FRANK SINATRA
It was 40 years ago, but the memory still shimmers: Exhausted and incognito, Nancy Sinatra was sitting at a back table at the Fontainebleau relaxing the best way she could imagine -- listening to her dad sing. Suddenly the show took an unexpected turn. ''My daughter's here, just back from Vietnam,'' Frank Sinatra told the audience. ``Chicken, why don't you come up here and sing one?''
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Ten days ago, London's Philharmonia Orchestra roared out the end of Mahler's Symphony No. 1, closing the Concert Association of Florida's season on a resoundingly successful note.
COUNTRY MUSIC
Country music is notoriously rough-and-tumble. Its classics involve enough anguish and angst to send the perkiest pop star scrambling for cover.
Since its origins, the Miami International Piano Festival's ''Discovery Series'' has been a showcase principally for young 20-something artists at the beginning of their careers ---- and sometimes even those in their teens, in the case of the French pianist Lise de la Salle who performed here a year ago.
Syesha Mercado -- the first South Floridian to reach American Idol's Top 3 -- made the trip back home Friday for a series of appearances that were taped for Tuesday's show.
BEHIND THE SCENES | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
It's not just schools holding rites of passage this time of year, but also dancers. Miami City Ballet School holds its annual Student Workshop performance next weekend, with aspiring performers, from round-bellied little ones to long-limbed beauties, about to hit professional stages and companies.
Q: A long time ago, I saw a movie with Andy Griffith and he was the bad guy. He and two others on dirt bikes were harassing a couple in a pickup. The film ended with Andy flying (in slow motion) off a cliff on his bike. What is the name of the picture and is it available?
CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW
In the 20th-century the Eurocentric keyboard literature of Chopin, Beethoven, and Brahms was enriched by an unexpected profusion of works created by Spanish and South American composers.
CONCERT REVIEW
Although Kanye West was clearly the headliner Tuesday night in his Glow in the Dark Tour at downtown Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena, the three other acts on the bill got plenty of love from the enthusiastic sold-out crowd.
American Idol viewers finally gave Jason Castro the boot Wednesday night after 51 million votes came in. Host Ryan Seacrest asked Jason why he had such a hard time with the songs Tuesday night. ''Inexperienced,'' Jason said, grinning goofily like Barbarino, the endearing but dim-bulb character John Travolta played in the '70s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter.
Q: The Civil War films Gettysburg and Gods and Generals from Turner Entertainment were to have a third part, The Last Full Measure. What became of it? I heard battle scenes were filmed at the same time as the filming of Gods and Generals, but that was quite awhile back.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Seraphic Fire's 2008-2009 season will feature the debut of its chamber orchestra, an expansion to nine programs, and a return to performances in Palm Beach County.
CONCERT REVIEW
British experimental rock band Radiohead kicked off their U.S. tour Monday night at West Palm Beach's Cruzan Amphitheatre -- and despite front man Thom Yorke declaring at one point, ''Sorry about that. We obviously did not practice that enough,'' the group put together a tight two-hour set that drew from all of the band's seven albums, except for 1993's Pablo Honey, which had the hit Creep.
CONCERT REVIEW
Long ago, Eric Clapton's skills on the electric guitar so impressed legions of followers in mid-'60s England, that ''Clapton is God'' line appeared as graffiti on walls around Britain in appreciation.
CELEBRITIES
Teri Garr has a great title for a memoir or a solo performance, but her health won't cooperate enough for her to use it. That's a good thing. The comic actress would prefer nobody have to answer the question ``Does This Wheelchair Make Me Look Fat?''
MUSIC
Weeks before Jersey Boys' Las Vegas opening this past weekend at the new Palazzo hotel, Frankie Valli packed the Long Island, N.Y., Westbury Music Fair's theater-in-the-round for four straight nights. More than a few men come in leather jackets or high school letter jackets, even if some have canes now, while some of the women have teenage granddaughters in tow.
MOVIES
Marion Ravenwood might have been speaking for us all when she set eyes on Indiana Jones for the first time in years. Her caustic greeting to the archaeologist-adventurer in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark: ``Indiana Jones. I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door.''
The fevered response to the latest loopy Paula Abdul episode, where she judged a phantom performance, just goes to show how American Idol continues to dominate television in its seventh season. Yet while Idol is still a hit, it's no longer necessarily hip.
Although Kanye West was the clear headliner Tuesday night at his Glow in the Dark Tour at downtown Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena, the three other acts on the bill got plenty of love from the enthusiastic sellout crowd.
''Eric Clapton is God'' again. Long ago, Clapton's skills on the electric guitar so impressed legions of followers in mid-'60s England, that ''Clapton is God'' line appeared as graffiti on walls around Britain in appreciation.
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