Daniela Mack. (Photo by Dario Acosta) Music: The music of Spain has long been a favorite of the conductor Philippe Entremont, and for this weekend’s concert by the Boca Symphonia, he’s commissioned new arrangements of familiar and not-so-familiar masterworks from the land of Cervantes. The Argentine-born mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack is the guest soloist for Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo on a program that also includes Albeniz’s Triana, a newly reorchestrated version of Granados’ Goyescas, and the Sortileges of the Catalan composer Xavier Montsalvatge. Technically speaking, everything except the de Falla is a world premiere, given that the arrangements are new, and that alone makes it more than worthwhile for lovers of Spanish music to stop by. The concert is set for 3 p.m. Sunday at the Roberts Theater, St. Andrew’s School, Boca Raton. Tickets: $28.50-$50; call 376-3848 for more information.
Meanwhile, the fifth annual International Piano Festival at Palm Beach Atlantic University continues apace this weekend and into Tuesday, with concerts at the Persson Recital Hall on the campus of the West Palm Beach Christian college. Some 15 pianists from around the world are taking part in the International Certificate of Piano Artists festival. There are concerts tonight, Saturday night (a high school event), and Monday and Tuesday nights; all events start at 7:30, and tickets are $15 apiece, except for Saturday, when they are $10. For more information, call 803-2970.
Also this weekend, a very busy one on the classical scene: Canadian violinist Corey Cerovsek comes to the Four Arts on Sunday afternoon with the Brahms Second Sonata (in A, Op. 100), the solitary, beautiful sonata of Debussy, and Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata (No. 9 in A, Op. 47). 3 p.m. Sunday, Society of the Four Arts. Tickets: $15. Call 655-7227 or visit www.fourarts.org.
Uzbek pianist Valeriya Polunina, who offered a strong reading of the Rachmaninov Second Concerto last December at a Lynn Philharmonia concert, joins the Piano Lovers series at the Boca Steinway Gallery with Schumann’s Carnaval and the Op. 33 set of Rachmaninov’s Etudes-Tableaux. 5 p.m. Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Call 929-6633 for more information.
A sculpture by James La Cosse, from last year’s ArtiGras.Art: This weekend is the 26th annual ArtiGras celebration in downtown Jupiter, which runs for three days and welcomes about 150,000 people. It’s more of a large street fair than a curated museum show, of course, but there is art from creators around the country available for sale in one of the many booths that will line Abacoa Town Center starting tomorrow. Among the local artists this year are Alex Marksz, Marilyn Murphy, Mike Bacon, Laurie Snow Hein, Nancy Tilles, Philippe Laine and Sue Archer. The festival runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday. Tickets are $6 in advance, and $10 at the gate. Call 748-3946 for more information, or visit www.artigras.org.
Jonathan Winters in Certifiably Jonathan.Film: At 85, Jonathan Winters is a show biz icon, a comedian’s comedian, an inventive funnyman who has earned the description “deliciously demented.” To have a sense of his comic spin, head this week to Lake Park’s Mos’Art Theatre to see Certifiably Jonathan, a documentary that revolves around his perhaps illusory yearning to be taken seriously as a visual artist. More than anything, he wants a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, but standing in the way is a newly developed humorist’s and artist’s block.
Helping him get his funny back are some of his comedy disciples – Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Sarah Silverman and Howie Mandel. Not everything in the movie works, but there is no denying that there is an exceptional mind at work here. Opening Friday. — H. Erstein
Irene Adjan, Josh Canfield and Tom Wahl in Next Fall.Theater: Beginning Sunday, Boca Raton’s Caldwell Theatre previews Geoffrey Naufft’s Next Fall, a Tony Award Best Play nominee from last season on Broadway, the dramatic tale of how an auto accident leaves a young gay would-be actor close to death in a New York hospital intensive care unit, bringing together his diverse friends and relatives in the waiting room. The production, a Florida premiere, is directed by Caldwell co-founder Michael Hall, in his first return to the company since retiring as artistic director in 2009.
He molds a cast of Caldwell favorites, including Pat Nesbit, Tom Wahl and Irene Adjan. Opening next Friday, Feb. 25. Call (561) 241-7432 for tickets. — H. Erstein