Coral Gables Magazine Cultural Season Preview 2024 Issue

Editor’s Note: A City That Thrives on Culture

For a city as educated as Coral Gables, September marks the true beginning of the year. That is when school starts (and we know that two-thirds of the city’s adults are college grads), so it brings back that back-to-school feeling. It is also the start of the cultural season, when the heat subsides and everyone returns from their summer escapes, and when theater, film, music, and dance also return to our stages.

For a city of its size, Coral Gables punches way above its weight, as they say of champion boxers. How can a city of 50,000 have such a plethora of culture? Part of the rich smorgasbord comes from having the world-class University of Miami in our midst. With its Frost School of Music, we have the premier symphony orchestra in the state, along with all the permutations of jazz orchestras, wind ensembles, string quartets, etc., and now a second state-of-the-art performance hall at UM’s new Knight Center.

The University also puts on quality plays at the Jerry Herman Ring Theater – though not, perhaps, quite as well-produced as those by Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre or by GableStage at the Biltmore Hotel. And yes, we still include the Area Stage Company, even though they moved a few hundred feet outside the city limits after their Riviera Theater was demolished for a new Publix on US-1. 

Then there is UM’s Bill Cosford Cinema for those foreign and indie films – assuming you can’t get your fill from the amazing array of movies put on by the Coral Gables Art Cinema across from Books and Books. And, finally, there is UM’s Lowe Museum, a stunning collection by any measure, with 19,000 works of art (only five percent on display at any given time) in a 45,000-square-foot space.

 Though the Coral Gables Museum has been stepping up its game with more exhibits of contemporary painting and sculpture, the Lowe’s depth in European, Asian, African, and even Greco-Roman art is simply astonishing – not to mention their huge and vibrant collection of works in glass.

About the only thing which the Gables lacked was a venue for dance, which has now been rectified by the arrival (across the street from City Hall) of the Sanctuary of the Arts, with its programming for classical and modern dance, along with performances of music, such as its Mainly Mozart series or works by famous Cuban composers.

It is, therefore, an exercise mostly of restraint to try and capture the cultural options for Gableites this season. We are faced with an embarrassment of riches, one of the reasons why, except for going to the airport to travel abroad, there is really no reason to ever leave the Gables. Not, at least, if it’s culture you’re looking for.