MIRAMAR – The Southern Circuit Independent Film Series at The Miramar Cultural Center | ArtsPark concludes with Follow the Leader with Director and Producer Jonathan Goodman Levitt on Thursday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m.  Following the screening, Levitt and the audience engage in a discussion about the film and his work as a filmmaker.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy has a small cameo in this film chronicling the political aspirations of three American conservative high school class presidents who, over the course of three years, split into different political parties and must reconsider their ambitions.  All three boys had dreams of one day becoming President.  During the three life-changing years, each of the boys reassesses his beliefs and discovers who he truly wants to be as an adult. The film also addresses society's assumptions about tomorrow's leaders and the impact that 9/11 and President Obama's election had on them.

Follow the Leader is Jonathan Goodman Levitt's first film made in the United States after a decade of working as a filmmaker based in London. Moved by the events of 9/11, Levitt believed this singular, infamous day in history changed forever the political mindset of an entire generation of youth.

In and interview with Youth Radio, Levitt said that he chose the three specific boys portrayed in Follow the Leader because, "They all represent traditionally the type of people who have been leading the country since its founding."

The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers is a program of South Arts. Southern Circuit screenings are funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

South Arts, a nonprofit regional arts organization, was founded in 1975 to build on the South's unique heritage and enhance the public value of the arts. South Arts' work responds to the arts environment and cultural trends with a regional perspective. South Arts offers an annual portfolio of activities designed to address the role of the arts in impacting the issues important to our region, and to link the South with the nation and the world through the arts. For more information, visit www.southarts.org

Tickets are $15.  Tickets are available at (954) 602-4500 or select your seat online at www.miramarculturalcenter.org

The Miramar Cultural Center | ArtsPark is located at 2400 Civic Center Place on Red Road, north of Miramar Parkway, in Miramar.  Miramar Cultural Center | ArtsPark can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/MiramarCulturalCenter and on Twitter @MiramarCultural.

The Gay Men's Chorus of South Florida and Symphony of the Americas.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL -- The Power of 150 Voices Singing! was the appropriate theme of the Symphony of the Americas' program on Tuesday evening at the Broward Center's Amaturo Theater. Under the artistic direction of Gordon Roberts, the Gay Men's Chorus of South Florida joined Maestro James Brooks-Bruzzese and the orchestra for a vociferous evening of choral music from both classical and popular genres.

The Fort Lauderdale based men's chorus makes a mighty sound. Superbly honed by Roberts, the group's finely blended voices can rouse to full throated perorations or sing caressingly soft vocal lines with acute musicality. Brooks-Bruzzese opened the program with the Hallelujah Chorus from Beethoven's oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. Composed in 1801, the oratorio was one of Beethoven's greatest successes but, like the master from Bonn's other religious and secular cantatas, has fallen off the repertoire radar. These works show a more intimate side of Beethoven's wide ranging genius. In sheer fervor and complexity of choral writing, the Hallelujah Chorus prefigures the finale of Beethoven's only opera Fidelio. Brooks-Bruzzese led a rousing performance, the  contrapuntal voicing clear and precise, a testament to the chorus' musical discipline.

The multi talented Roberts is a composer, arranger, pianist and former associate of such music legends as mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel and conductor-composer-educator Leonard Bernstein. Roberts took the podium for an eloquent version of Wheels of a Dream from the Broadway musical Ragtime by Stephen Flaherty with two fine vocal soloists from the chorus. Roller Coaster from Roberts' 2004 musical Friday Saturday Sunday is an old fashioned, early twentieth century Tin Pan Alley tune, sung with swinging verve by the chorus. Roberts and the male chorus captured the nostalgic verve of Hollywood composer Nacio Herb Brown's Singing in the Rain, a chorus member adding a Gene Kelley song and tap routine for good measure. Joseph Martin's luminous The Awakening soared in full voiced exuberance, the chorus and orchestra producing mellifluous harmonies. The text's final repeated phrases "Let music live!" rang out like an anthem of hope and joy, a wonderful conclusion to the concert's first half.

The chorus voiced the lyrical strophes of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's With a Song in My Heart and the witticism of Jule Styne's Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friends beguilingly and with idiomatic style, capturing the lilt and song filled aura of Broadway's golden era. A beautifully balanced rendition of the Louis Armstrong classic What a Wonderful World and a haunting traversal of the Harold Arlen-E.Y. Harburg standard Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz exuded uplift and exultation under Roberts' astute direction.

Brooks-Bruzzese led the chorus and orchestra in a stirring performance of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the finely terraced dynamic gradations of the choral singing and vividly colored instrumental playing felicitous and splendidly coordinated. The terrific arrangement was by Peter Wilhousky, one of America's legendary choral conductors in the first half of the twentieth century. An exhilarating version of America the Beautiful that did not leave a dry eye in the house concluded the program.

Delightful orchestral interludes abounded throughout the evening. Roberts led the Symphony of the Americas in a bright, colorful tribute to pops and Hollywood icon John Williams featuring themes from Star Wars, E.T., Superman and Raiders of the Lost Ark. He captured the lyrical pulse and quirky wit of Bernstein's Overture to Candide and imbued Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 4 with an extra dose of Magyar paprika, the orchestra's strings rich and lustrous.

Brooks-Bruzzese brought snap and songful hues to Gershwin's Overture to Girl Crazy and swagger to the Coronation March from Meyerbeer's opera Le Prophete. John Kander and Fred Ebb's New York, New York really sizzled, the symphony's brass and percussion having a field day with Bob Cerulli's great arrangement. As an encore, Brooks-Bruzzese conducted a barn burning rendition of Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever.

A wonderful concert  of orchestral and choral standards, the Symphony of the Americas will repeat the program 2 p.m. Sunday, March 24 at the Amaturo Theater in Ft. Lauderdale. For tickets and information, call 954-335-7002 or see www.SymphonyoftheAmericas.org.