Organizers of the 6th Annual Festival of the Arts BOCA, set for March 7th – 18th, 2012 presented by the Schmidt Family Centre for the Arts’ at the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater & Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center in Boca Raton, have announced a sensational line-up, bringing “Star After Star” to South Florida.
“This Festival has truly evolved into a one-of-a-kind cultural celebration, bringing the best in music, dance, film and ideas to South Florida,” said Charlie Siemon, Festival Chair. “From a showing of Casablanca – an all-time classic – with live orchestra – to an evening of operatic favorites that have inspired the sound tracks of movie masterpieces, this year’s program will reflect a bit of Hollywood glamour.”
2012 in Music, Dance & Film
Hailed as “one of the world’s greatest tenors,” internationally acclaimed José Carreras, presented by AEG Live, will kick-off the Festival on Wednesday, March 7th.
Twenty-five year old, Cuban-born jazz pianist Alfredo Rodríquez returns to the Festival, with his trio to present an evening of original compositions and jazz standards on Thursday, March 8th. This Quincy Jones discovery is not to be missed!
On Friday, March 9th, Festival-goers will enjoy a presentation of Casablanca with LIVE Orchestral accompaniment conducted by the Festival’s recently appointed Music Director, Constantine Kitsopoulos, and the Boca Raton Symphonia. Celebrating its 70th Anniversary, Casablanca is the 1942 American romantic film classic that tells the dramatic story of a man torn between love and virtue, featuring iconic performances by Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreie. This full-feature evening showcases Max Steiner’s Oscar-nominated score like you have never heard it before!
Opera will “Go to the Movies” on Saturday, March 10th with Constantine Kitsopoulos and Metropolitan Opera rising stars Angela Meade,James Valenti, Jennifer Johnson Cano, and the Boca Raton Symphonia. The evening’s repertoire includes beloved opera arias, duets and orchestra overtures as featured in such popular movies as Pretty Woman, Philadelphia, Raging Bull, Moonstruck, The Bridges of Madison County and many more!
Sunday, March 11th marks the Festival debut of Time for Three, the groundbreaking, category-shattering trio that transcends traditional classification, with elements of classical, country western, gypsy and jazz idioms forming a blend all its own. So audience members can get close to these unique artists, limited on-stage seating is available for this special event.
Acclaimed pianist and YouTube sensation Valentina Lisitsa will join the Lynn University Philharmonia, conducted by Jon Robertson, on Wednesday, March 14th for the ever-popular Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Berlioz’s seminal work, Symphonie Fantastique.
On Thursday, March 15th, the Festival and Larry Rosen’s Jazz Roots Series team up once more to present An Evening of Gershwin featuring Patti Austin and Tony DeSare. Boca Raton will welcome Grammy award-winning singer Austin and Billboard chart-topping vocalist DeSare who will bring their renditions of the legendary Gershwin songbook.
For more than three decades as both a leader and a sideman, conguero Poncho Sanchez has stirred up a fiery stew of straight-ahead jazz, gritty soul music, and infectious melodies and rhythms from a variety of Latin American and South American sources. He will bring his high energy performance along with his band to Boca Raton on Friday, March 16th. Get ready to dance in the aisles!
The Festival music finale, Saturday, March 17th, will be a St. Patrick’s Day Extravaganza with an afternoon filled with folk dancers, acclaimed fiddlers, and Celtic bands to entertain the masses while delighting in food and libations honoring great Irish traditions.
2012 Authors & Ideas Program
This year’s program of Authors & Ideas once again welcomes Distinguished Writer in Residence, Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Presidential Historian and Kevin Bleyer, multiple Emmy Award-winning writer for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, co-author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Earth: The Book and author of the upcoming book Me The People: An Order to Form a More Perfect Union, which will be published by Random House in the summer of 2012. Bleyer is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Joining this year’s line-up of authors is Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe and Citadel Media’s syndicated radio show The Joe Scarborough Show and author of Knowing Your Value: Women, Money & Getting What You’re Worth and her memoir All Things At Once which became a New York Times Bestseller; Andrew Ross Sorkin, co-host of CNBC’s Squawk Box, best-selling author of Too Big To Fail, The New York Times chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, columnist, and editor of DealBook, an online daily financial report he started in 2001; and Barbara McDonald Stewart, daughter of the first U.S. Ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald, who will discuss her experiences with her father in Israel and the newly founded embassy in Tel Aviv.
New this year will be a University President’s Panel moderated by Dr. Susan Resneck Pierce, President Emerita of the University of Puget Sound and author of On Being Presidential: A Guide for College and University Leaders (Jossey-Bass, 2011); with President MJ Saunders of Florida Atlantic University and President Kevin Ross of Lynn University. Their topic: “The Role of the College President in Preparing Citizens of the World.”
About the Festival:
In its sixth year, Festival of the Arts BOCA is an extraordinary, multi-day cultural arts event for South Florida. The Festival brings to its audiences the world’s most sought after jazz and classical performers while simultaneously cultivating the stars of tomorrow. IMG Artists, a leader in worldwide cultural arts management and producer of three world renowned festivals: Tuscan Sun Festival, a late summertime festival in Cortona, Italy; Festival del Sole Napa, a mid-July festival in Napa Valley, California; and the Singapore Sun Festival in the fall, is once again collaborating with the Schmidt Family Centre for the Arts at Mizner Park in the planning and execution of Festival of the Arts BOCA 2012.
Individual tickets will range from $20 to $100 per person and packages are available for admission to all events. Student discounts will be available for some events with proper identification.