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Singer Lizz Wright will star in the next installment of the Israeli Opera’s “Jazz at the Opera” series.

By BARRY DAVIS
Chamber music 521 (photo credit: Dan Porges)
Chamber music 521
(photo credit: Dan Porges)
Jazz mix at the opera
Singer Lizz Wright will star in the next installment of the Israeli Opera’s “Jazz at the Opera” series.
The concert, which takes place on February 28, will feature several of the musical strands that run through Wright’s personal and professional life, including jazz standards, gospel music and R&B.
Wright, 33, hails from Georgia.
As a child she sang gospel songs and played the piano at the local church, where her father served as the minister. Although prohibited from listening to popular music and jazz as a youngster, she eventually became familiar with the discipline at a jazz club in downtown Atlanta;where she performed the gospel number “Amazing Grace.”
When she was 20, she joined the Spirit vocal quartet, and two years later, embarked on a world tour based on songs that legendary jazz diva Billie Holiday had performed. She followed that with the release of a highly successful debut album as leader, Salt, and often features gospel songs in her recordings and performances.
Wright will perform in Tel Aviv with four American instrumentalists – keyboardist Kenny Banks, guitarist Robin Macantagay, bass player Nicholas D’amato and drummerpercussionist Paul Guerguerian.
For tickets and more information: (03) 692-7777 or www.israelopera.co.il
Betwixt and between
Artist Issa Markovitch’s new exhibition at the Einav Center of Culture in Tel Aviv takes a look at relationships. The show, which is called “Between Them,” features two dozen oil paintings of realistic figures of all ages, particularly addressing the interpersonal relations between those figures.
The Argentinean-born Markovitch, who made aliya in 1963, starts her search for subjects by taking photographs of people on the street and then recreates the figures on canvas, positioning them based on her own interpretation of the reality she has captured on her camera.
For further information: (03) 521-7763. The exhibition runs until March 1.
Dancing for his son
The Hebrew Theater will present a performance of Itzik Weingarten’s award-winning play Dancing with Dad at Tel Aviv’s Tzavta cultural center on March 4 (8:30 p.m.).
The reworking of the original emotive one-man play features three actors – Ofer Amram, Tzachi Ze’ev Luk and Sarah Krep – and tells the story of a challenging boy whose mother eventually abandons her desperate efforts to raise him. The boy’s dancer father then takes on the challenge and, when his dance work is rejected by the public, decides to refashion his approach to the art form based on his son’s personality.
Eventually the boy is left to cope with the world on his own.
Dancing with Dad is directed by Gadi Tzedaka and choreographed by Ofer Amram.
For tickets and more information: (04) 618-0747 or www.teatron.org.il
For women only
The all-female Nashima Group creative theater collective will perform the play Azkara at the Performing Arts Academy on Tel Aviv’s Bet Alfa Street next week.
Director Osnat Shenk created the play in collaboration with the 15-actress cast, which includes Elisheva Freedman, Sivan Druckman, Shuli Cohen, Sari Turgeman and Galit Malka. Azkara is a comic-satirical work that incorporates movement, songs and humor from different streams of Judaism. The storyline is based on the complexities of a woman’s life in religious Jewish society.
The show (in Hebrew), which takes place February 24 at 8:30 p.m., is for women only.
For tickets and more information: (03) 940-0333, 073-210-0945 or www.acco.tc.com
Double Exposure
Tel Aviv’s Shpilman Institute for Photography unveiled a new installment of its “Double Exposure” exhibition series last week.
The series, which runs until May 1, incorporates 16 videos, each of which addresses a work of art. The name of the show alludes to the double viewpoint each piece incorporates: that of the video’s creator, and that of a theorist from a related field. Such theorists include professionals in philosophy, literature, music and art theory, featuring classical conductor Itai Talgam, literature professor Dr. Michal Ben-Horin, philosophy and art lecturer Dr. David Graves and curator Nili Goren.
The exhibition includes works by Illit Azulai, Gaston Zvi Itzkovitz, Oded Belilti, Uri Gershoni and Nevet Yitzhak.
For more information: (03) 728- 3737 or www.thesip.org.