Arts & Entertainment
Photo by Caro l Friedman
About
Yefim Bronfman
Classical Combo
Grammy Award-winning pianist Yefim
Bronfman, 49, was born in Uzbekistan and
immigrated to Israel with his family in
1973, where he began his piano studies at
Tel Aviv University. He continued his stud-
ies in the U.S. at the Juilliard School, the
Curtis Institute and the Marlboro Festival.
Renowned for his commanding tech-
nique and significant lyrical gifts, he has
gone on to appear with celebrated orches-
tras, in chamber music collaborations and
as a solo recitalist in the leading concert
halls of the world. He is the recipient of
the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one
of the highest honors given to American
instrumentalists. He won his Grammy for
his recording of the three Bartok piano
concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Bronfman will appear for two vener-
able Detroit music institutions in the
coming days.
At 8 p.m. Saturday,
May 19, he performs
a recital for Chamber
Music Society of
Detroit — featur-
ing selections
from Beethoven,
Schumann and
Balakirev — at the
Seligman Performing Arts Center on the
campus of Detroit Country Day School in
Beverly Hills. Tickets are $41-$75; student
tickets are $25. Call (248) 855-6070.
Then, Bronfman joins the Detroit
Symphony Orchestra 8 p.m. Thursday
and Friday and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, May
24-26, at Orchestra Hall in the Max M.
Fisher Music Center in Detroit to play
Rachmaninoff's legendary Piano Concerto
No. 3, a signature piece for some of the
world's greatest pianists (it was featured
in the 1993 film Shine, about Australian
pianist David Helfgott).
Conducted by DSO Principal Guest
Conductor and Artistic Adviser Peter
Oundjian, the concerts also feature Pulitzer
Prize-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis'
Newly Drawn Sky and two works by British
composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Tickets to the DSO concerts are $15-$69.
Seniors (60 and over) and students can
purchase 50-percent-off rush tickets at
the box office 90 minutes prior to ciassi-
cal concerts, based on
availability. Call (313)
576-5111 or go to www.
detroitsymphony. corn.
Tie One On
Some remember
Menachem Begin as the
man who made peace
with Egypt. Others point to the former
prime minister as one of the very few
Israelis who regularly wore a tie.
On Thursday, May 31, the Janice
Charach Epstein Gallery will host "Dry
Clean Only: A Charity Shirt and Tie
Auction of Wearable Art." Local artists will
decorate denim shirts and silk ties, which
will be modeled by community leaders.
Then it's time to bid on these wearable
works of art, with proceeds benefiting
Kids Kicking Cancer and the gallery.
The event, sponsored by the gallery and
the Shirt Box in Farmington Hills, will fea-
ture the talents of artists Danny Gutman,
Bruce Gerlach, Janice Tracht, Rabbi Aaron
Bergman, Abby Stybel, Jason Talbert, Mark
Lit, Hillary Fisher, Taryn Boyd and Jeremy
Rich of TalkingSquid, Julie Tochette, Jo
Rosen, Dominic Pangborn, Diane Smith,
Dale Sparage, M. Ariel Sanders, Terry
Lee Dill, Cliff Harris, Mollene Levin, Ron
Steam, Edie Simons, Suzanne Sunshower,
Marcia Henne, Jason Driscoll, Michael
Phillips, Larry Lambert, Bill Bradley,
Susan Fox, Stephen Deeb, Stephen
Schudlich, Dan Swan, Barbara Mercier
Pugsley and Stephen L. Pugsley.
The event is free and open to the public.
The preview begins at 6:30 p.m. and
the auction starts at 7 p.m. The gallery is
located in the Jewish Community Center
of Metropolitan Detroit, 6600 W. Maple
Road, in West Bloomfield.
For information, contact the gallery at
(248) 432-5579 or visit www.jccdet.org .
Collector's Cache
Bringing rarely seen art from a private
collection to the public eye, the Museum
of Contemporary Art Detroit is currently
hosting the exhibit "STUFF: International
Contemporary Art from the Collection of
Burt Aaron." It runs through July 29.
Work owned by Detroit-area collector
Aaron has been shown at major museums
around the world. This exhibition features
more than 140 works, in various media,
by more than 75 artists, dating from the
1960s and continuing to the present.
The art reflects the lack of any single,
dominant art movement. It is an idiosyn-
cratic collection, with abstract, realist, pop,
conceptual and expressionistic painting,
sculpture, photography and installation
pieces.
Some of the artists are well known, oth-
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140 c ., WS
Nate Bloom
• rim
Special to the Jewish News
Jewish 'Stars'
4:10
ti
38
The ABC series Dancing with the
Stars is a monster hit almost at the
level of American Idol.
As this item goes
to press, only four
celebrity dancers
remain going into
the semifinals at 8
p.m. Monday and
Tuesday, May 14-15.
One of these four
is Jewish actor Ian
Samantha
Ziering (Beverly
Harris
Hills 90210). The
finals air 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday,
May 21-22.
The show's success has greatly
increased the visibility of Samantha
Harris, its lovely Jewish co-host.
Harris, 33, was born Samantha
May 17 2007
Shapiro (Harris is her mother's maid-
en name) and was raised in a Reform
Jewish home in Minnesota. She went
to Hebrew school and was a bat
mitzvah. Harris earned a journalism
degree from Northwestern University
but also acted while in college.
After graduation, she got some
acting roles but eventually took a
reporting job with Extra, the enter-
tainment news show, and then joined
Dancing at the start of its second
season. She also works as a corre-
spondent for El, the entertainment
news cable station.
This month, Harris told JVibe, a
Jewish teen magazine, that she met
her Jewish businessman husband
at a cousin's birthday party in New
York. They had a Jewish wedding
presided over by the rabbi who con-
firmed her, and Harris is now expect-
ing their first child.
All 'Shrecked'
Shrek the Third, the sequel to the
two wildly successful, animated
Shrek films, opens on Friday, May 18.
In this installment, the lovable ogre
Shrek tries to avoid
becoming the king
of the land of "Far
Far Away."
CNN's Larry King
appears in Shrek
the Third as the
voice of Doris, a
Maya Rudolph
funny female char-
acter. Maya Rudolph, the Saturday
Night Live star, provides the voice of
Rapunzel.
Rudolph is the daughter of Dick
Rudolph, a Jewish music execu-
tive, and the late Minnie Riperton,
an African-American singer most
famous for her 1974 hit, Lovin'
You. Riperton, who wasn't Jewish,
died of cancer in 1979.
The film series is based on the
1990 book Shrek! by Jewish author
William Steig, who died in 2003 at
age 96. "Shrek" is the Yiddish word
for fear or loathing.
Saying Goodbye
Suzanne Pleshette, 70, has had a
very long acting career – in dramas
before she got to show her great
comic timing in The Bob Newhart
Show. But she has never talked about
being Jewish. A reliable source, 85-
year-old Variety columnist Army
Archerd, who knows Pleshette, con-
firms that she is.
Pleshette's husband of six years,
comedian Tom Poston, died on April
30. Archerd attended Poston's
funeral and burial at Hillside Jewish
cemetery in Los Angeles. Pleshette,
Archerd wrote in his Web blog, gave
a witty and warm eulogy that cel-
ebrated Poston's life.