The Schmidt Family Centre for the Arts at Mizner Park, a non-profit organization will present its eighth annual Festival of the Arts BOCA (http://www.festivalboca.com) March 6-15, 2014. Considered by critics to be “an important and impressive addition to the artistic landscape” – the Festival, held in Boca Raton, Florida, will continue to feature the finest in classical music, jazz, dance, film and authors. The Schmidt Family Centre for the Arts will once again collaborate with IMG Artists, a leader in worldwide cultural arts management, to align an impressive list of international artists.
Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman will open the Festival on Thursday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m. accompanied by Festival Orchestra Boca under the direction of Festival Music Director Constantine Kitsopoulos. Perlman will return to the Festival stage on Sunday, March 9 at 7 p.m. for the Florida premiere of his new program of traditional Jewish and Klezmer music with celebrated Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, Eternal Echoes: Songs and Dances for the Soul.
Dance will be brought back to the Festival this season with one of America’s leading dance troupes, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.
The blazing, technically flawless Cuban-born trumpeter, Arturo Sandoval will return to the Festival stage in 2014 in a tribute concert to his mentor, Dizzie Gillespie, with special guest Monica Mancini and the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra.
Cirque de la Symphonie will delight the whole family, combining the best elements of cirque and symphonic music, with some of the most amazing veterans of today’s cirque programs.
The Festival of the Arts Boca will close in spectacular fashion with the Florida premiere of today’s newest and most exciting singing group, the multicultural, operatic tenor trio Forte whose performances on America’s Got Talent captivated millions and launched the group into the national spotlight.
Headlining this season’s Authors & Ideas Program is Doris Kearns Goodwin , acclaimed presidential historian, who is returning to the Festival for the fourth time to speak about Theodore Roosevelt and her new book The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. Goodwin will be joined by Anna Deavere Smith, award winning actress currently starring in Nurse Jackie, author and creator of a new form of theater will bring to the Festival the same creativity she has brought to the Aspen Institute and many other venues; James Fallows , award winning national correspondent for the Atlantic, author of 10 books, most recently China Airborne: the Test of China’s Future; Dr. Daniel Levitin, best-selling author of This Is Your Brain On Music and The World in Six Songs ; Barbara Schmidt , businesswoman, philanthropist and spiritual teacher, will discuss Vicktor Frankl’s “Man Searching for Meaning‘: and, Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winning author of March and other books, including most recently Caleb’s Crossing and People of the Book will lend a different perspective to the Festival.
Established in 2007, the Festival of the Arts BOCA was designed to promote the cultural arts and to enrich the quality of life of the residents of Boca Raton, North Broward and Palm Beach Counties. As conceived by its founders, the Festival is more than just programming; it is a unique way of bringing world class performers, authors and speakers to Boca which would be unattainable but for the special qualities of a serious cultural arts festival in a great wintertime destination.
The Festival celebrates the special quality of life in Boca Raton and Palm Beach County and the special qualities of Mizner Park, which was recently selected by the American Planning Association as one of the ten best urban places in the United States. The Festival is special, because of the venue, the season, the quality and diversity of its cultural offerings and because of the opportunity for young and old to celebrate the traditions of the great arts and to be exposed to the incredible diversity of the performing and literary arts, at the highest levels.
The Festival of the Arts BOCA is also about cultural arts education – introducing new audiences to great music and exposing young people to the great artists in master classes and open rehearsals. The images are remarkable: Vladimir Jurowski conducting the student orchestra at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts, Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway leading the best flute students in the region in a master class and performance entitled Flutewise, Tiempo Libre “teaching” the history of Latin jazz in words and music and the orchestra of Lynn University performing on stage with Tiempo Libre in the debut of a new composition at the Festival, Itzhak Perlman “doing a little Q & A” at the end of a chamber music concert where Perlman performed with students of the Perlman School of Music are just a few of the special moments that have been produced by the Festival. The Festival continues its commitment to education, offering master classes, lectures and open rehearsals to over 7,000 area students. In addition, over 1,000 Festival tickets are donated to students and teachers every Festival.
The Festival of the Arts BOCA has already made a significant contribution to the reputation of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County as a quality tourist destination in the face of increased competition from other tropical destinations including the west coast of Florida, the Caribbean and Central America, together with the changing character of South Florida. What the Festival of the Arts BOCA has done for Boca Raton and Palm Beach County is to establish a reputation as the home of a “best-of-class” cultural arts experience.
Since its inaugural year, the Festival has been an unprecedented cultural arts festival, and has been heralded as a resounding success, with artists such as Itzhak Perlman (three times), the Russian National Orchestra, Yefim Bronfman, Vladimir Jurowski, Sir James and Lady Jeanne Galway, Nina Kotova, Helene Grimaud and Yellowjackets. Other artists have included Grammy award winning soprano Renee Fleming (twice), soloists from the American Ballet Theater, pianist/composer Conrad Tao, and jazz extraordinaire Eldar Djangirov, the U.S. debut of Milos Karadaglic, a classical guitarist from Montenegro, Ballet Hispanico, the Jazz Roots production of Piano Latino (Eddie Palmieri, Michel Camilo and Alfredo Rodriguez and their bands), young stars of the Metropolitan Opera, Jackie Evancho, Time for Three; Valentina Lisitsa; Patti Austin and Tony DeSare; Poncho Sanchez; “The Wizard of Oz” and“Casablanca” set to orchestra performed by the Boca Raton Symphonia and conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, KODO, Amadeus Leopold, Constantine Kitsopoulos, Boca Raton Symphonia, Cameron Carpenter, Valentina Lisitsa, Peter Oundjian, New World Symphony, and Audra McDonald.
World-renowned speakers over the seven years have included Edward Albee, David Ebershoff Anna Quindlen, Sir Salman Rushdie Dr. Shashi Tharoor, acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin; Richard Goodwin; David Brooks, Kevin Bleyer, Mika Brzezinski, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Barbara McDonald Stewart, David Ignatius, Patricia Engel, Thomas Keneally, General George W. Casey, Jr., and Michael Sandel.
The Festival is special not just for the audience, but for the performers as well who appreciate the specialty of a festival and enjoy the opportunity to interact with other artists in a relaxed and convivial setting. The Festival tent, gleaming with festival lights, effects an uncommon sense of excitement and celebration in a casual environment which is comfortable to patrons who do not regularly attend concerts at more formal performing arts halls. And, the Festival is special because it is periodic and each year offers “something old and something new.”
Sunday, January 12th – 7:00 PM
David Holt and Josh Goforth
Venue: Cultural Arts Center
For Tickets call 561-368-8445
Wednesday, March 5th – 7:30 PM
Free Festival “Plus” Event:
Jorge Luis Prates, Pianist
With Orchestra of the Americas
Program: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2
Venue: Amphitheater
Thursday, March 6th – 7:30 PM
Concert: Itzhak Perlman, Violinist With Festival Orchestra Boca
Constantine Kitsopoulos – Conductor
Venue: Amphitheater
Saturday, March 8th – 7:30 PM
Concert: Arturo Sandoval with The Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra
Special Guest Monica Mancini
Venue: Amphitheater
Sunday, March 9th – 7:00PM
Concert: “Eternal Echoes”
Itzhak Perlman, Violinist
Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, Chief Cantor of
Park East Synagogue, with members
of the Klezner Conservatory Band
Venue: Amphitheater
Saturday, March 15th – 7:30PM
Concert: Forte – Operatic Tenor Trio
Venue: Amphitheater
Saturday, March 8th – 4:00 PM
Authors & Ideas: James Fallows,
Journalist & Author
Title: “How Shall We Think Aobut China”
Venue: Cultural Arts Center
Sunday, March 9th – 4:00 PM
Authors & Ideas: Barbara Schmidt, Author & Speaker
Title: Viktor Frankl’s “Mans Search For Meaning”
Venue: Cultural Arts Center
Monday, March 10th – 7:00 PM
Authors & Ideas: Daniel J. Levitin, Neuroscientist, Musician & Author, with Constantine Kitsopoulos, Festival Music Director & Pianist
Title: “Your Brain on Music”
Venue: Amphitheater
Tuesday, March 11th – 7:00 PM
Authors & Ideas: Anna Deavere Smith, Actress, Playwright & Professor
Title: “Reclaiming Grace In The Face of The Adversity”
Venue: Amphitheater
Wednesday, March 12th – 7:00 PM
Authors & Ideas: Geraldine Brooks, Author
Title: “The Art of the Historical Novel”
Venue: Cultural Arts Center
Thursday, March 13th – 7:00 PM
Authors & Ideas: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Author
Title: “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft”
Venue: Cultural Arts Center
Friday, March 7th – 7:30 PM
Concert: Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company
Venue: Amphitheater
Friday, March 14th – 7:30 PM
Concert: Cirque de la Symphonie with Festival Orchestra Boca and Constantine Kitsopoulos, Conductor
Venue: Amphitheater
Tickets range from $25 to $125 per person and are available at http://www.festivalboca.com or 866-571-ARTS.
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