Music: Contemporary classical music has a surprising number of champions in South Florida, and that includes Tim Thompson of Palm Beach Atlantic University, who every year offers concerts of new pieces by faculty members, students, and guests. This year’s festival, called Frontwave, began last night with a concert by the piano team of Duo Gastesi-Bezerra, and tonight is the contemporary concert, which features works by a handful of composers including special guest Shawn Okpebholo, who teaches at the music conservatory of Wheaton College, a Christian school in suburban Chicago. On Saturday afternoon, it’s a concert of music by student composers, and that night, a concert of electronic music. Tonight’s concert begins at 7:30 in the Persson Recital Hall on the PBAU campus, and the student concert is set for 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the hall. The electronic concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Room 335 (the choral rehearsal hall) at PBAU’s Rinker Hall. Tickets for each event are $10, $5 for students. Call 803-2970 or visit www.pba.edu.
The Palm Beach Opera closes its 50th season starting tonight at the Kravis Center with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Starring in the bloody bel canto with the famous mad scene is the Mexican soprano Maria Alejandres, who’s played La Scala and Covent Garden, and stays in South Florida right after the end of the run to star as Juliette in Romeo et Juliette for Florida Grand Opera. Her Edgardo in West Palm is Brazilian tenor Fernando Portari, and Enrico is played by Roman Burdenko. On Saturday night, Romanian soprano Valentina Farcas is joined by tenor Georgy Vasiliev. Massimo Gasparon directs what insiders say is a “very traditional” production, and artistic director Bruno Aprea conducts. The opera bows tonight at 7:30, repeats at 7:30 Saturday night, and returns at 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets start at $20. Call 833-7888 or visit www.pbopera.org.
It’s not everyday that you get to hear a full-blown horn concerto, and so this weekend at Lynn University is the perfect time to stop by. Hornist Greg Miller will play the first of Richard Strauss’ two concertos for the instrument, which his father Franz Strauss memorably played better than anyone else in the Europe of his time (he played principal horn in most of the Wagner opera premieres). The Lynn Philharmonia under Albert-George Schram will also play Blue Cathedral, Jennifer Higdon’s popular orchestral piece, on a program with Bernstein’s late Divertimento, and Respighi’s Pines of Rome. The concerts are set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday in the Wold Performing Arts Center on the Lynn campus. Tickets range from $35-$50. Call 237-9000 or visit www.lynn.edu.
Dance: Choreographer Deborah Marquez presents the premiere of her new ballet, Dracula, tonight and Saturday in Wellington. Based on the Bram Stoker novel and inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s weird but memorably extravagant movie version, the ballet features a score drawn by Marquez drawn from a variety of sources. Cuban-born Javier Torres, now a member of the Northern Ballet Company in Leeds, England, will dance the role of the mysterious lord of Castle Carfax. The performances will mark a notable debut for Marquez’s new Greenacres-based Arts Dance Generation dance company, which opened in August. Dracula can be seen at 8 tonight and 8 p.m. Saturday at Wellington High School. Tickets are $30. Visit www.schoolofballetartsfl.com for purchase, or call 577-5355.
Film: If you can stop that hacking cough long enough to enjoy a movie, take a look at Addiction Incorporated, the tale of a whistleblower who took on Big Tobacco. The spotlight is on research scientist Victor DeNoble — isn’t that a great name? — who, while working for a tobacco company in search of a safe, effective nicotine substitute in the 1980s, came upon the proof that cigarettes are addictive. Naturally, the industry did whatever it could to squelch the information and to discredit DeNoble. He refused to be silenced and, eventually, he went public with the case, testifying before Congress in 1994. Charles Evans Jr. directed the documentary, with the straightforward style of a filmmaker who knows he has a good story and doesn’t need to sensationalize it. At Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park, beginning Friday.
Theater: “Dust Bowl troubadour” Woody Guthrie wrote hundreds of songs in tribute to the land and in protest of those that would despoil it. Many of the events in those songs parallel his life, as we see in Woody Sez, the first full production of The Theatre at Arts Garage. David M. Lutken and Helen J. Russell, who appeared at Florida Stage 18 years ago with a revue of a slightly different focus, Woody Guthrie’s American Song, are joined here by David Finch and Megan Loomis, and the four of them convey the often tragic incidents of Guthrie’s existence and sing with glorious harmonies numbers which bring back the Depression era and also suggest the parallels to today. At Arts Garage in Delray Beach, 180 N.E. First St., through Sun., April 8. Call (561) 450-6357 for tickets.