If the frogs of Fellsmere leap anything like the ballerinas of Ballet Vero Beach, this weekend is the last chance for many of them, as they leap into the frying pans at the Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival.
The very fact that two such disparate events could draw from the same pool of spectators this weekend, speaks to the wonderful diversity of Vero and environs – not to mention diversity of species.
Then again, the farming town of Fellsmere was founded by some pretty high-brow folk in 1910, when New Zealander E. Nelson Fell bought up more than 100,000 acres and drew up the county’s first planned community.
Consider that the town cemetery is the resting place of the Count and Countess of Nuremberg – they lived right on Maple Street.
Surely the Count and Countess would have joined Fell’s daughter Marian at the ballet, had it existed back then (not a crazy notion: they had an opera society and a brass band). Marian would have enjoyed the fact that Ballet Vero Beach is including a work choreographed by George Balanchine, whose Russian parents would have been the Fell’s contemporaries when they lived in what is now Kazakhstan – Fell was investing in copper mines.
Marian, 16 at the time, spoke fluent Russian and became a Russian-English translator. It was with royalties from her translation of the works of Anton Chekhov that Marian built a library for the town in 1915 that also included a women’s club, library, community church and even a theater – the Dixie Playhouse.
They were all firsts for the county, as were Fellsmere’s Boy Scout troop, water system, power plant, phone system and even concrete sidewalks.
It was also the first city in the South to allow women to vote in municipal elections, back in 1915. “The population of Fellsmere is of a high type of intelligence with lofty ideals and wise execution,” reads the marker honoring that decision.
The Frog Leg Festival, high-minded or not, has some pretty high-flying carnival rides, and while the carnival food includes the low-brow gator tail and frog leg dinners, there is guaranteed to be a multitude of princess dresses on the daughters of proud Fellsmere farmworkers, particularly coming from church on Sunday. The festival runs Thursday to Sunday. For hours and directions, go to www.froglegfestival.com.
Meanwhile, the tulle and tutus abound in Ballet Vero Beach’s program, At Sixes and Sevens, including in Balanchine’s “Valse Fantaisie” along with a premiere, “Finch Concerto,” choreographed by artistic director Adam Schnell. “Go for Barocco,” a ballet parody by Peter Anastos, has more austere costuming, mocking Balanchine’s sometimes sleek modernistic style.
Tickets range from $10 to $50. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. Call 772-905-2651 or go to www.balletverobeach.org.
In Sebastian this weekend, more than 100 artists are showing their works in Riverview Park accompanied by five bands at the Sebastian River Fine Art and Music Festival. Included in the music roster is Nikki Talley, a clawhammer banjo player from Asheville, NC, who sings in the vein of Gillian Welch. She’s accompanied by her husband Jason Sharp on guitar. They’re scheduled for noon on Saturday.
The duo is followed by boogie-woogie pianist Victor Wainwright, who bills himself as “piana from Savannah by way of Memphis”; he plays a mean honky-tonk piano and blues set scheduled for 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Wainwright just won prizes at blues festivals in Quebec and Maine, as well as the 2014 Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Award at the Blues Music Awards in May.
Sunday starts out at 10 a.m. with a reggae duo, Lost in da Mail, followed at noon by Otis Cadillac with the El Dorados, an 11-piece old school R&B band. Cadillac, now in his 80s, fires up with the Seville Sisters as backup. They perform until 3 p.m.
And along the riverfront further south, at the Vero Beach Yacht Club Saturday, the Ed Metz Trio plays to a far more contained, if still swinging, crowd, supporters of the Treasure Coast Jazz Society.
Metz, a highly accomplished jazz drummer, plays with Australian vocalist and double bassist Nicki Parrott and Rossano Sportiello playing stride piano. Parrott studied jazz at Sydney’s New South Wales Conservatorium; the classically trained Sportiello began playing jazz gigs around Milan at the age of 16.
Metz, who’s played in the area for years, has worked with the Count Basie Orchestra, and the orchestras of both Dorseys, not to mention Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Rosemary Clooney, among many other huge stars.
It’s the third year in a row that the trio has appeared here and they’ve become a crowd favorite. The three came together in 2008 to record for Arbors Records.
This is the second performance in the 2015 jazz series for Treasure Coast. In the months ahead: The Peter and Will Anderson Trio, the Bill Allred Classic Jazz Band, and the John Proulx Quartet.
Doors open at 11:15 a.m. with a lunch buffet and full bar available. The concert starts at 12:30 a.m. Call 772-234-4600 for information and to make reservations for lunch.
If you’re a fan of Latin jazz, Tito Puente Jr. is playing at the Lyric Theatre in Stuart Saturday evening. The son of the great salsa legend Tito Puente, who died in 2000, Tito Jr., like his dad, plays percussion and his orchestra plays many of the songs his father was famous for playing and composing. The show starts at 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $45. Go to www.lyrictheatre.com. The Lyric is at 59 SW Flagler Avenue in Stuart’s old downtown district.
And there are still seats in the balcony at last check for the wonderful Lucinda Williams at Orlando’s Plaza Live Theatre Friday. Doors open at 7 p.m. for an 8 p.m. show. Tickets are $39.50 to $49.50. Go to www.plazaliveorlando.com. If you can’t make the concert, download her new album; many say it’s her best: “Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone.”
