The Best Things To Do Around Sarasota This Week, Feb. 24-March 2 | arts and entertainment
Thursday
Lunch Series: “Emerging Stars of Sarasota”
11:00 a.m. at the Bird Key Yacht Club, 301 Bird Key Drive
$54
To visit ArtistSeriesConcerts.org.
Celebrate the talents of Sarasota’s next generation of virtuoso performers. These young people have worked with the Sarasota Youth Orchestra and are charting their path through schooling and into a potential future career in music.
“Former PMP students: at home”
11 a.m. virtual performance
Free
To visit PerlmanMusicProgramSuncoast.org.
Cellist Chase Park is preparing his master’s degree at Juilliard and he has already managed to perform on the stages of Paris and Berlin. Park’s performance will be available for free on the Perlman Music Program Suncoast website or on their YouTube page.
“Raise Every Voice and Sing”
7:30 p.m. at SCF’s Neel Performing Arts Center, 5840 26th St. W., Bradenton
$15, $5 students and staff
To visit SCF.edu.
The students of SCF’s Symphonic Band, Concert Choir and Chamber Choir bring you a celebration of Black History Month with some of the most unforgettable compositions written and performed by African American artists.
Carmen Ciricillo
7 p.m. at McCurdy’s Comedy Theater, 1923 Ringling Blvd.
$25
To visit McCurdysComedy.com.
He took his act across the country for more than two decades. And Carmen Ciricillo always makes them laugh. Ciricillo will joke about family life and more in her five shows at McCurdy’s; he will play two shows each on Friday and Saturday night.
Hermitage Sunsets @ Selby: Violin, Dope, Honest & Evolved
6 p.m. at Selby Gardens, 1534 Mound St.
$5, registration required
To visit HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
Lady Jess is ready to show you the sounds of the violin separated from their normal context. Lady Jess, member of the Hermitage and member of Beyonce’s band, brings her consummate talent and pioneering attitude to an informal concert featuring music composed for acoustic violin during the COVID pandemic that has interrupted life and schedules of so many artists.
From legend to history
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Ringling Museum of Art, 5401 Bay Shore Rd.
Free
To visit Ringling.org
Catch this slice of history before it leaves its perch in Sarasota. The Ringling Community Gallery currently features archival and archaeological evidence of people living in 19th-century Angola, recognized as a historic part of the Underground Railroad by the National Park Service. The exhibition will continue until February 28.
Benjamin Beilman brings his consummate talent to Sarasota. (Courtesy picture)
Friday
Benjamin Beilman, violin and Alessio Bax, piano
7:30 p.m. at the Riverview Performing Arts Center, 1 Ram Way
$25-$50
To visit SCASarasota.org.
The Great Performers streak continues with Benjamin Beilman and Alessio Bax tackling Ferrucio Bussoni and Cesar Franck.
Beilman, born in 1989, followed his precocious talent around the world. He has performed with major orchestras in Chicago, London, Antwerp and Zurich, among others.
Bax, who studied at Southern Methodist University, won international piano competitions in England and Japan. Bax has performed with over 150 orchestras worldwide.
Jazz for two: Mark Moultrup Music
Sarasota Jazz Club
2 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 3975 Fruitville Road
$15, $20 for non-members
To visit JazzClubSarasota.org.
Jazz standards and the American Songbook will be on display when keyboardist Mark Moultrup takes the stage. Moultrup, who also sings, will play alongside drummer Jean Bolduc, bassist Mark Neuenschwander and trumpeter James Suggs.
Studio performance with Karim Manning and Monessa Salley
7 p.m. at SCD Home Studio, 1440 Boul. of the Arts, Suite 300
$20
To visit SarasotaContemporaryDance.org
Freestyle musician Karim Manning will provide the beats and Monessa Salley will dance to them in this collaborative interdisciplinary show. The show will also take place on Saturday night with a virtual streaming option for $10.
Pianist Aaron Diehl will take the audience on a musical journey through Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F minor. (Courtesy photo.)
Masterpieces 5: “Fairy Tales and Fireworks”
8 p.m. at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail
$35 to $98
To visit http://SarasotaOrchestra.org.
Pianist Aaron Diehl will perform Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F Minor, and award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta returns to Sarasota to conduct this production.
The program will open with Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite” and conclude with Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances”. Falletta, the music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, won a 2021 Grammy for Best Choral Performance as a Conductor.
There will be an encore of fairy tales and fireworks on Sunday afternoon from 2:30 p.m.
Saturday
Sarasota Winter Craft Fair
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at JD Hamel Park, 199 Bayfront Drive
Free
To visit ParagonArtEvents.com.
Dozens of artisans will line up at JD Hamel Park for the Winter Craft Show, and visitors will have the opportunity to browse creative works in painting, sculpture, jewelry, photography, glass, ceramics and more.
The Regiment’s Daughter returns to the Sarasota Opera for the first time since 1987. (Courtesy Debra Hesser)
“The Daughter of the Regiment” by Donizetti
Romantic love transcends love of body and country in this comic opera, which debuted in Paris in 1840.
The opera – written by Gaetano Donizetti and to a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard – was last performed by the Sarasota Opera in 1987.
The long-running phenom has a passage that forces lead character Tonio to sing an aria with eight High C’s, a signature art made famous by Luciano Pavarotti in 1972.
William Davenport plays Tonio and Jessica Sandidge portrays Marie, the regiment’s titular daughter.
There will be four more screenings until March 18.
WHEN:1:30 p.m., February 19
OR: Sarasota Opera House, 61 N. Pineapple Ave.
TICKETS: $23-$145
INFORMATION: SarasotaOpera.org.
‘Together again’
2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Riverview Performing Arts Center, 1 Ram Way
$30-$35
To visit ChorusOfTheKeys.org
Chorus of the Keys are ready for their annual show, and this year they’ll be hosting special “Vocal Spectrum” guests to add to their beautiful harmonies. Settle in for pop favorites, show tunes, movie themes and more sung by a full-voiced cast of performers.
Music influencing art
4:30 p.m. at Midge Johnson Fine Art, 3983 Destination Drive, Osprey
$25
To visit MidgeJohnsonFineArt.com.
Husband and wife duo Alan Wasserman and Midge Johnson invite you to see how the subconscious impacts art. Wasserman, a concert pianist, will perform and Johnson, an Abstract Expressionist painter, will put whatever comes into his head on canvas.
Threesome Chris Dingman
8 p.m. at Fogartyville, 525 Kumquat Court
Tickets $22; members $20; students $11
To visit wslr.org/fogartyville/.
Make way for the master of the vibraphone. Composer Chris Dingman will bring his band and unique sensibility to Fogartyville, fusing genres like jazz with worldly influences and trance grooves. The trio released an album, “Embrace, in 2020.
Monday
“Ein Deutsches Requiem”
7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota, 2050 Oak St.
$35
To visit MusicaSacraSarasota.org.
Come and see one of the most famous works of one of the most famous composers. Sarasota’s Musica Sacra will cover Brahms’ “A German Requiem”, composed over 150 years ago. The music is made more accessible by a new arrangement by Joachim Linckelmann which restores the richness of the original orchestration.
Engelbert Humperdinck
8 p.m. at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail
$37-$82
To visit VanWezel.org.
Free him. Engelbert Humperdinck brings his incredible stage name and considerable catalog to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. Humperdinck hit the charts in 1966 with “Release Me”, a composition written by Eddie Miller. Humperdinck’s version was the best-selling UK single of 1967, beating the Beatles’ “Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever” among others.
Jenny Medved won first prize for her watercolor “Sounding the Pu”.
Tuesday
winter watercolors
Art Center Manatee is currently hosting the winners of the Florida Suncoast Watercolor Society exhibition, and the exhibition will run through March 18. Entries were judged by Frank Spino and cover a wide range of topics and scenes.
Sarasota’s Jenny Medved won first prize of $500 for her painting “Sounding the Pu,” and second prize went to Donna Morrison of Tampa for her study of breaking waves.
Art Center Manatee also hosts the American Watercolor Society International Traveling Exhibition.
Spino also has an exhibition in collaboration with Susanna Span called “Charisma of Color” presented at Art Center Manatee.
WHEN: Now until March 18
OR: Art Center Manatee, 209 9th St W., Bradenton
TICKETS: Free with museum admission
INFORMATION: ArtCenterManatee.org.
The Sweet Caroline Tour
8 p.m. at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail
$22-$62
To visit VanWezel.org.
Cracklin’ Rosie comes aboard.
Tribute artist Jay White brings you the best of Neil Diamond, a number he’s perfected over 10,000 times in venues around the world. White will help you kindle the light of your heart; he traveled far without a home but not without a star.
Wednesday
Valarie Storm
7 p.m. at McCurdy’s Comedy Theater, 1923 Ringling Blvd.
$25
To visit McCurdysComedy.com
Valarie Storm starts her set at McCurdy’s on Wednesday night and plays all weekend. Storm has been touring for more than 20 years and she will play two shows on Friday night and two more on Saturday night for the McCurdy faithful.