Enjoy a fruitful weekend at the Boca Strawberry Festival, three days of free jazz in Pompano, and the Symphonia at its most theatrical. Plus, Tool and more in your week ahead.
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY
What: Tool
Where: Hard Rock Live, 1 Seminole Way, Hollywood
When: 8 p.m.
Cost: $105-$245
Contact: 866/502-7529, myhrl.com
Alternative metal pioneers TOOL are returning to South Florida for two back-to-back shows at the ever-bustling Hard Rock Live. Returning to South Florida not long after a visually stunning 2022 appearance at the venue now known as Kaseya Center, the genre legends led by elusive frontman Maynard James Keenan are ostensibly still supporting their 2019 comeback LP Fear Innoculum. While the uninitiated may not be swayed by the group’s punishing grooves and unorthodox production (which often includes a frontman shrouded in darkness for the entirety of a show), the die-hard fans who will be in attendance at these unusually intimate performances will be treated to dense and rewarding cuts from across a three-plus-decade career that is without equal in the world of heavy music. —James Biagiotti
THURSDAY TO SATURDAY
What: Jazz Fest
Where: Pompano Beach Cultural Center, 50 W. Atlantic Blvd., Pompano Beach; and Old Town Square, Pompano Beach
When: Starts at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and 5:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Cost: Free, but registration required
Contact: pompanobeacharts.org/events/jazz-fest
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, one of the brash upstarts of contemporary jazz in the 1980s, is now one of the genre’s titans, whose soulful and luminous tone has brought depths of feeling to collaborations with the Grateful Dead and Sting, to the stages of Broadway and the hits of Hollywood, and of course to works with his own quartet, which he will perform at this free festival, now in its third year. Marsalis headlines on Saturday, Jan. 20, preceded by singer-songwriter Lisa Fischer, subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Twenty Feet From Stardom” and now a marquee act in her own right. Najee, David Sanchez and the Valerie Tyson Band round out the lineup.
SATURDAY
What: Hip-Hop Orchestra Experience
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
When: 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $35 and up
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
At least since the electronic musician Wendy Carlos began to re-arrange Bach compositions for the electronic moog synthesizer, in the 1960s, artists have been interpreting works of classical virtuosity for new mediums and new audiences. The Hip-Hop Orchestra Experience continues in that tradition. South Korean Artistic Director and pianist JooWan Kim’s boundary-collapsing project fosters a vibe that is equal parts concert performance and club night, as talented MCs rap over a live orchestra, complete with woodwinds, French horns, string and drums, breathing new life into works by Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. It’s all of a piece with Kim’s vision to “sample differences, change everything.”
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
What: Boca Strawberry Festival
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $15-$38
Contact: bocastrawberryfestival.com
This weekend-long family-friendly bonanza celebrates all things strawberries—France’s greatest contribution to the world this side of pasteurization and Champagne. Adults can partake in strawberry cocktails, while visitors of all ages can enjoy a pop-up shopping village, live music, strawberry-infused treats, a magic show, face painting, a candle making station, an “America’s Got Talent” stunt dog show, carnival and pony rides, a petting zoo and a video game truck. Don’t leave without a delicious strawberry-infused treat or meal from the “Strummies” section, a portmanteau for “strawberry” and “yummies.”
SUNDAY
What: Symphonia Concert III
Where: Countess de Hoernle Theater at Spanish River High School, 5100 Jog Road, Boca Raton
When: 3 p.m.
Cost: $55-$90, $10 students
Contact: 561/376-3848, thesymphonia.org
Principal Conductor Alastair Willis channels his longtime love for the theatre into the third program of the Symphonia’s season, all of whose selections have a connection to the dramaturgical arts. A piece from Joseph Bologne—the first known classical composer of African descent, and the subject of the 2023 biopic “Chevalier”—was written for an opera, for instance. But it’s a pair of connected compositions that most excites Willis: Haydn’s Symphony No. 60, whose six movements were written for the play Il Distratto; and Anna Clyne’s “Sound and Fury,” which is directly inspired by the same Haydn symphony as well as Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” “Clyne is one of most performed living composers of today,” Willis says. “She borrows a chord progression from Haydn’s symphony and loops it. These repetitions mark out the passing of time. … It’s really cool.”
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