Art: As the summer winds down (though not heat-wise) and students return to the classroom, the Norton Museum offers a little exhibit put together by its five summer interns. Drawing from the museum’s own collections, the interns – who include college and high schools students – chose 16 European prints from the 16th to the 19th centuries, including works by Mary Cassatt and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 1-3
Theater: Thanks to the business savvy of the Gershwin Estate, George and Ira Gershwin have written a few musicals after their deaths. Or rather, their vast song trunk has been made available to those who would reuse their familiar and obscure compositions in new settings, such as Crazy for You, a “new” show from 1992 that harkens back in style and score to the 1930s. The story … [Read more...]
Two small shows at Boca museum reveal deep riches
Two of the current shows at the Boca Raton Museum of Art are easy to miss. But you don’t want to. One gives us the dramatic touch of Goya, the playful Miró and the erotic side of Picasso. The other is a good bite of Latin American art. And I’m not talking Diego Rivera, Amelia Pelaez or Frida Kahlo. Believe it or not, Latin America has more where they came from. More than … [Read more...]
Music roundup: A fine young violist, two admirable quartets
Peijun Xu (Feb. 10, Steinway Gallery, Boca Raton) If the concertgoing world doesn’t fully appreciate the variety that a viola can bring to a recital, that won’t be the fault of Peijun Xu. The Shanghai-born musician performed two local recitals this week for the Kronberg Academy, an organization based in that German town near Frankfurt (the city that Xu now calls home) that … [Read more...]
Take it from Mel: ‘Young Frankenstein’ is a ‘damn good’ show
If he does say so himself, and he does, Mel Brooks considers Young Frankenstein to be the best of the 12 films he has directed. “I’m not saying it’s my funniest, I’m saying it’s my best. In terms of my art, let’s say, as a filmmaker,” he explains by phone from his production offices in Culver City, Calif. “It’s certainly my best work as a filmmaker, because it captures the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 24-28
Music: Things might be a little soggy out there thanks to Tropical Storm Bonnie, but as of this writing, the Vans Warped Tour, 2010 edition, is set to hit the Cruzan Amphitheatre on Saturday for a day of bands and extreme sports. The skateboard company Vans, which launched this festival in 1995, welcomes 72 bands to this year’s tour, one of them being West Palm’s own Hey … [Read more...]
Two good novelists go seriously astray with latest efforts
If Harold Kushner had been a literary critic instead of a rabbi, he might have asked, “Why do bad books happen to good writers?” And if Leo Tolstoy had also been a critic, he might have answered, “All good books are alike, while every bad book goes bad in its own way.” These bloody thoughts are occasioned by Henning Mankel and Jim Crace, novelists of proven quality who have … [Read more...]
Cellist deMaine to play all Beethoven’s cello works in two Boca concerts
The cultural-event marathon is one of the most absorbing pleasures in the world of the arts, a chance for fans of a genre or a specific body of work to immerse themselves and give themselves wholly over to the featured creations. Pianists have milestones such as the complete Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach or all 32 of the Beethoven sonatas, for instance, and cellists also have … [Read more...]
‘Two Jews’ a deep, comic standout at Florida Stage
Wait, stop me if you’ve heard this one: There are these two old Jewish guys in Kabul, Afghanistan, see, and not only are they the last two surviving members of their much-persecuted religion, but they hate each other’s guts almost as much as they despise the Taliban. Their days are surely numbered, so they have to figure out a way to perpetuate Judaism in their land before … [Read more...]