Arts & Entertainment
About
David Broza at Masada
Blazing Broza
He is popularly known as the "Bruce
Springsteen of Israel." Over a 30-year
career, singing in English, Hebrew and
Spanish, guitarist-singer-composer David
Broza has mixed Hebrew folk tunes,
Spanish flamenco and American rock
into melodies filling 23 albums, 16 of
them gold, platinum and multi-platinum
releases.
For a 90-minute PBS
special, titled David
Broza at Masada: The
Sunrise Concert, Broza
performed his great-
est hits at sunrise atop
the ancient Masada
fortress in southern
Israel, overlooking the
Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. Joining
him are American performers Rock
and Roll Hall of Famer Jackson Browne
and Grammy winner Shawn Colvin;
Palestinean artist Ebrahim Eid; and the
Neve Shalom/ Wahat al-Salam Israeli-
Palestinean School Choir.
The concert, co-produced by the Angel
Group of London and WTTW National
Productions of Chicago, was partially
underwritten by Commerce-Township-
based HoMedics Inc., Hannan and Lisa
Lis of Farmington Hills and Jewish
Renaissance Media Chairman Michael
Steinhardt.
David Broza at Masada: The Sunshine
Concert airs 10 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12,
on WTVS-Channel 56.
Festival
Of Lights
The University Musical
Society presents a con-
cert bringing together
iconic acoustic finger-
style guitarist Leo
Kottke and the Turtle
Island String Quartet,
an ensemble that fuses the classical quar-
tet aesthetic with contemporary American
musical styles, 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 9, at
Rackham Auditorium, 915 E. Washington
St., in Ann Arbor.
The program of world holiday music,
titled "A Solstice Celebration: The Festival
of Lights:' showcases music associated
with what is referred to in both Jewish
and Hindu cultures as "The Festival of
Lights."
The collaboration between Kottke and
the Turtle Island String Quartet honors
the musicians' ancestral roots with songs
of Chanukah, the music of India's Diwali,
old English carols and Scottish reels
— traditional music of winter holiday
celebrations presented with a hip, mod-
ern twist.
Drawing on folk, rock, jazz and blue-
grass while honing his finger-picking
mastery, Kottke, 62, gained an interna-
tional cult following thanks to his perfor-
mances at folk festivals around the world.
His ability to embrace folk idioms and pop
melodies as readily as he assimilates jazz
and classical influences makes him unique
among guitar virtuosi.
The Turtle Island Quartet, since its
inception in 1985, has created bold, new
trends in chamber music for strings
through forays into folk, bluegrass, swing,
be-bop, funk, R&B, rock and hip-hop, as
well as the music of Latin America and
India.
The quartet's formation was the result
of violinist David Balakrishnan's brain-
storming explorations and composi-
tional vision while writing his master's
thesis. Other members of the quartet
include Matt Glaser on violin, Mads
Tolling on viola and Mark Summer on
cello.
Tickets to "A Solstice Celebration: The
Festival of Lights" are $22-$46. (734) 764-
2538 or www.ums.org . II
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 &
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Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change.
w s
11114 I Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
41 k w
Almost A Minyan
Margot at the Wedding, a film directed
and written by Noah Baumbach, will
open in Detroit on
Friday, Dec. 7.
Margot is a com-
plicated tale about a
family of East Coast
literati divided by
conflicts between
family members.
Noah
They come together
Baumbach
for the wedding
and Jennifer
of family member
Jason Leigh
Pauline (Jennifer
Jason Leigh) to Malcolm (Jack Black).
Nicole Kidman plays the lead charac-
ter, Margo, who is Pauline's sister.
Baumbach, 38, became well known
as the director-writer of 2005's The
Squid and the Whale, which earned
him an Oscar nomination for Best
Original Screenplay. He is the son
of a Jewish father (novelist-critic
Jonathan Baumbach) and a non-
Jewish mother (Village Voice critic
Georgia Brown). While he was not
raised in any faith, Baumbach told a
couple of Jewish papers back in 2005
C8
December 6 • 2007
JN
that he identified as Jewish – espe-
cially "the people of the book" aspect
of being Jewish.
In 2005, Baumbach married
Jennifer Jason Leigh, 45. The Jewish
actress is joined in the cast by other
Jewish thespians: Halley Feiffer,
22, the daughter of famous Jewish
cartoonist Jules Feiffer and his wife,
Jewish writer Jenny Allen (Halley also
acted in The Squid and the Whale);
Matthew Arkin, 47, the son of Oscar-
winner Alan Arkin and the brother
of actor Adam Arkin; and Flora
Cross, 14, who made her film debut
as a young Jewish girl in 2005's Bee
Season, based on the novel by Myla
Goldberg.
Local Connections
October Road was an ABC replace-
ment series that premiered last spring
to surprisingly good ratings and
has recently been brought back for
a second season. New episodes air
Mondays at 10 p.m., and you can catch
up with the series via recaps and
whole episodes on the ABC Web site,
www.abc.com .
The program's handsome Jewish
lead is Bryan Greenberg, 29, a St.
Louis-raised actor whose mom, Denny,
is a 1969 graduate of
Oak Park High School.
It looks like beauti-
ful actress Elizabeth
Berkley, 35, has
finally put 1995's
Showgirls behind her.
Bryan
For the last decade,
Greenberg
the Farmington Hills
native has appeared
in quality TV guest shots and in good
indie films, and she just landed a plum
recurring role on the hit CBS series
Talmudic Touring
The L.A. Jewish Federation invited a
number of Hollywood producers and
directors to tour Israel; the group
stopped at the Pardes Institute of
Jewish Studies in Jerusalem for a bit
of Talmud study late last month.
Participants included Oscar-win-
ning direc-
tor Davis
CSI: Miami.
Berkley will play the ex-wife of CSI:
Miami star David
Caruso and the
mother of the son he
didn't know he had
until last season. It
looks like her first
episode will air 10
p.m. Monday, Dec.10,
Elizabeth
but schedules are in
Berkley and
flux because of the
Greg Lauren
writers' strike.
Meanwhile, Berkley's personal life
has gone well. In 2003, she married
the very handsome actor-painter Greg
Lauren, a nephew of designer Ralph
Lauren, in a lavish Jewish wedding in
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Al Gore and Davis
Guggenheim
Guggenheim
(Al Gore's An
Inconvenient
Truth), direc-
tor Brad
Silberling
(Lemony
Snicket) and
Amy Pascal,
co-chairman of Sony Pictures.
Each was paired with a Pardes stu-
dent for the seminar. Pardes' direc-
tor, Rabbi Daniel Landes, who led the
learning, said, "The Hollywood group
was attuned to both the dramatic
and comedic elements of rabbinic
stories. It was gratifying to see the
dynamic interaction of the seasoned
Pardes students with the creative
energy brought by the new group.
They had a ball." I I