Boca’s Mizner set for Festival of Arts
Bill Murray among headliners for Feb. 23-March 4 event.
Actor Bill Murray, influential musician and producer T Bone Burnett, opera great Kathleen Battle and violin legend Itzhak Perlman are among the highlights of Festival of the Arts Boca 2018, rolling out Feb. 23-March 4 at Mizner Park Amphitheater and the Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center.
Tickets for the festival will cost $15 to $250 and will be available starting Oct. 15 at FestivalBoca.org and by calling 866-571-2787. Early-bird tickets will be available for select performances, and multievent packages and passes for the entire festival also will be available.
The 12th annual festival opens Feb. 23, with renowned American soprano Battle making a rare concert appearance in a program of George Gershwin and spirituals with the Lynn Philharmonia, led by Constantine Kitsopoulos. The program also will include Brahms’ Symphony No. 1.
Perlman returns to Mizner Park on Feb. 24 with his popular “In the Fiddler’s House,” pairing the violinist with a 10-piece klezmer ensemble for a whimsical musical journey from New York’s Lower East Side to a Jewish festival in Krakow, Poland.
Burnett comes to Boca Raton on March 1 for a wide-ranging discussion titled “On the Road With T Bone Burnett: Stories, Music & Movies.” The Academy Award winner and 13-time Grammy Award winner produced the soundtracks for such films as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” “Cold Mountain,” “Walk the Line” and “Crazy Heart.” He also paired bluegrass star Alison Krauss with rock icon Robert Plant on the album “Raising Sand.”
On March 2, Murray will take part in “New Worlds,” a collaboration of music and literature with German cellist Jan Vogler, violinist Mira Wang and pianist Vanessa Perez, who all performed on an album of the same name released Sept. 29. The album sets Murray’s readings of works from Walt Whitman, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain and James Thurber to the music of Saint-Saëns, Gershwin, Bach, Leonard Bernstein and Van Morrison.
In a statement sent via the record label, Decca Gold, Murray said, “I am bathing in this experience, really. I can’t get enough of it.”
Also part of the festival will be Grammy-winning violinist Midori and young Russian pianist Nikolay Khozyainov (March 3); Grupo Compay Segundo from Cuba, making its first U.S. appearance in nearly 20 years (Feb. 25); Hannah Tinti, author of “The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley” and “The Good Thief ” (Feb. 25); and technology entrepreneur and X Prize Foundation creator Peter Diamandis (Feb. 28).
The festival closes March 4 with an outdoor, big-screen showing of the family adventure “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” with John Williams’ Academy Award-winning score performed live by the Symphonia, Boca Raton, led by Constantine Kitsopoulos.