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The Arts Connection - February 21, 2008

audio_icon_pos Click here to listen to Part 1

ART NEWS -

Orlando Opera cancels May production of Little Women

UCF will be the first university to participate in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series for universities and college. Students, staff, faculty, alumni and other wishing to share a story about their experience at UCF should submit them by March 31st. The publisher will choose 101 stories to be published this fall in Chicken Soup for the UCF Knight's Soul.

The cultural community is coming together for the Debbie Dean Benefit and Show.  Dean was for many years the Box Office Manager at Orlando Repertory Theatre; she was diagnosed with cancer last summer and it has recently spread.  The Benefit show on Monday, Feb. 25 features many of Central Florida's best known talent, including David Lee, Becky Fisher, Tod Kimbro, and Beth Marshall, as well as the American Racket Cloggers and the Rep's teenage Broadway Ambassadors.  Doors open at 6 at the Rep with a silent and live auction and the show is at 7.  Tickets are $25.  407-896-7365.

Read more art news at ArtsJournal.com



From the Top is the National Public Radio show that showcases America's best young classical musicians, from the ages of nine to 18, and is recorded live in concert halls around the United States. The Daytona Beach Symphony Society brought the popular weekly one-hour radio show to the Peabody Auditorium in Daytona.

Jake Chabot, a 13-year-old flutist from Orlando, was one of the five teenage artists invited to be on the show, performing in front of a live listening audience and then broadcast during the hour-long segment at 1 p.m. on Sunday, February 24, on WMFE-FM 90.7. We will talk with Jake, and his band director at Windy Ridge School, Linda Orrantia. Jake began playing the flute only five years ago, but, according to his band director, he has already surpassed many college-level flutists. Ms. Orrantia said that Jake practices eight times as much as most of her students, and this dedication and talent earned him his place on From the Top.

 

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Michael Cunningham is author of A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, Laws for Creations, Specimen Days, and The Hours. Cunningham recieved a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner award for his novel, The Hours, and the film adaptation featured Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, and Meryl Streep, with director Stephen Daldry. Our story contributor, Irene Zabykto, will have a conversation with Cunningham about The Hours. 

audio_icon_pos Listen to Irene's complete conversation with Cunningham - they talk more about The Hours as well as his unusual book, Specimen Days.  The audio begins with Cunningham reading an excerpt from The Hours.

Cunninham had appeared last month at the Winter With the Writers series at Rollins College, which brings distinguished writers to the campus to share their work and expertise with students and the community.  The series ends tonight with novelist Jamaica Kincaid.

 

audio_icon_pos Click here to listen to Part 3

The 11th Annual Mount Dora Music Festival begins today, and runs through Sunday. The festival is dedicated to celebrating culture through the performing arts by producing an annual celebration of the arts for the education and entertainment for the people of Central Florida. In addition, the Mount Dora Music Festival provides a forum for local, national, and international musicians and performing artists to perform, teach, and contribute to the cultural enrichment of our community.

The festival will feature five showcased concerts, plus nine free concerts.  Headliners include Satisfaction, a Rolling Stones tribute band on Friday; Rita Coolidge on Saturday and Cab Calloway Brooks on Sunday.



The Orlando Shakespeare Theater presents Michael Hollinger’s comic drama OPUS, running through March 9. A world-class string quartet prepares for their most monumental performance, a televised ceremony at the White House, when their mentally-imbalanced violist mysteriously disappears, and they are forced to take a chance with a gifted yet inexperienced young woman. Their rehearsal room becomes a pressure cooker as passions rise, personalities clash, and the players are forced to confront the ephemeral nature of their life's work. OPUS welcomes C. S. Lee to the cast, who stars on NBC's Chuck, and also as Vince Masuka in Showtime's hit series Dexter.
Read Orlando Sentinel Theatre Critic Elizabeth Maupin's review of Opus


Also opening Saturday, Feb. 23 at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater is Give a Mouse a Cookie , the classic book come to life. Performance times are Saturdays at 2, and Sundays at 4:30 through March 16.


The Osceola Center for the Arts begins its run of The Music Man, by Meredith Willson. This Broadway classic will run from February 22 to March 9.

Also at the center is A Fading Frontier with paintings by local art legend Ernest "Buster" Kenton, presented in conjunction with The Osceola Historical Society.  The exhibit closes this Sunday, Feb. 24.

 
 CASTING CALL -
Auditions and other artist opportunities can be found at the Arts & Cultural Alliance website.   Auditions are also listed on Elizabeth Maupin's blog, Attention Must Be Paid.  Elizabeth is the theatre critic for the Orlando Sentinel


 

 

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