Art: The South Florida Cultural Consortium Media and Visual Arts Fellowship offers stipends of $7,500 and $15,000 to its winning fellows, and the $15,000 awards are the largest such awards given to individual artists by any local arts agency in the United States. Tomorrow night at Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus, an exhibition of work by the 2009 fellowship recipients opens in the Schmidt and Ritter art galleries. Dual opening receptions in both galleries begin at 7 p.m., and the exhibit, which lasts through Oct. 31, is free to the public. (Gallery hours are 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays.)
The 2009 recipients are: Ali Codina (Miami-Dade), James Drain (Miami-Dade), Gean Moreno (Miami-Dade), Gavin Perry (Miami-Dade), Frances Trombly (Miami-Dade), Colby Katz (Broward), Samantha Salzinger (Broward), Nancy Spielman (Broward), Blane De St. Croix (Palm Beach) and Karley Klopfenstein (Monroe). For further information, call 561-297-2661 or visit www.fau.edu/galleries.
Meanwhile, in the art gallery at Palm Beach Community College’s Eissey Campus, an exhibit of abstract painting and ceramic pieces, Oil and Fire, opens at 5 p.m. Tuesday and runs through Oct. 9. The exhibit features work by well-known FAU professor and functional potter John McCoy, ceramicist Ellen Bates, who glazes platters using aerial photographs as reference, and painter Irene Stanton, who creates mixed-media landscape painting.
The gallery is located in the BB Building at the Eissey Campus, 3160 PGA Blvd., Palm Beach Gardens. Hours are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit www.pbcc.edu/artgallerypbg.xml or call (561) 207-5015. — K. Deits
On Friday, the annual faculty show at West Palm Beach’s Armory Arts Center gets under way; there’s also a Hispanic Heritage show and a large juried exhibit of works from the Florida Artist Group consisting of 78 paintings, sculptures and photographs. Melissa Miller Nece of Palm Harbor won the Elizabeth Morse Genius Award for a 14-inch-by-26-inch colored-pencil work called Sunset Rider, while Eleanor Richter of Coral Springs received an award for an interesting 36-inch-by-28-inch watercolor titled The Stroller, which shows different perspectives of people on the beach projected onto a woman’s torso.
The show features local artists Lois Barton (Jupiter), Cecily Hangen (West Palm Beach), Eydi Lampasona (Boca Raton), Joan Lustig (North Palm Beach), Nadine Meyers Saitlin (Boca Raton), Fern Samuels (Palm Beach Gardens) and Lorrie Williamson (Jupiter). For more information on The Florida Artist Group, call Hangen at 561-832-1717. The exhibit opens at 6 p.m. Friday, and runs through Oct. 3. For more information, visit www.armoryart.org, or call (561) 832-1776.
Finally, a taste of the season is available at the Norton Museum of Art tonight, with its monthly Art After Dark evening featuring curator Glenn Tomlinson speaking about the just-opened exhibit, George Segal: Street Scenes, featuring the work of the Pop Art sculptor. Tomlinson speaks at 6:30 p.m., and the theme for tonight’s Art After Dark gathering, which lasts until 9 p.m., is Homecoming Night: Wear your school colors, T-shirt or hat, and you’ll get $1 off admission ($8 for adults, $3 for ages 13-21, free ages 12 and under). Visit www.norton.org for more information.
And on display starting tonight in a Miami gallery is work by West Palm Beach photographer Cheryl Maeder, in an exhibit from Oxenberg Fine Art at Chelsea Galleria-Wynwood, 2441 N.W. 2nd Ave., in Miami. The exhibit, Go Figure: A Celebration of the Human Form, runs through Sept. 18. — K. Deits
Music: This weekend marks what essentially are the first concerts of the 2009-10 season, beginning tomorrow night in Miami and Saturday night in Fort Lauderdale with members and guests of the Walenstein Symphony Orchestra organization playing chamber music by Tchaikovsky. On the program at the University of Miami’s Gusman Hall (Friday) and the Broward Center for the Performing Arts (Saturday) are the Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, the String Quartet No. 1 (in D, Op. 11), and the string sextet known as Souvenir de Florence (Op. 70). Players include familiar area names such as violinist Mei-Mei Luo and cellist Christopher Glansdorp in the quartet, and pianist Natasa Stojanovska in the trio. Tickets range from $10-$30 for both concerts, and both begin at 7: 30 p.m. in their respective venues. For more information, call 877-733-3032 (Gusman) and 954-462-0222 (Broward).
The American violinist Robert McDuffie is in the thick of preparing for December, when he’ll premiere a new work written for him by Philip Glass called The American Four Seasons. But you can see him Sunday afternoon at the University of Miami’s Gusman Hall, where he’s appearing the first of this season’s Pinecrest-based Sunday Afternoons of Music, now in its 29th season. On McDuffie’s program are Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, the Beethoven Sonata No. 7 (in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2), and a selection of lighter fare including an arrangement of Gershwin’s It Ain’t Necessarily So, the Hoedown from Copland’s Rodeo, John Williams’ Schindler’s List theme, and the Ashokan Farewell of Jay Unger, made famous as the theme from Ken Burns’ The Civil War. The concert begins at 4 p.m., and tickets range from $10-$35. Call 305-271-7150 or visit www.sundaymusicals.org.
Update: The Vitali String Quartet, scheduled to appear next Sunday on the St. Paul’s series in Delray Beach, has had to cancel because its cellist is recuperating from a hand injury. But the Bergonzi Quartet, the resident ensemble at the University of Miami, has ridden to the rescue and will fill in for the Vitali. On the program: the beloved Death and the Maiden quartet (String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810) of Franz Schubert, the Second Quartet of Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera, and other pieces. Tickets for the Sept. 20 concert are $15-$18; the music begins at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach. Call 278-6003 or visit www.stpaulsdelray.org.
And then, of course, there’s Bruce Springsteen. The perennially popular singer-songwriter has been at it for 37 years, and he and the E Street Band are showing no signs of slowing down, touring now in support of their latest album, Working on a Dream. New Jersey’s favorite son, who has added 25 dates to this latest tour, appears at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise. Tickets: $39-$100.75. Call Ticketmaster at 954-523-3309 or visit www.bankatlanticcenter.com.
Theater: No one juggles politics and wordplay like Tom Stoppard and, occasionally, as with his newest work, Rock ‘n’ Roll, he gives his characters an emotional heft as well. History is on his mind, the history of his native Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1990, juxtaposed with the history of rock music over that same time. The results are heady stuff, but with a cast that includes Gordon McConnell, Laura Turnbull and Antonio Amadeo, Plantation’s Mosaic Theatre seems headed in the right direction to crack the play, in its Southeastern Premiere. Opening this weekend and running through Oct. 4. Call (954) 577-8243 for tickets.