TUESDAY
What: Itzhak Perlman
Where: Society of the Four Arts, 2 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach
Time: 3 p.m.
Cost: $15 to $35, free for members
Contact: 561/655-7226 or www.fourarts.org
From Tel Aviv to Juilliard to the entire world, Itzhak Perlman has long established himself as one of the best violinists in the world, with each of his concerts an impeccable course in technique and vision. Perlman swings by Palm Beach County regularly as part of his (usually sold-out) concert tours, but this is something else – a speaking engagement that will delve beyond the violin. Expect to be entertained: Clips from his famed master classes reveal his engaging sense of humor as well as an unmatchable ability. In 2005, Perlman was named the 135th greatest Israeli of all-time by the Israeli news service Ynet––which seems insultingly high on that list for an artist of Perlman’s stature, but what do I know?
What: Opening night of “Once”
Where: Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
Time: 8 p.m.
Cost: $26 to $111
Contact: 305/949-6722, www.arshtcenter.org
Theater producers wasted little time in adapting the Irish film “Once” – an Academy Award winner and one of the warmest romances of the Aughts – for the stage, building more songs and a theatrical structure around the terrific songs originally written by the movie’s actors, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season. The minimalist set of this Broadway tour – just a bar flanked by chairs on either side – directs the majority of the focus on the great music and the story, about two people who fall in love while pursuing a dream of making music together. “Once” went on to win Best Musical at the 2012 Tonys, and this marks its South Florida premiere. It runs through Sunday only.
THURSDAY
What: “Zen and the Art of Formless Precepts…” lecture
Where: Florida Atlantic University’s Wimberly Library, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton
Time: 4 p.m.
Cost: Free
Contact: Kenneth.holloway@fau.edu
If you’re looking for a moment of Zen, there’s one every night at the end of “The Daily Show.” But if you seek more than a moment—like, more than an hour’s worth of deep immersion into Eastern religion and history—then this complementary lecture at FAU is for you, courtesy of Morten Schlutter (pictured), associate professor of Chinese Religion and Buddhist Studies at the University of Iowa. I won’t try to comprehend the meaning of its full title, which is “Zen and the Art of Formless Precepts in the Evolving Platform Sutra,” but it has a lot to do with a pair of hundred-year-old expeditions led by England’s Sir Aurel Stein and France’s Paul Pelliot, which crossed China’s silk road in search of treasure and ended up discovering a thousand-year-old Buddhist sutra describing formless precepts. Stick around after the lecture (or visit the library early) for an exhibition of rare books relating to the period of Stein and Pelliot’s expeditions.
FRIDAY
What: Opening day/night of “Last of the Unjust”
Where: Living Room Theaters at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton (also at Lake Worth Playhouse, 713 Lake Ave.)
Time: pending
Cost: $5 to $9.50
Contact: 561/549-2600, fau.livingroomtheaters.com
Long considered the greatest Holocaust documentary ever made, French director Claude Lanzmann’s illuminating 10-hour treatise “Shoah” (1985) saw the director visiting three extermination campus and interviewing both victims and perpetrators. By contrast, Lanzmann’s latest film—just released by the now 88-year-old director—is a veritable short. Running three hours and 40 minutes, “The Last of the Unjust” began nearly 40 years ago, spawned from a series of interviews with Benjamin Murmelstein, a member of the Third Reich’s “Elders of the Jews” whom history has viewed as both a Nazi collaborator and a savior of the Jewish people. Those interviews didn’t make it into “Shoah,” but they see the light of day in “Unjust,” which finds Lanzmann returning to Theresienstadt ghetto and reopening Murmelstein’s old wounds and deep memory well. The result is a statement so profound that top critics have called it “monumental” and “historic.”
What: Pat Metheny Unity Group
Where: Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
Time: 8 p.m.
Cost: $55 to $120
Contact: 305/949-6722, www.arshtcenter.org
The last time jazzman Pat Metheny swung by Miami, in 2010, it was for a solo show unlike any other. He performed his solo set surrounded by his towering Orchestrion, a musical playground of electronic pianos, basses, guitarbots, marimbas, vibraphones and percussion, all of which responded to Metheny’s organic guitar lines. Having proven he doesn’t need a band to electrify an audience, the now 20-time Grammy winner is reverting back to basics with his Unity Group, bringing along four (flesh-and-blood) musicians, including legendary sax player Chris Potter. The band will play selections from a forthcoming 2014 release as well as audience favorites from Metheny’s 40-year career. One thing’s for sure: This tour will be a lot easier on the roadies.
FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
What: Symphonia Weekend
Where: Boca Raton Country Club, 17751 Boca Club Blvd., Boca Raton; and Roberts Theatre at St. Andrews School, 3900 Jog Road, Boca Raton
Time: Various start times
Cost: $5 to $71.25, varies per event
Contact: 866/687-4201, www.thesymphonia.org
Classical music enthusiasts and their children can enjoy a rare opportunity, all weekend long, to experience the Symphonia/Boca Raton from several different avenues. The festivities start at 2 p.m. Friday with a “Tea and Symphony” talk at the Boca Raton Country Club, where guest conductor Grant Cooper and guest violinist Yevgeny Kutik (pictured) will discuss their craft. Then, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, music lovers can bring their children to a “Meet the Orchestra” rehearsal at the Roberts Theatre, where pint-sized players can try out a variety of musical instruments. The weekend concludes at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Roberts Theatre with a Pre-Concert Conversation and then the Symphonia’s latest season concert, featuring the acclaimed Russian-American violinist Yevgeny and a program of Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” Viotti’s “Violin Concerto No. 22 in A minor” and Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major, op. 60.”
What: Delray Beach Garlic Festival
Where: Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
Time: 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $10 to $20 per day
Contact: 561/279-0907, www.dbgarlicfest.com
Allium sativum, the plant we call garlic, has been around for an awfully long time: Its origins trace back to 4,000 B.C. in Central Asia. Great thinkers like Hippocrates and Galen have advocated its use in treating parasites and respiratory problems, and the aromatic cloves have even been traded as currency. For 15 years now, the Delray Beach Garlic Festival has found its own uses for garlic, with its fearless chefs concocting dishes like Argentinean Garlic BBQ, Garlic Fest crab cakes and garlic ice cream. This month’s event, dubbed “the best stinkin’ party in town,” will feature the return of the Garlic Chef Competition, the Cloves and Vines Wine Garden, and Gourmet Alley, where visitors can experiment with numerous garlic-tinged entrees. As for the live music, the main stage headliners will be ‘90s rockers Collective Soul (Friday—pictured), recently reunited rock act Dispatch (Saturday) and U2 and Bruce Springsteen tribute acts (Sunday).
SATURDAY
What: The Ed Tour
Where: Parker Playhouse, 707 N.E. Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale
Time: 8 p.m.
Cost: $25 to $125
Contact: 954/462-0222, www.parkerplayhouse.com
If liberals have an equivalent to Rush Limbaugh, it’s probably Ed Schultz, the reigning titan of progressive talk radio, who has actually beaten Rush in certain markets. Like Limbaugh, he’s a big fella with a loud mouth, a bloviator with heartland bona fides and a radio listenership of 3 million. No less controversial for some of his past statements—he famously, and regrettably, called fellow talker Laura Ingraham a “slut”—Schultz today is a more careful firebrand, becoming one of the Democratic Party’s go-to interviewers both on his radio show and his nightly MSNBC program. Tonight’s appearance of his “Ed Tour” will be the first presentation in his three-week trip across America, so we don’t know what he’ll talk about. But if his talk show is any indication, workers’ rights and the dwindling middle class won’t be far from the top.
