Weekend arts picks: Sept. 10-13
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.
Weekend arts picks: Sept. 4-7
Music: Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher have been making music together for nearly 30 years as Depeche Mode, and currently the English electronica band (Personal Jesus, People Are People) is in the middle of a very successful tour to support its newest album, Sounds of the Universe. The band plays Tampa on Friday and then the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise on Saturday, its last U.S. stop before resuming in Mexico in October. While the band isn't on the cutting edge of musical fashion as it was in the 1980s, a growing consensus of critical opinion points to Depeche Mode as one of the most influential bands of its time. 8 pm. Tickets $36.75-$86.75. Call Ticketmaster at 954-523-3309 or visit www.bankatlanticcenter.com. – G. Stepanich
Film: Despite the fact that 7-year-old Laila is having a birthday, it is an ordinary day in Ramallah on the Israel-occupied West Bank, as seen from the comings and goings inside the taxi of the girl’s father, an out-of-work judge reduced to driving a cab. The film, Laila’s Birthday, by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, makes its political points through a series of brief vignettes, as the taxi becomes a microcosm for the chaos of this precarious Middle East life. Opening Friday at Lake Worth’s Emerging Cinemas, 709 Lake Ave. Call (561) 296-9382 for show times. -- H. Erstein
Theater: Most professional companies are on hiatus at this time of year, but GableStage in Coral Gables probably doesn’t know the meaning of the word. It continues, through Sept. 13, with a searing production of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, a morality tale that unspools inside the amoral world of Hollywood, as a newly promoted head of production (Burn Notice’s Paul Tei) has to chose between a producer (Gregg Weiner) pushing a sure-thing piece of commercial junk and his temp secretary (newcomer Amy Elane Anderson) who argues for him to make a movie with some substance. Call (305) 445-1119 for tickets. -- H. Erstein
In Lake Worth, the Clay, Glass, Metal, Stone Cooperative Gallery of more than 20 artists is featuring Joyce Brown, Victoria Rose Martin, and Sally Siegel at its opening Friday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., with a wine-and-cheese reception sponsored by wine broker and artist Barbara Eden and building owners Jay and Cathy Bernhardt. Brown, the founder of the co-op gallery and a peace and social-justice advocate, creates playful groups of people in her imaginative sculptures. Martin, a professor of art at Palm Beach Community College, uses “symbols such as monocles, hats, and wings to express the duality between who we really are and how people want to see us.” Her work, in ceramic and two-dimensional paintings, features fascinating human-animal hybrids. And Siegel is an experienced functional potter who creates sushi dishes and bowls. She also makes iridescent jewelry from fused glass. The gallery is located at 605 Lake Ave. in downtown Lake Worth. For more information, call (561) 588-8344. -- K. Deits
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 28-30
Art: If you haven’t seen the sculpture exhibit at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, you have a few more days to see it before it closes Sept. 6. Viewers of Off the Wall: The Human Form in Sculpture can follow the evolution of the human form in American and European sculpture from the mid-19th century to current work. From wood to marble, metal to ceramics, there is a wide gamut of work in the exhibition, and aside from the various techniques the sculptors used, it is interesting to see how the concept of the figure and ideal beauty has changed over the years. One of my favorite pieces is from the Norton collection: My Life as a Dog is a self-portrait in ceramics by the late Funk Art sculptor Robert Arneson (1930-1992). 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. -- K. Deits
And on Friday evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the Northwood Village is presenting an Art and Wine Promenade in which more than 30 local artists will present their work, along with three boutique wine tastings and live entertainment. The shops and art galleries, such as EG2 and Northwood Glass Art, will be open also. The event is located on Northwood Road and 24thand 25th streets between Broadway and Dixie Highway. It is free and open to the public. For more information, call (561) 822-1551. -- K. Deits
Music: The work of Robert Schumann will be heard more frequently in the months to come, as the classical music world celebrates the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. You
can get an early start on your Schumann-mania in a concert Saturday afternoon by the Lynn University academic and pianist Yang Shen (at right) . She'll play two Schumann works: the Abegg Variations, Op. 1, using the name of a fellow student at Heidelberg to craft a theme built around those five notes (A, B-flat, E, G and G), and the Fantasy in C major, Op. 17, one of his finest, most Romantic works. Shen also will play a piece by a composer not known for his solo piano music when she performs the Dumka, Op. 59, of Tchaikovsky, a beautiful and difficult piece that deserves to be better-known. 5 p.m. Saturday at the Steinway Gallery, Boca Raton. Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Call 929-6633 for tickets or more information. -- G. Stepanich 
And if you're interested in seeing something really different this weekend, you could take a trip to Miami's Trinity Cathedral on Sunday evening for a concert by the fine British organist Matthew Steynor (pictured at left), who will play a program of works inspired by extraterrestrial ideas.
Chief among them: A transcription of The Planets, the great orchestral suite by the underrated English composer Gustav Holst. Proceeds from the concert help pay for the work recently done to restore Trinity's organ. Tickets: $15, $5 for students and children. For more information, visit www.trinitymiami.org. -- G. Stepanich
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 21-23
Art: You’d never know that it is still summer, as the local art community appears to be in full swing from Northwood in West Palm Beach to downtown Lake Worth and on south to Boynton Beach.
At the EG2 Northwood gallery, three “under 30” artists -- Carolyn Sickles, Ryan Toth, and Sue Stevens -- are presenting Paper Piracy, a thought-provoking contemporary exhibition that deals with the practice of appropriation. "The title acts as a pun: Piracy is considered theft, and the works are our personal interpretations of what we are constantly fighting to not lose,” said Sickles, a Florida Atlantic University BFA graduate and current master-level student at Manhattan’s Bank Street. The Paper Piracy exhibition is free of charge; the opening reception is today from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the gallery, which is located at 408 Northwood Ave. in West Palm Beach; hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. For more information, call Glen Barefoot at (561) 315-5947.
In Lake Worth, the Clay, Glass, Metal, Stone Cooperative Gallery of more than 20 artists is featuring Susan Bordas, Sheri Goldstein, and Gael and Howard Silverblatt at their opening today from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., with a wine-and-cheese reception sponsored by wine broker and artist Barbara Eden and building owners Jay and Cathy Bernhardt. Bordas works in clay to create realistic and imaginative sculptures. Goldstein, a glass artist, uses brightly colored dichroic glass to make pieces into abstract shapes with rich textures. The Silverblatts are well known for their narrative cloisonné images fashioned into jewelry and miniature objects. The gallery is located at 605 Lake Ave. in downtown Lake Worth. For more information, call (561) 588-8344.
Further south in Boynton, the Urs Art Studio Gallery is presenting nine artists: Rick BeauLieu, George Cheskes, Mike Hazzard, Jean Hutchison, Portland Jastram, Vera Rekstad, Naomie St. Amand, and Lorrie Turner, along with gallery owner Suzette Urs. Works include steel sculptures, glass bead art, works on paper and canvas, and photography. The Urs Art Studio Gallery is at 802 N. Federal Highway in Boynton Beach. Today's reception lasts from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. For more information, call (561) 734-6926. -- K. Deits
Music: On Saturday, the Lake Worth Playhouse presents another in the Emerging Cinema series of opera performances, and this one is not only a rarity but a production that's already become legendary for its sheer invention. It's Hector Berlioz' Benvenuto Cellini, first performed in 1838 and based on the memoirs of Cellini, the 16th-century Florentine goldsmith and sculptor. The production is the 2007 Philipp Stolzl version at that year's Salzburg Festival, starring Maija Kovalevska and Burkhard Fritz. Just a glimpse of the trailer gives you an idea what you're in for, but this also is a unique chance to see and hear a fascinating opera that Berlioz, who had so little luck with his stage works, said later in life "contains an energy and exuberance, and a brilliance of color such as I may perhaps never find again, and which deserved a better fate." It screens at 12:30 p.m. Saturday; tickets are $18. Call 586-6410 for more information. -- G. Stepanich
Meanwhile, the St. Paul's series of monthly Sunday concerts continues right through the hot months with a detour into jazz. Singers Adriana Samargia and Anita Smith join Larry Mellone and the St. Paul's Jazz Ensemble for an afternoon of standards. 4 p.m. Sunday at the church on Swinton Avenue in Delray Beach. Tickets: $15-$18. Call 278-6003 for more information. -- G. StepanichWeekend arts picks: August 13-16
Art: You can see what the kids got up to at summer camp Friday night when the Armory Art Center showcases the work of 700 of its summer students from kindergarten through high school. Participants in classes such as Adventure in Art and Studio Artshops for Teens produced work including drawing, painting, mixed media, sculpture and ceramics. Students interested in developing their portfolios also took a workshop with Armory instructor Ryan Toth. The exhibit's opening is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, and it runs through Sept. 4. The Armory is located at 1700 Parker Ave. in West Palm Beach. For more information, visit www.armoryart.org, or call (561) 832-1776. -- K. Deits
Meanwhile, the Art After Dark evenings continue tonight at the Norton Museum of Art, starting at 5 p.m. and lasting until 9 p.m. These events have a mix of music (tonight, harpist Anne Akerson as well as DJ Rumble), performance, chat, and gallery tours, as well as film. Tonight's is The Red Shoes, the 1948 classic starring Moira Shearer as the ballet dancer who lives for her art. Admission is free for members, $8 for adults, $3 for ages 13 to 21, and free for ages 12 and under. Visit www.norton.org for more information. -- K. Deits
Fine art photographer Barry Ravel offers a series of large photographs called Come to the Garden in an exhibition that opens Tuesday night at the Florida Atlantic University campus in Jupiter. The images include tranquil views of water lilies and dramatic flower closeups. The free exhibit opens at 5 p.m. Tuesday and lasts through Aug. 28 at the Student Resources Atrium, which is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.fau.edu/jupiter/ or www.ravel.net. -- K. Deits
Music: The Cruzan Amphitheatre, having hosted a huge lineup of metal bands yesterday, moves into pop-metal hair-band territory at 7 p.m. today with '80s favorites Def Leppard and Poison, joined by '70s idols Cheap Trick. Tickets: $29.50-$125. Tomorrow and Saturday night, it's Dave Matthews and his band, on tour to support a new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. At the Cruzan Ampitheatre, West Palm Beach. 7 pm both shows. Tickets: $32-$67. Call the box office at 795-8883 or visit www.livenation.com. -- G. Stepanich
Jazz fans who want to make the trip south can catch trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis tonight as part of the summer series at Coral Gables Congregational Church. Marsalis is celebrated not just for his playing but for his back-to-basics recording techniques for making jazz records. 8 pm. Tickets: $25. Call 305-448-7421, or visit www.communityartsprogram.org. -- G. Stepanich
Film: As the summer began and the betting was on over which action blockbuster would deliver the goods, Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, a South African version of War of the Worlds crossed with Transformers, wasn’t even on most people’s radar. It arrives this weekend and is an offbeat winner, albeit too long, a gritty tale of an alien invasion of giant prawns, with strokes of dark humor and, if you look hard enough, perhaps a political allegory about apartheid. -- H. Erstein
Theater: Chances are you have not seen a Civil War drama like Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man, the latest invigorating effort from newly installed Caldwell Theatre Co. artistic director Clive Cholerton. On the final day of the War Between the States, a wounded confederate soldier of the Jewish faith returns to his plantation, pleading with his former slaves -- also Jewish -- to care for him and his physical infirmities. Cholerton directs a cast headed by John Archie and Brandon Morris. Opening Friday and continuing through Aug. 30. Call (561) 241-7432 for tickets. -- H. Erstein