” he said. “Even though I didn’t go down there to see the book burning at the time, we were only … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Opera’s Aprea leaves company; Fleisher gives Lynn master class
WEST PALM BEACH – The artistic director of the Palm Beach Opera has left the company, officials said Tuesday. Bruno Aprea, who has led musical aspects of the company’s productions and orchestral concerts since 2005, rejected the contract he was offered for the new season, said the company’s general director, Daniel Biaggi. The company has been restructuring to a more … [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...]
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...]
Sunday Comment: Palm Beach film fest still figuring itself out at 17
As the 17th annual Palm Beach International Film Festival approaches, the countywide movie event seems now what it was when it started in 1996. It hovers perpetually on the verge of becoming worth our time and attention, but is has yet to get there. Sure, in the 16 previous festivals, there have been films worthy of this exalted showcase. Think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding … [Read more...]