Arts & Ent.ertainment &About Pure Biss Known for his artistic maturity, versatility and performance of a diverse repertoire ranging from Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann to Janacek, Schoenberg and works by contemporary composers, 26- year-old Jewish pianist Jonathan Biss has collaborated with such artists as Isaac Stern, Andras Schiff, James Tocco, David Finckel, Paul Katz, the Emerson and Vermeer quartets, and his parents, Miriam Fried and Paul Biss, both professors at the Indiana University School of Music. He has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2002 Gilmore Young Jonathan Biss Artist Award, Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award and the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust. He was the first and only American chosen to participate in the BBC's New Generation Artist program and recently received Hear Jonathan Biss the 2005 Leonard perform works by Bernstein Award Mozart, Schoenberg, at the Schleswig- Beethoven and Holstein Festival Schumann 8 p.m. in Germany. Saturday, Nov. 18, in Recital and a University Musical Gail Zimmerman chamber music Society concert at Hill Arts Editor play a vital part Auditorium in Ann in Biss' artistic Arbor. Tickets are life. He made his $10-$50; (734)764- New York recital debut at the 92nd Street 2538 or umstix@umich.edu . A Prelude Y in 2000 and has appeared in many of Dinner at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 18, the great series in the U.S. and in major features Biss on piano and speaker Steven cities and venues across Europe. After Whiting, associate professor of musicol- his appearance at the Concertgebouw, ogy at U-M, at the Alumni Center, 200 Amsterdam, a review in De Telegraaf Fletcher St., in Ann Arbor. $40 per person; said: "[Biss'] huge range only served to (734) 764-8489 for reservations. spotlight his beautifully controlled touch, the richness of color that he attained and the nervous expressive power with which Musical Potpourri he charged his interpretation." This third-generation musician A variety of musical styles fill the vener- — Samuel Barber composed his Cello able Ark in Ann Arbor during the upcom- Concerto for Biss' grandmother, Raya ing week. Garbousova — is philosophical about the New York-born, Ohio-raised Jewish role of music in his life: "Music deals in guitarist-pianist Ann Rabson has loved the realm of the unknown and the mys- the blues since she was a little girl and co- terious:' he says."It heals the soul. Music founded Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women, can make me feel more strongly than an acclaimed acoustic trio of middle-age almost anything else in life." women. They play the classic blues of O 11 ■ 11.•112.11•1111010111,011111•111111• ■ •••111•11 Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and other divas who brought a female perspec- tive to the blues in the 1920s and 1930s, as well Anne Rabson as traditionally styled originals. Saffire takes the Ark stage - 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 17. Tickets are $20. Robbie Schaeffer, the Jewish singer- songwriter best known as the guitarist of the Virginia-based neo-folk acoustic quartet Eddie From Ohio, offers a fam- ily concert 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 19. $8. He's just released an album for kids called Songs For Kids Like Us, featuring such characters as Carp (who lives in the tub), Professor Schnoodle and Cowboy Bob. In the early 1970s, Jewish singer-guitarist Robbie Schaeffer FYI: For Arts related events that you wish to have considered for Out & About, please send the item, with a detailed description of the event, times, dates, place, ticket prices and publishable phone number, to: Gail Zimmerman, JN Out & About, The Jewish News, 29200 Northwestern Highway, Suite 110, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 304-8885; or e-mail to gzimmerman@thejewishnews.com . Notice must be received at least three weeks before the scheduled event. Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change. 4114 WS ems Nate Bloom Special to the Jewish News Fake Fur Fur – An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, which opens Friday, Nov.17, in Detroit-area theaters, "invents (3) characters and situations that reach beyond reality to express what might have been Arbus' inner experience on her extraor- dinary path," says the film's Jewish direc- tor, Steven Shainberg The real Diane Arbus (Secretary). The real Diane Arbus (1923-1971) was the daughter of wealthy Jewish parents who sold fancy clothes, includ- ing furs. Diane and her husband, Allan Arbus (later an actor who played psychiatrist Sidney Freedman on the TV series M*A*S*H), worked as fash- ion photographers from 1946 until they separated in 1959. In the '60s, Diane became famous as the creator 111) 38 November 16 A 2006 of haunting and sometimes disturbing photos of society's oddballs. Yes, Diane's art photography and her '60s bohemian lifestyle were big breaks from her '50s life as a mar- ried mother of two who styled fashion shoots. However, her later career can be conventionally explained. Her cultured father hired art tutors for the teenage Diane; she studied with famous photographer Lisette Model in the '50s; her husband was pretty hip, and her lover and mentor in the '60s was the innovative Jewish photographer Marvin Israel; her brother, Howard Nemerov, was a very famous poet. However, Shainberg's Arbus (Nicole Kidman) is a stifled '50s "mad house- wife." Her parents are materialistic boors. Then, into her life comes a former circus freak (Robert Downey Jr.). He opens Diane's eyes to the lives of society's freaks. Their completely invented romance, the movie implies, was the critical event in Arbus' artistic development. Fur may work as a magical tale but not as a -biography or as a symbolic explanation of Arbus' artistic growth. Murder Inc. In 1989, the beautiful young Jewish actress Rebecca Schaeffer, who co- starred in the TV series My Sister Sam, was slain at her doorstep by a celeb- rity stalker who got her address from the motor vehicle depart- ment. Her murder led most states to make Andrienne DMV records priVate.. Shelly I hope something similarly good comes out of the mur- der of actress Adrienne Shelly, 40, in New York. Shelly had a modest, if steady career in TV and movies; she's best known for co-starring in the hit indie films Trust and The Unbelievable Truth. At the time of her death, she was married to Jewish businessman Andy Ostroy; they had a 3-year-old daughter. On Nov.1, Ostroy went to meet his wife at an apartment Shelly used as an office. He found her lifeless body hanging from a shower rod above the apartment's bathtub. Some members of the press immediately called her death a suicide, and the New York Post piled on by digging out old quotes that made her look totally suicidal. Her husband and her parents felt sure it was a murder. The police then found a shoe print near the tub and matched it to the shoe of a mainte- nance worker in the building. When confronted, he reportedly confessed he had killed Shelly and hung her body to make it look like a suicide. Ostroy paused from sitting shivah to thank the police. Law and Order will probably fiction- alize this case. I hope any dramatiza- tion slams those who rushed to judg- ment in libeling the dead. Peter's Principle Actor Peter Falk, 79, has just written Just One More Thing, a collection of