[more details]

50,000 Fete Mozart's 250th Birthday
VIENNA -- Tens of thousands of music lovers braved the freezing cold to kick off this year's 250th anniversary celebration of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with three days of festivities. Organizers announced Monday that some 50,000 people took part in 100 activities -- including outdoor concerts -- starting Friday (January 27) in Salzburg, where the composer was born two-and-a-half centuries earlier, and in Vienna, where he died in 1791.

Center for arts, Florida style?
ORLANDO -- An architect who says he's concerned about "the soul and the spirit" of the city has been selected to design a performing-arts center for downtown Orlando. At a news conference, leaders of the Orlando Performing Arts Center intend to announce their choice of Barton Myers Associates as architect and the New York firm Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects as the proposed project's master planner. Myers -- a Los Angeles-based architect who has designed performing-arts centers in Newark, N.J.; Portland, Ore.; and Cerritos, Calif. -- is known as an architect who avoids designing flashy structures that stand out from the landscape, such as Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Instead, Myers wants his work to fit in with -- and add to -- the cityscape around it.

Orlando Museum of Art Open on Mondays for First Time Ever During
ORLANDO -- Because of The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition's considerable appeal to residents and tourists, the Orlando Museum of Art (OMA) is open to the general public on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., January 22-July 23, 2006, for the first time in its 82-year history. In addition, the OMA is open late on Fridays until 8 p.m. Enjoy Happy Hour on Friday nights starting at 5 p.m.

Dramaworks is Proud to be Recipient of Sixteen 2005 Carbonell Award Nominations
WEST PALM BEACH -- West Palm Beach’s only resident professional theatre, Palm Beach Dramaworks announced they are the recipient of sixteen 2005 Carbonell Award Nominations—the most nominations bestowed to any one theatre in Palm Beach County and the third most nominated in the region this season. Carbonell Awards honor excellence in theater in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami Dade Counties. Dramaworks nominations include: six nominations for Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill, A Musical Voyage, its summer musical revue showcasing the songs of the acclaimed composer; five nominations for That Championship Season, a Pulitzer-Prize winner about the reunion of former high school basketball stars; three nominations for 'night Mother, a Pulitzer-Prize winner about a mother's attempt to prevent her daughter from committing suicide; and 1 each for Edward Albee’s Seascape and Terrence McNally’s Lips Together, Teeth Apart.

Miami Performing Arts Center's Grand Opening Produced by Grammy Award Winner Emilio Estefan
MIAMI -- Grammy Award-winning Miami resident Emilio Estefan will be executive producer of a star-studded celebration on October 5, 2006 that will launch Miami Performing Arts Center’s highly anticipated, four-day Grand Opening. International superstar Gloria Estefan will take center stage (along with other celebrities to be announced shortly) for an all-star musical tribute to Miami that will highlight the many world-renowned artists who have played a major role in transforming the city into an arts and entertainment mecca. The remainder of the Center’s Grand Opening festivities, which will include more performances, parties, a gala, and many community events throughout October 6, 7, and 8, will be announced in the coming months.

Grand Opening of the Lester and Sonia Mandell Studio Theater
ORLANDO -- The Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival is proud to announce the grand opening of the Lester and Sonia Mandell Studio Theater. Beginning February 8th, this will be the third theater inside the Lowndes Shakespeare Center housing Shakespeare, classic, comedy, contemporary and children’s professional productions. The Mandell Studio Theater boasts the first flexible seating configuration in the Shakespeare Center. Its 2,500 square feet of space can accommodate up to 150 in comfortable stadium seating. The stage measures 20’ x 33’ and the backstage area contains dressing rooms, a green room and private restrooms. The first event to occur in this space will be Savages, a PlayFest!

QUINCY, FL -- The Gadsden Arts Center has its new School Tours program up and running, featuring tours of the Center's exhibitions of fine art in its galleries on Quincy's Courthouse Square and also offering "Tours to Schools," bringing art to students' classrooms. For both types of tours, materials are customized for each group of students through close work between the classroom teacher and the docent, and materials can be developed to reinforce specific FCAT skills. For example, students might read about an artist - Eluster Richardson - and an historical event - Civil War and Reconstruction - before the tour. They would then discuss the exhibition of Eluster Richardson's drawings and paintings that depict African American life from reconstruction to the mid-Twentieth Century, from tobacco picking to ballet. Finally, students would write a passage or story, or create a painting of their own, reinforcing new facts and concepts, applying new vocabulary and ideas. The possibilities are endless and the learning is fun.