The City of Boca Raton celebrates its veterans, hip-hop and orchestral music fuse in Miami, and The Symphonia mounts a Mendelssohn masterpiece. Plus, Rufus Wainwright and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Red, White & Boca
When: 4 to 7 p.m.
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/393-7890, mizneramp.com
Whether or not you’ve served in the nation’s armed forces, all are invited to honor U.S. servicemembers at this annual Veterans Day celebration. The City of Boca Raton has arranged three hours of activities, including a classic car show—which will include an award for best veteran-owned vehicle—and a vendors’ marketplace featuring veteran-owned small businesses. Attendees can also enjoy food vendors and listen to speeches from Mayor Andy Thomson, retired U.S. Navy Religious Program Specialist Senior Chief Petty Officer Roberto Barney, and Mario Bai, Vice Flotilla Commander, Flotilla 3-6, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, who will speak beginning at 4:55 p.m. They will be followed by the a cappella four-part harmonies of the Palm Beach Coastmen, a professional barbershop quartet. Speeches from Madeline “Maddy” Mollach, veteran, U.S. Air Force, Commander, American Legion Post 277; and Edrei Pinheiro, veteran, U.S. Marine Corps, E-4/Corporal, SpaceX Production Coordinator, will continue at 5:25 p.m. Belladiva, an eclectic, high-energy tribute band, will perform a tribute to the troops at 5:45 p.m., with the car show awards presentation closing out the evening at 6:45.
What: Rufus Wainwright
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Glazer Hall, 70 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach
Cost: $125
Contact: 561/576-7860, glazerhall.org
The son of folksingers Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, Canadian-American singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright grew up immersed in music, and his career has exceeded that of his parents in its remarkable diversity and soul-stirring emotionality. Though he emerged in the early aughts with his baroque takes on alternative rock music—including opening stints for Roxy Music and Tori Amos—an early love of opera helped foster Wainwright’s inimitable and instantly recognizable tenor. These days, the charismatic composer, vocalist, guitarist, and pianist easily maneuvers between worlds, performing standards with symphony orchestras, penning the opera Prima Donna, setting nine of Shakespeare’s sonnets to music, and adapting the 1977 John Cassavetes psychodrama Opening Night into an unlikely musical. He remains an iconoclast, and a living embodiment of the title of his 2020 album Unfollow the Rules.
THURSDAY
What: Common with Nu Deco
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
Cost: $50.08-$298.35
Contact: 305/949-6722, arshtcenter.org
The Miami-born chamber orchestra Nu Deco Ensemble was founded on a principle of reinventing its form—of blurring distinctions between the hallowed world of classical music and the more elastic environs of popular song. Since 2015, the orchestra has collaborated with artists such as Macy Gray and Ben Folds, and reimagined compositions by Outkast, The Police, and more. Rapper and actor Common is the latest musical chameleon to don the colors of Nu Deco, and vice versa. Just a Tony short of an EGOT, Common is a renaissance man whose hip-hop albums have elevated the cultural dialogue since his 1992 debut. His performance with Nu Deco is expected to include his Grammy-winning hit “Love of my Life” and his Academy Award winner “Glory,” written for the Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic, Selma.
SUNDAY
What: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto
When: 3 p.m.
Where: St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, 100 N.E. Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton
Cost: $58-$95
Contact: 561/376-3848, thesymphonia.org
It was 1838, and Felix Mendelssohn’s next project coursed through his mind with an unbearable urgency. As he wrote to Ferdinand David, his concertmaster and violin soloist at the time, “I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace.” It would take six years for the composer to complete the concerto, and two years after that, he would die, at 38. The stress and overwork may have had a deleterious impact on Mendelssohn’s health, but the fruits of his labor, this final concerto, have been celebrated for more than 150 years, its three movements abounding in intensity and innovation. Violin recitalist Leonid Sigal, who held important positions at Florida Philharmonic and the Miami Chamber Symphony, will perform as guest soloist in the Boca Symphonia’s first program of the 2026-2027 season; the afternoon event also includes Rossini’s Overture to The Barber of Seville and Respighi’s The Birds.
What: The Wailers featuring Julian Junior Marvin and The Skatalites
When: 7 p.m.
Where: The Funky Biscuit, 303 S.E. Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton
Cost: $81.58-$92.43
Contact: 561/395-2929, funkybiscuit.com
Ever since appearing as a child actor in The Beatles’ 1965 film Help!, Jamaican guitarist Julian Junior Marvin (pictured above) has never strayed far from musical glory—from apprenticing with Toots and the Maytals and Ike & Tina Turner to his fateful meeting with Bob Marley on Valentine’s Day, 1977. Marvin had introduced a gritty “fuzzbox” guitar effect on his previous projects, which Marley’s band, The Wailers, admired, and the rest is history. Marvin played with The Wailers until Marley’s death, in 1981, and has continued to perform in various Wailers incarnations, including this one, in which Marvin also sings Marley’s iconic material. Equally notable for this gig—a major one for the intimate Funky Biscuit—is its opening act, The Skatalites, top purveyors of ska, reggae’s bouncier antecedent. Originating in 1964, The Skatalites helped expand the genre’s horn-driven sound from the Caribbean to the world. They even share a recording history with Marley, playing on The Wailers’ debut single “Simmer Down.”
For more of Boca magazine’s arts and entertainment coverage, click here.
