There’s a veritable summer festival trifecta in Vero now, for those of us lucky enough not to leave at the end of season: film in June, music in July and dance in August.
After June’s successful first effort of the Vero Beach Wine and Film Festival, and before the Riverside Dance Festival brings us the Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company Aug. 5 and 6, the roots-music-oriented Vero Beach International Music Festival will be marking its seventh year next week, beginning on Wednesday evening.
The festival, held at First Presbyterian Church, celebrates improvisational techniques used in a wide range of music from roots to jazz. It was spawned by Vero’s phenomenal fiddle camp, the Mike Block String Camp, the brainchild of Juilliard-trained cellist Mike Block, a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.
The camp’s workshops include not only string playing, but vocals and percussion as well, which makes for faculty that can throw a jam together every night if they want to – and they typically do. Just stroll past the Prestige Hotel, the camp’s accommodations on the island’s South Beach, around 10 p.m. for the next two weeks to get a taste.
For an only slightly more formal experience, each year the acclaimed faculty has given a free concert, asking only for donations at the door for the camp scholarship program. When the concert grew to a five-hour marathon – a wildly entertaining one, by the way – the decision was made to declare it a festival and divvy up performances over several days.
This year, that festival has swelled to five public performances over five days.
Wednesday, July 6, in the first of five concerts, the faculty will perform at First Presbyterian Church starting at 7:30 p.m.
Then, Saturday, July 9, at 3 p.m., it’s the students’ turn, with each of the camp’s ensembles performing a traditional tune they learned in class. Afterwards, the teachers join in for a barn dance.
Then, the following week, on Wednesday, July 13, the faculty for the camp’s more advanced extension week performs at 7:30 p.m. On Thursday and Friday, July 14 and 15, the advanced students join the faculty for two more performances. Both also start at 7:30 p.m.
July 1 is opening night for the musical “1776” staged at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. At a time when global economic experts are debating what the Brexit will mean, we get an inside look at America’s reverse Brexit – the break from Britain 240 years ago. This “reimagined” production allows the audience to spend a couple of hours in Independence Hall, contemplating from up close the people involved in the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
With music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, the show is staged in an intimate, recently renovated theater at the Intracoastal end of Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach. “1776” runs through July 24.
The Norton Museum of Art is re-opening with a bang July 5, after reinstalling the galleries and preparing for a major renovation. In light of that, the museum is waiving admission charges until the renovation is complete, and this summer is putting on quite a show of events, starting with what sounds like a gorgeous large-scale video art installation by Mark Fox, a Brooklyn-based artist who spent a three-month residency in Giverny, France. “Giverny: Journal of an Unseen Garden” gives viewers a look at Monet’s famous lily ponds from beneath the water’s surface.
The museum is also putting on display works from its permanent collection, including a work of Monet. Other French impressionists in the show are Gauguin, Cezanne, Pissarro and Degas. Also on display: Jackson Pollock’s “Night Mist,” Edward Hopper’s “August in the City” and Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Pelvis with the Moon – New Mexico”
A few blocks south of Okeechobee Boulevard on Olive Avenue, at the start of the beautiful El Cid neighborhood of historic homes, the Norton has not only a fine art collection and hosts excellent exhibits, it also throws great parties, including the regular Thursday evening events, Art after Dark. Next Thursday, July 7, features an Americana theme, with guitar and fiddle music, plus craft beers to accompany a menu of sliders, corndogs and fries.
The next Thursday, July 14, is the Norton’s Bastille Day celebration, with French food and wine, language courses and a French horn ensemble.
The New Norton, as it’s billed, is expected to be completed in late 2018 and will include a new 42,000-square-foot West Wing, a new entrance and a sculpture garden.
You can bring your bikes and make a day of it by riding along the Intracoastal on Flagler Drive, or cross the bridge to make the loop of the island of Palm Beach on the Lake Trail, which starts at another great museum, the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, a 55-room mansion that during the season features art exhibits along with events from speakers to bluegrass. The Flagler is at One Whitehall Way, Palm Beach.
