Arts Capital

ARTSEEN Everglades Project

 
 

For Sarasota artist Kathy Wright, the chance to paint images of the Florida Everglades while in residence there from December 2008 to November 2009 was important both because she finds the subject “personally compelling” and because of the ’Glades’ continuing place in political and environmental debates. Wright started out as a plein air painter and continues to work on smaller pieces outdoors, but her larger paintings of this unique ecosystem require a studio setting to complete. Most exciting development: She recently won a prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant of $25,000 in support of her Everglades Project. You can see her work in a group show at Art Center Sarasota through April 23 and in a solo show in May at the Ernest Coe Gallery at Everglades National Park.
By Charlie  Huisking

Chamber music got its name because it was originally played in private homes. That intimate, familial feeling characterizes the La Musica International Chamber Music Festival, which returns to Sarasota this month for its 24th year. Fourteen renowned musicians from the United States and Europe will perform five concerts in the Sarasota Opera House from April 9-21.

Returning favorites include Italian violist Bruno Giuranna, the festival’s artistic director since the beginning. Pianist Derek Han, the associate artistic director, Italian violinist Massimo Quarta, American violinist Jennifer Frautschi and Serbian-Russian cellist Xenia Jankovic are also back. Among the newcomers are cellist Eric Kim, pianist James Winn, violist Rebecca Albers and violinist Ruth Lenz.

“Our artists tell us they love the atmosphere here—that the feeling is of old friends and new friends getting together for the joy of playing music,” says Sally Faron, the festival’s executive director. “I think our audience members sense that, and they feel a real connection with what’s happening on stage.” Some audience members are so passionate that they show up at the festival’s open rehearsals (at the Mildred Sainer Pavilion at New College of Florida) with scores in hand so they can follow along as a piece comes together.

The theme for this year’s festival is “Resolution.” Faron says it refers to the collaborative nature of chamber music. “There is no conductor, so each musician comes in with his or her ideas, and it all comes to a resolution in the rehearsal process,” she says.

Audiences will hear beloved pieces from the chamber music repertoire, including Beethoven’s Piano trio in E flat major and Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence, as well as works by Mozart, Brahms and Saint-Saëns. But the concert programs also include Joan Tower’s Flute Quintet, which had its first performance only a month ago in New York. It was written for La Musica veteran Carol Wincenc, who will perform it here with four festival colleagues.

Another piece, Three Nocturnes, written by La Musica artist Winn, will have its regional premiere. “It’s a wonderful, interesting piece,” Faron says. “Each of the three movements is based on folk tales, mostly of Celtic origin.”

Lovers of contemporary music will also enjoy John Harbison’s Nov. 19, 1828. The title refers to the date of the death of composer Franz Schubert. “It’s an extraordinary piece by a modern composer that looks back on a great composer of the past,” Faron says. “It fits so well with our theme, because it’s about how the old influences the new and is resolved into a different form.”

La Musica concert tickets are $40. Rehearsal passes are $50 for the entire festival, or $10 per day. Call 366-8450 ext. 3, or go to lamusicafestival.org.

New Arts Center Taking Shape

The Manatee Players’ new home won’t be ready for audiences for quite a while. But construction has reached the point where it’s easy to see what a dramatic effect its opening will have on the Players, the Manatee arts community and civic life in downtown Bradenton.

The shell of the Manatee Players Performing Arts Center, a two-story, Mediterranean Revival-style structure, is nearly complete. It’s rising on a large parcel of land on Third Avenue West, just a few blocks from the theater’s current home.