Weekend arts picks: Nov. 6-9

Music: The Boca Symphonia opens its fifth season this weekend in what will be its last series under conductor Alexander Platt, who is leaving to concentrate on an increased workload in Chicago. Platt’s defining aesthetic has been his innovative programming, and this season is no exception. The Symphonia will play one standard work, the Violin Concerto in G minor of Max Bruch, with the Hungarian soloist Ernö Kallai, and a piece by the short-lived American composer Irving Fine (1914-1962), his Notturno for Strings and Harp, written in 1951. For the closer, Platt has chosen the first three movements of the Symphony No. 2 in B-flat, Op. 52, of Felix Mendelssohn. The symphony, known as the Lobgesang in its original version, ends with a huge, gorgeous choral finale, but that’s a big undertaking. So Platt has come up with his own instrumental version of the Second, substituting Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage overture as the finale. He’s confident it will work, and doubtless he’s right. The concert begins at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Roberts Theatre on the campus of St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton. Tickets: $42-$53. For more information, call 376-3848 or visit www.bocasymphonia.org. – G. Stepanich

Art: An impressive slate of openings this weekend is evidence of how our area is rapidly becoming a center for art, from a private art collector’s curated exhibition to a juried exhibition judged by a major Miami gallery, to a museum show by an internationally famous artist.

Opening Friday night at private collectors Elayne and Marvin Mordes’ WhiteSpace Collection is Beyond Delicate, curated by Kara-Walker Tomé, founder of Showtel and 10 x 10. Four South Florida woman artists – Carol Prusa, Georgeta Fondos, Carolyn Sickles and Giannina Coppiano Dwin – have been selected by Tomé for their art associated with themes related to the female experience. The artists have all created pieces in a white- and-beige palette with materials or images found in nature.

At the opening, local photographer Jacek Gancarz will continue photographing for his viewer-participation project The Last Pink Flamingo, in which he photographs people posing with a plastic flamingo. Gancarz will take photographs of people at the opening and send them a signed 11-by-14 photograph for only $65. Part of the proceeds will benefit the Mordes’ fund at the Community Foundation for Palm Beach County. The fund is used to help the contemporary arts in Palm Beach County.

The opening Friday is from 7 to 10 p.m., and admission is $7. Beyond Delicate will run through Sunday, Dec. 20, with public viewings and a guided tour on Nov. 21 and Dec. 19 from 10 a.m. to noon. Reservations are required, and admission is $12. Private tours for groups are also available. WhiteSpace-The Mordes Collection is located at 2805 N. Australian Ave. in West Palm Beach. For more information, visit www.whitespacecollection.com or call (561) 842-4131.

Also on Friday, renowned contemporary artist William Kentridge will give a lecture to Norton Museum of Art members about his exhibition, William Kentridge: Five Themes, which is a compressive survey of the South African’s work featuring 75 works including, drawings, prints, sculpture, films, theater models and books. Kentridge was featured in a Time magazine article as one of the 100 most influential people in 2009. The exhibit opens to the public Saturday and runs through Jan. 17. For more information, call (561) 832-5196. Hours are Tuesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. Admission to the special exhibitions is free to members and children under 13; $12 for adults and $5 for ages 13-21.

Also opening Friday night at the Armory Art Center is Visual Conceits: Fantasy or Reality, an international exhibition juried by Bernice Steinbaum, founder and president of Miami Art Exchange and director of the Bernice Steinbaum galleries in New York City and Miami. Many of our local artists, such as painter Sibel Kocabasi and photographer Elle Schorr, have been accepted into the exhibition. The Visiting Master Artist Exhibition also will be on display, featuring artists such as Jason Briggs, Tim Hawkesworth and Beth Cavener Stichter. Both exhibits run through Nov. 28, and the opening reception is from 6 to 9 p.m., which is free to members and $5 to non-members. For more information, visit www.armoryart.org, or call (561) 832-1776. – K. Deits

Film: Just as every generation seems to have its war, so does it have its anti-war film. And the stranger the war, the more loopy the movie making fun of it. Think of Catch-22 for World War II and Three Kings for Desert Storm, and now The Men Who Stare at Goats, an outlandish look at that oxymoron “military intelligence” as it applies to mental combat in Iraq. The title refers to just one of an elite, experimental corps mission, to stare down goats until their hearts stop. (Consider the applications.) Directed by Grant Heslov, who wrote the terrific Good Night, and Good Luck, with an A-list cast including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, this one is going to split audiences on its merits, but go with premise. After all, as an early title puts it, “More of this is true than you would believe.” In area theaters beginning Friday. – H. Erstein

Theater: When you devote your theater exclusively to new work, you have to make sure that the supply of playwrights continues, not to mention theatergoers. So Manalapan’s Florida Stage is proactive in seeding both with its Young Voices Monologue Festival, now in its fifth year. It solicited scripts from teens throughout Palm Beach County and from the nearly 400 submitted, it chose 13 that will be performed this Monday evening, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m., at the company’s Manalapan playhouse, 262 S. Ocean Blvd. The monologues come from all over the county, but the bulk of them are from the Dreyfoos and G-Star Schools of the Arts. No reservations are needed, because the evening is completely free of charge. – H. Erstein