Alexandre Moutouzkine. (Photo by E. Appel) Sunday afternoon’s concert by The Symphonia Boca Raton had a loose and handmade feel to it, with decent performances by the group of some unusual repertoire, and a standout appearance by a guest soloist. Alexandre Moutouzkine, a Russian-born pianist, was the soloist for two works, the rarely heard Ballade (in F-sharp, Op. 19) of … [Read more...]
Sound woes prove frustrating for Holdsworth, audience
No one inside the black box theater at the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center in Boca Raton — not the overflow crowd of 300 or the reason they were there, the three instrumentalists led by veteran British jazz/fusion guitar great Allan Holdsworth — could’ve possibly been fully prepared for what they’d experience Saturday. Considering the reputation and incendiary talents of the … [Read more...]
Athletic, virile Schumann closes Symphonia’s 10th season
One of the benefits of a smaller orchestra is that music of the early 19th century can sound lean and mean if the players and conductors enter into the spirit of the thing. And that’s precisely the way the Symphonia Boca Raton closed its 10th season Sunday at the Roberts Theater in Boca — with gritty, energetic readings of works on a meat-and-potatoes program led by James … [Read more...]
The remarkable journey of Ellar Coltrane
Boyhood, perhaps the most acclaimed film of 2014, was a risk on many levels. Foremost among them was the pressure put on a 6-year-old kid named Ellar Coltrane to carry a movie that revolved around him, that he would grow before the viewers’ eyes into an accomplished actor as he grew — literally — from 6 to 18 years old. But the risk by writer-director Richard Linklater paid … [Read more...]
An impressive night of second symphonies for PB Symphony
The Palm Beach Symphony’s concert Jan. 28 at Mar-a-Lago got a late start owing to the breakdown on the road of the principal horn player’s car. Champagne and hors d’oeuvres were served to concertgoers while they listened to the children’s orchestra from The Conservatory School at North Palm Beach, a new performing arts school, under a tent on a chilly night at Donald Trump’s … [Read more...]
Martha Graham Company outstanding at Duncan
By Tara Mitton Catao After performing last year at the Kravis Center, the Martha Graham Company returned to South Florida on Friday night to launch the popular modern dance series at the Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. The company was very good when it performed in the large Dreyfoos Hall at the Kravis, but here in the smaller and more intimate … [Read more...]
Director of ‘The Gambler’ offers a tale of outsider redemption
English-born filmmaker Rupert Wyatt is well aware that there was a 1974 movie called The Gambler, starring James Caan and Lauren Hutton, but to his mind he was never doing a remake. “I remember it being specifically a study of addiction,” he says of the earlier film. “So when I read the script that Bill Monahan had written, I knew immediately that we weren’t making the same … [Read more...]
Impressive new dances at Reach/O Dance ‘Heat Wave’
It’s a pity that the annual dance intensive summer show produced by the Reach and O Dance companies only had one performance Saturday night, because this collection of modern, jazz and ballet moves showcased intriguing choreography and some standout individual dancers that more people should have been able to see. The show, called Heat Wave, and which contained a touching … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 9-10
Film: You may remember Swedish director Jan Troell, who made two linked Oscar-nominated films, The Emigrants and The New Land, in the early ’70s. Now 83, he has crafted a stunning, downbeat, history-based film, The Last Sentence, but since the story it relates is Swedish history, it is likely to be unfamiliar to most American viewers. It focuses on a crusading newspaper … [Read more...]
Strong corps of singers lifts charming ‘Barber’ at PB Opera
There is a celebrated passage in Stendhal’s Life of Rossini in which the French writer describes an outing he and his friends took to Lake Como exactly 200 years ago, in the summer of 1814. The party had a wonderful time on the road from Brescia to Como, and an even better time staying at the beautiful inn run by one of Stendhal’s other friends once they got there. That night, … [Read more...]