Arts & Entertainment 8 About It's Her Party It's been more than 40 years since her first hit — 1963's Its My Party" — and 30 years since she last recorded an album that charted, but 60-year-old Jewish song- stress Lesley Gore — born Lesley Sue Goldstein — is back with a new CD called Ever Since (Engine Company Records), with 10 songs "as mature and wistful as her early records were brash and bright:' says the New York Times. One of those songs is a new ver- sion of her pop hit and feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me" — per- haps a message to her audience that she has lived the life she chose after coming to the real- Lesley Gore ization in her 20s Ail that she is a lesbian. Gore began hosting episodes of PBS's In the Life, which focused on GLBT issues, in 2004, and she publicly came out in 2005, acknowl- edging that she had lived with the same partner for 23 years. Lesley Gore appears at the Ark in Ann Arbor 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 18. Tickets are $35. (734) 761-1451 or www.theark.org . Piano Men Two world-renowned Jewish pianists bring their classical sounds to Metro Detroit stages on Saturday, March 17. Long devoted to chamber music litera- ture, Emanuel Ax, 57, performs works by Beethoven and Schumann in a Chamber Music Society of Detroit solo recital, the musician's only appearance in southeast Michigan this season. The Ukrainian- born Ax, whose family moved to the U.S. in 1961, captured public attention in 1974 when, at age 25, he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists and, four years later, took the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. A frequent collaborator with the late Isaac Stern, Ax has made a series of acclaimed recordings with Yo-Yo Ma, hav- ing won three Grammys for their perfor- mance of Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In 2005, Ax contrib- uted to a BBC Holocaust documentary that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz; it was awarded an international Emmy. He resides in New York City with his wife, the pianist Yoko Nozaki, with whom he has two children, Joseph and Sarah. Ax performs 8 p.m. at the Seligman Performing Arts Center, 22305 W. 13 Mile Road, in Beverly Hills, on the campus of the Detroit Country Day School. Tickets are $41-$75; students $25. (248) 855-6070 or www.ComeHearCMSD.org. Performing in Ann Arbor the same evening is 59-year-old American-born Murray Perahia. The principal guest con- ductor of London's Academy of St. Martin- in-the-Fields, with whom he has toured as conductor and pianist throughout the world, Perahia was awarded an honorary KBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004, in recognition of his outstanding service to music. Born in New York to Jewish parents of Ladino descent, Perahia started playing piano at age 4 and later attended Mannes College, where he majored in conduct- ing and composition. His summers were spent in Marlboro, where he collaborated with such musicians as Rudolf Serkin and Pablo Casals. He shared a close friendship with Vladimir Horowitz. Perahia's discography of around 50 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. Nate Bloom Special to the Jewish News Old - Timers Alan Arkin, this year's somewhat surprise winner of the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, has signed on to a film version of the 1960s hit TV series Get Smart, which was co-cre- ated by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. Arkin will play the evil head of KAOS, while his Little Miss Sunshine co-star Steve Carell will Alan Arkin play the good guy, CONTROL secret agent Maxwell Smart (a character created by the late Don Adams). Actor Leslie Nielsen, 81, narrates the new Discovery Health Channel series Doctorology. It's a medical info show (airing all this month) with a bit of humor supplied by Nielsen, the funny star of The Naked Gun movies. The series is filmed at three Montreal hospitals, including the city's Jewish General Hospital. Nielsen, a Canadian, isn't Jewish, but he received his first training at a Toronto radio broadcasting school run 42 March 15 . 2007 by the late Lorne Green, a Canadian Jew who was a top radio journalist in Canada before he became a famous actor on TV's Bonanza. Nielsen is still waiting to hear whether an NBC pilot he filmed, called Lipshitz Saves the World, will be aired next season. It's about a young outcast who discovers his secret powers. Nielsen plays his mentor. Vintage Simon For his lifetime contributions to music, singer-songwriter Paul Simon, 65, has been selected as the first recipient of the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The award is named in honor of Paul Simon Jewish composer George Gershwin and his lyricist brother, Ira. The award will be given annually by the Library of Congress. Simon will perform in concert in Washington, D.C., on May 23 to cel- ebrate the event. Other artists, not yet named, also will perform. Simon told the Associated Press: "I am grateful to be the recipient of the Gershwin Prize and doubly hon- ored to be the first." New Winehouse British Jewish singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse's second CD, Back to Black, has topped the British charts since being released across the pond late last year. Winehouse, 23, was recently named Best British Female Vocalist at the British equivalent of the Grammys. Back to Black had its American release on March 13. Winehouse's first album, the Amy jazz-inflected Frank Winehouse (2003), was a critical hit, if only a moderate seller on both sides of the Atlantic. Winehouse's parents are both jazz musicians, although her father mostly made his living driving a cab, while her mother works as a pharmacist. The London-born Winehouse is a classic "bad girl" - albeit a lot more articulate and self-aware than most pop singers. She was kicked out of one high school, and her short career has been marked by her admitted use of mari- juana and alcohol. One of the songs on her new CD, which already has received a lot of American airplay, is the infectious "Rehab," with a chorus that goes: "They tried to make me go to rehab/ I said no, no, no." Winehouse has apparently cleaned up her act as of late, and it would be a shame to see her waste her talent. Her songs are musically sophisti- cated, with her current CD having the glimmer and emotionalism of the best of 1960s Motown. Her voice is described as somewhere between Billie Holliday and the Shangri-Las (a famous 1960s girl group). Visually, she is striking, if not clas- sically beautiful: small, very dark, with a lovely figure and a face with incredible sharp angles. Good As It Gets Comedian Richard Lewis, 59, was just the subject of an interesting profile in the New York Observer newspaper. The famously neurotic comic told the paper that his relations with women were long dysfunctional - he cheated on all his girlfriends (including Debra Winger) - and he often sought out very naive, much younger women or "nasty" women ("because I was get- ting what I deserved").