Our Annual Cultural Calendar

Culture Club

Editor’s Note

On the Saturday evening before this issue went to press, I attended a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 3. The concert was brilliant, as good as any I’ve seen – and I have seen the best, from the New York Philharmonic to the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra to the Boston Pops. Only for this display of musical talent I didn’t need to travel to another city. I only needed to park on the University of Miami campus and walk to Gusman Hall, to watch the Frost Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gerard Schwarz.

When we started this magazine seven years ago, I asked someone who had lived here all his life (and whose family came here in the 1920s) about how much cultural activity we needed to cover outside of the city. He basically said none, that everything you want can be found right here.

I thought of that while listening to the Frost Symphony, of how extraordinarily blessed – and spoiled – we are in terms of culture in Coral Gables. With the addition of the Sanctuary of the Arts and its platform for dance and music, all bases are now covered. You simply do not need to leave the city for want of world-class musicals, stage drama, classical music, foreign films, historic and contemporary painting and sculpture, jazz, beautiful architecture, etc

For a city of 50,000 residents, Coral Gables provides a stunning concentration of culture, something reflected each year in our Cultural Preview calendar. We urge you to use this guide to expand your appreciation and experience of the arts. We also suggest you mark your calendars early. The intimate venues which the city provides, from the Art Cinema to UM’s Gusman Hall, don’t always wait for latecomers. Like last month’s Downton Abbey tea party screening at the Art Cinema, the brilliant performance at the Gusman by pianist Santiago Rodriguez and the Frosty Symphony was sold out.

Correction

In our September issue, we commended the charitable gift from Jessie Fox Wolfson to GableStage but incorrectly identified her as a member of the family behind the Wolfsonian Museum on Miami Beach. Also, while the theater will be called the Wolfson Family Theatre, the theater company will remain GableStage Theatre Company