Greg Stepanich

Thoughts on the Boca festival

Some random thoughts on the Festival of the Arts Boca:

a) The setup outside the Boca Raton Museum of Art is nice enough. It's grassy and the seats are all sturdy folding chairs, which gives the event the right kind of summer festival feel. There weren't all that many seats filled Sunday night for the concert by Yefim Bronfman (above) and the Russian National Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, which made the seat selection even more casual.

b) The concession stands are OK, with the typical kind of stiff pricing all these events seem to require. The double-chocolate pound cake at $1.50 was passable because the slice was kind of big, but the $3 for bottled water was steep. No coffee, either, but there was wine and beer. The bibulously inclined no doubt found it relaxing to sit through Also Sprach Zarathustra with a mild buzz from a white zinfandel.

c) Restroom access was a little confusing; the major restrooms are on the side of the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater, which I found easily enough, but some signs closer to the seats would have helped. There seemed to be plenty of capacity in the men's room for the line to move along reasonably well.

d) There are two big sound problems. The first is the row of large generators sitting off stage left, which grind and rumble throughout the performance and apparently power the purple spots on the sides and probably the mixer board at the back. Necessary, but too loud and too distracting.

Second, the music Sunday night turned into a mish-mash of competing musical interests because of a sonic delay, probably caused by the nature of the performance shell itself. That was quite annoying as well, especially since the Rachmaninov Third Concerto has a couple question-answer moments between piano and orchestra that depend on clarity to work.

e) Parking was a pain, too. I did make one round of the streets at Mizner Park to see whether there were any spots on the sides, but no luck. I had to try several parking garages before finding some space. It would be good to have some better signs, or an attendant of some kind, to show patrons of the festival the way.

f) The good thing about being in Mizner Park is coming out afterward and walking past bars, restaurants and coffee shops still open after 10 p.m. and going strong. It helped add a feel of city life that was most attractive after a concert by major musicians. It's always spooky to come out of a concert some late night and have to walk through a deserted city to a parking lot, or fight with hundreds of other people for a cab, or struggle through dark streets to a subway stop, as I've done.

That seems to put a damper on things, as though you've overstayed your welcome, or you're participating in events no one cares about. The Mizner Park experience is a pleasant change.

Bottom line is that the festival has some kinks that need to be worked out, but I still predict it will be a success when all is said and done. I'm looking forward to seeing Arturo Sandoval doing the Hummel Trumpet Concerto this coming weekend.

Anyone else around here take in some of the shows and have some thoughts? I'll entertain them below.