Culture Vulture 10 / Hot Time in the Old Town . . . and Wine Galley Redux
Going a long way to warming up the season’s record chill (so far) early this week were a quartet of literary and musical events that point the way to a season so full of top-notch arts that no one will ever get to them all. However, KONK Life can give it the old college try.
On Sunday late afternoon, Impromptu Concerts kicked off its 42nd season with a knockout performance by the vivacious Prima Trio — young and very attractive musicians, all originally from Eastern Europe, playing violin (and viola), piano and clarinet, an unusual and delightful combination. Their choice of music was similarly effective, presenting both composers I know well and others totally new: Bruch, Milhaud, Glick, Khachaturian, Piazzola and Schickele (aka P.D. Q. Bach). The trio has set the musical standard very high for the Sunday afternoon classical concerts.
That evening was the gathering of the venerable Key West Poetry Guild, only a little bit younger than Impromptu, and they’ve not missed a meeting in all those years. Snowbird Jerry Howard was featured poet, with Nance Boylan moderating; there were two lightening rounds with over a dozen poets and several auditors attending. Featured guest poets will continue at least through April. Watch this space.
What was missed: Peter Diamond and friends at the Gardens Hotel.
On Monday evening The Studios of Key West and the Tropic Cinema collaborated to present a sold-out screening of two half-hour films by current artist in residence Barbara Hammer. There’s no space to discuss the films, which were both troubling and triumphant, but Hammer, an established experimental filmmaker, is in town to research a film about the late esteemed poet and Key West resident Elizabeth Bishop. “Anyone in their 70s or 80s who knew her (she lived here in the 1940s) or knew someone who knew her” or even has heard stories about her is urged to contact Hammer by email at [email protected]. Don’t delay. She’s here only through January.
It was like old home week and dancing room only at Virgilio’s when the League of Crafty Musicians, Skipper Kripitz‘s Tuesday band, featured Larry Smith and Christine Cardone. A crowd of us regulars from the late, lamented Wine Galley at the Pier House were there to enjoy the show; in addition, to give the night the flavor of one of Larry’s Sunday Showcases, boy wonder Tim Mayer guested on sax. It was a night to remember.
Tim’s the transition here. He also guested on sax and flute on Wednesday evening for the Bones ‘Bones, the annual jazz concert produced by KONK Life’s own Harry Schroeder. Now Harry is never one to blow his own horn (pun totally intended), but this gig is one of the town’s best-kept secrets. Front-lining three trombones (Schroeder and the two Joe Dallases, Jr. and Sr.) plus baritone saxaphonist Georges Helmut were Skipper on drums, Michael Gillis on guitar and Bubba Lownotes. The small but wildly appreciative audience was entranced, and our own Ralph DePalma was on hand to take photographs.
There’s even frosting on the cultural cake: on Wednesday, Curry Mansion hosted a book-signing for Leslie Lehr, niece of local matriarch and grand dame of the mansion, Edith Amsterdam. Lehr is a screenwriter, essayist (as in New York Times) and novelist. An alum of USC and resident of Santa Monica (as in the Keys Chorale’s seasonal hit, “I’m Spending Chanukah in Santa Monica “ by Tom Lehr) she grew up in Ohio: Upper Arlington, to be precise, same as my adopted brother Ted Yaple, during the years I endured high school across town in Bexley. The writer is of course a generation or so younger than the two of us — but it feels much closer than the proclaimed six degrees of separation.
The suspense novel recently launched is “What a Mother Knows” and I had to pull myself away from it to finish this column.
FOR THE WEEKEND, DON’T MISS: The South Florida Symphony’s gala Saturday evening, starting at the Tennessee Williams Theater at 5:30 with a concert and moving on to a deluxe dinner at the Marriott Beachside. This is a dazzling, wear-all-white event, by far the most lavish symphony event of the year. Seats were still available, Executive Director Jacqueline Lorber reported late Wednesday.
Finally, on Sunday after the Literary Seminar’s open-to-the-public final presentation, don’t miss the opportunity to hear Kenneth Morris, Jr., a direct descendant of both Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, probably the most prominent figures in African-American history before Martin Luther King, Jr. Morris is a modern-day abolitionist and is in town as guest of the Keys Coalition (full disclosure: I’m its chair) in honor of National Human Trafficking Awareness Day; his focus is children and he’ll be speaking at 5 p.m. at the Douglass Gym, Emma at Olivia streets. Admission is free.
That’s it till next week — gotta fly.
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