Art: Tonight will be a busy one for art openings from Jupiter down to Boca Raton, and Barry Seidman will be part of several of them.
The fine art photographer will exhibit images from six of his different series — Beached, Bloomers, Drinks, Art-chi-textures, Hot Peppers and Smoke — at the Palm Beach Yacht Club tonight and Saturday. His Bloomers series features flowers on large-scale canvases, while Hot Peppers and Smoke both show why Seidman has enjoyed a career as a top advertising photographer for major brands and TV commercials. A portion of the sales from the Yacht Club exhibits will benefit the Palm Beach Cultural Council. To RSVP for this special exhibition, call Carey Reed at the Palm Beach Yacht Club at (561) 655-8711, as space is limited.
Seidman’s work (full disclosure: so is mine) also is part of the 13th annual InFocus juried exhibit opening tonight at the new Palm Beach Photographic Centre on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach. The new 26,000-square-foot center debuts at 7 p.m. with InFocus and two other exhibits: Celebrating US: Photographs from Presidential Inaugurations and Historic White House Moments, and Gatherings, offering nature still-lifes by artist-photographer Anna Tomczak. At 9 a.m. Saturday, presidential photographers David Hume Kennerly, Bob McNeely and Karen Ballard will share their experiences during a panel discussion at West Palm Beach City Commission Chambers in City Hall, and at 10:30 a.m., Tomczak will lead photo enthusiasts to the West Palm Green Market to select fruit and vegetables for still-life photographs to be shot at the Photographic Centre. For more information, call (561) 276-9797.
Meanwhile, up in Jupiter, the Town of Jupiter Gallery of Art is featuring paintings by long-time Jupiter resident and professional artist and instructor Norma Conway and by Robert L. Lewis, a Florida Highwayman, along with photographs by Seidman and Judy Norton. Norton, granddaughter of the founder of the Norton Museum of Art, is presenting a series of photographs that she created on her iPhone.
Conway’s representational paintings focus on Florida wildlife including panthers, birds and sea turtles. Florida wildlife is the central theme of Conway’s representational paintings that includes Florida panthers, birds and sea turtles. The Town of Jupiter Gallery of Art in the Jupiter Community Center is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (561) 741-2400.
Also tonight, the city of Palm Beach Gardens celebrates the 20th anniversary of the GardensArt public art program. More than 400 artists have exhibited in the program that features eight to 10 exhibits annually. At the event from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Bak Middle School of the Arts’ 8th Grade String Quartet will perform, and an exhibit by FLAG (Florida Artist Group) will open for display through Nov. 30. Palm Beach Gardens City Hall is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For more information, visit www.pbgfl.com.
In Boca Raton, Florida Atlantic University’s biennal faculty exhbition opens from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. today, showcasing the work of 30 artists and designers from numerous FAU departments: visual art, art history, communication and multimedia, and architecture. The exhibit will be on display through Saturday, Jan. 23, in the Schmidt Center Gallery. Hours are Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.fau.edu/galleries, or call (561) 297-2966.
Finally, an exhibit of art focused on the power of the sun opened last night at the Palm Beach International Airport. Solar Abstractions features work by 21 artists, including Jon Allen and Grant Williams of Jupiter; Erik Kucera, Sigrid Lium and Tula Antikainen of West Palm Beach; Chief Joseph the Eagle and Norman Berman of Lake Worth; Peter Debe, Patricia Levey, Leora Klaymer Stewart and Cecily Hangen of Palm Beach; Stanford H. Slutsky of Delray Beach; Tom Parker and Margaret Ziede of Boca Raton; Teresa Ann Frazee, Carmen Faya-Gomila and Cynthia Kallan of Boynton Beach; Lynn Morgan, Connie Robayo, Fernando Rodriquez and, once again, Barry Seidman, all of Palm Beach Gardens. For a virtual tour of the exhibition that runs through Dec. 17, visit www.pbcgov.com/fdo/art/exhibitions.htm. For more information, call (561) 233-0235. — K. Deits
Film: Writer-director Richard Curtis, who put multiple spins on romantic comedy with Love, Actually a few years back, shows again that he can handle large-cast stories with Pirate Radio, a feel-good romp about a crew of maverick disc jockeys who broadcast from a rundown boat in the North Sea during the mid-60s. The British government tries to shut them down, because they sense how rock music can corrupt their teens. Philip Seymour Hoffman heads a cast of mainly Brits, including such Curtis regulars as Bill Nighy and Rhys Ifans. Of course the music soundtrack is full of great nostalgic sounds, but the film amuses even if you did not live through the period. Opening today at area theaters. — H. Erstein
Theater: Caldwell Theatre artistic director Clive Cholerton used to be a financial adviser, which probably explains his affinity for David Mamet’s 2006 The Voysey Inheritance, an adaptation of Harley Granville-Barker’s 1905 drama about a family that learns its wealth was amassed by a gigantic Ponzi scheme run by its patriarch. Of course, the play has only grown in relevance since Palm Beach con man Bernie Madoff rose to infamy, victimizing many of the Caldwell’s biggest donors. It is no secret that the Caldwell is having money troubles, but that did not stop Cholerton from producing a play that requires a cast of 12 — including such South Florida favorites as Peter Haig, Terry Hardcastle, Katherine Amadeo and Jim Ballard. Opening today and playing through Dec. 13. For tickets, call (561) 241-7432. — H. Erstein
Music: It’s a homecoming of sorts Monday and Tuesday for composer Richard Danielpour (An American Requiem, Margaret Garner), whose five-movement suite, Souvenirs, will have its North American debut conducted by the man for whom it was written, the great French pianist Philippe Entremont. Danielpour, who grew up in Palm Beach County and went to what was then Twin Lakes High School, wrote the work for Entremont’s 75th birthday this year and will take a break from his teaching duties at the Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute to be on hand to hear Entremont and his Vienna Chamber Orchestra play it twice at the Kravis Center. The VCO and Entremont will play Souvenirs a third time Thursday night at Stuart’s Lyric Theatre; in all three programs, Entremont will be heard in concertos by Mozart (Tuesday, Thursday) and Haydn (Monday). 8 p.m. Monday, 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Kravis, 8 p.m. Thursday at the Lyric. For more information, call 800-572-8471 or visit www.kravis.org.
At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach, the Baroque focus continues Saturday night when the Palm Beach Atlantic University Early Music Ensemble, led by Michael O’Connor, joins the PBAU Singers and Keith Paulson-Thorp’s Camerata del Re for two oratorios by the 17th-century Italian Baroque composer Giacomo Carissimi. This is a rare opportunity to hear music by this Roman composer best-known to scholars, and who is the first important composer of oratorio. The combined groups will perform Carissimi’s Jephte and Vanitas Vanitatum, along with his motet Summi regis puerpera. Rounding out the bill are a trio sonata by Arcangelo Corelli an a toccata by Girolamo Frescobaldi. Admission is free for the 7:30 p.m. concert. Call 803-2970 or 278-6003.