October 17th & 18th and October 24th & 25th. Tickets for this popular event go on sale to the general public on August 12th at 10am, tickets will be available on the museum's website at www.frrm.org Early access for members are on sale now by calling the ticket office. The Ticket office is open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm. Special Note for Covid 19; For 2020 the event will operate at 50% capacity. Due to the complicity of ticketing in reserved seat cars, window seats will only be sold. However, you may consolidate your group using unsold aisle seats within your seating area. Mask requirements will be based on Manatee County mask ordinance at the time of the event.

Special guests outside in the courtyard including: Myakka Gold Apiary Honey, Your CBD Shop, Kiln Fired Diffusers, Koontz Kultery, EB Henna, Ioni’es, There is No Nomal, and two adorable young girls making masks and lanyards with a portion going back to charity. Plus, rescue dogs looking for their fur-ever home.

Join your Lakewood Ranch Ambassador, Greg Spring, on the third Saturday of each month from 8am to 9am October-March for a 10-mile, 1-hour casual bike ride through Lakewood Ranch. We will meet at the fountains on Main Street. This is a great way to see the Ranch. Don't forget to bring your helmet.

The year the land for Selby Gardens' Downtown Sarasota campus was purchased is also a momentous one in women's history. The dynamic display in the Tropical Conservatory celebrates the Suffrage Movement and the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. The Museum of Botany & the Arts will showcase our preserved plant collections. Our Historic Spanish Point campus Gazebo will also receive the Orchid Show treatment and pay tribute to Sarasota pioneer Bertha Palmer. This year marks the 45th anniversary of the official opening of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens' Downtown Sarasota campus. To celebrate, the Orchid Show will honor founder, Marie Selby, and highlight the accomplishments of the many notable women who have built on her legacy and helped to make Selby Gardens home to the best scientifically-documented collection of orchids in the world. The year the land for Selby Gardens' Downtown Sarasota campus was purchased is also a momentous one in women's history. The dynamic display in the Tropical Conservatory celebrates the Suffrage Movement and the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. The Museum of Botany & the Arts will showcase our preserved plant collections. Our Historic Spanish Point campus Gazebo will also receive the Orchid Show treatment and pay tribute to Sarasota pioneer Bertha Palmer. 

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, 1534 Mound Street Sarasota, 34236

Carving a pumpkin is old news - join Fab Lab and laser etch your pumpkin just in time for Halloween! Use CorelDraw to make any design imaginable and then the high-tech laser cutter will etch the design in your pumpkin. A $35 registration fee includes two children and one parent/guardian. Pumpkin included. Hour long slots available from 2-7pm. Only 6 slots per hour due to COVID-19 social distancing.

For over three decades, AIA Florida Gulf Coast Chapter has hosted the Sarasota Design Conference, a unique event in a unique city. The Conference aims to be motivational for both attendees and speakers and has created a history of featuring design-innovative speakers both established and up-and-coming who are able to interact with their attendees in a casual setting that encourages dialog and learning. This biennial event is well attended by industry professionals, primarily architects in the Florida Caribbean region. Registration for virtual attendance is open now through October 25, 2020

This sumptuous ballet, choreographed by the great Rudolph Nureyev, returns to the stage with magnificent sets created by Oscar winner Franca Squarciapino, and Felix Korobov conducting the extraordinary score by Tchaikovsky. International superstar Polina Semionova stars as the lovely Princess Aurora, who after being cursed by an evil fairy (Beatrice Carbone), must fall into a death-like sleep until a handsome prince (Timofej Andrijashenko) awakens her with a kiss. From Teatro La Scala.

Insects inhabit every domain of our daily lives, performing essential functions that balance our fragile ecosystem on Earth — functions that often go unnoticed because of their small size or scale. Now, using cutting-edge technology and custom methods that put tiny insects on a human scale, artist and photographer Bob Sober allows visitors to see the patterns, textures, colors and details that have always been present, but too small to appreciate in The Bishop’s newest special exhibition: Small Wonders: Insects in Focus.

Creating human-scale images of insects, with resolution so high that every hair, dimple and tiny structure is clearly revealed, was impossible prior to the technological advancements of the past 10 years. Now, Sober’s skills allow us to see the intersection of natural science and art in the smooth metallic finishes and heavily stippled textures, strange body shapes, delicate wing structures and beautifully engineered body components in this series of 30 images that will are on display in the Museum’s second-floor Rincon Gallery and throughout the Museum.

Small Wonders: Insects in Focus features 30 of Sober’s spectacular images and viewers will find themselves at the intersection of art and science. The exhibition, which is included in the cost of admission, is organized by ExhibitsUSA, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance and will be open at The Bishop through October 20.

The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature, 201 10th St. W, Bradenton

Sarasota Opera opened the 2020 season of “HD at the Opera House” with Carmen from the Zürich Opera House on Sunday, October 4th. The presentations will continue on October 18th with Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty ballet from Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and on November 1st with Puccini’s Madama Butterfly from Teatro Real in Madrid. Each presentation will begin at 1:30pm. More titles may be added to the schedule in coming weeks. Tickets to “HD at the Opera House” are $20 for single ticket buyers and $18 for current Sarasota Opera subscribers. All seating will be reserved and distanced for safety. Ticket buyers are encouraged to purchase tickets before arriving at the theater. Information and tickets can be found online at SarasotaOpera.org or by calling (941) 328-1300. Sarasota Opera subscribers who wish to receive the 10% discount of HD at the Opera House tickets must contact the Sarasota Opera box office directly.

Join Historic Spanish Point for incredible stories on the artists that shaped and influenced history around the world. We are proud to offer this art lecture series with Baila Miller as part of our monthly programming. Baila’s unique storytelling presentations will connect you to the art world in a whole new way. All presentations take place at Historic Spanish Point’s Visitor Center Classrooms. Tickets: $15 for Historic Spanish Point members and $20 for future members.

After 47 years of teaching, Susan MacManus retired as Distinguished Professor Emerita of the department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida-Tampa. She is author and co-author of over a dozen books and a sought-after nationally-known political analyst and noted commentator on state and national television news.

In the past, seniors have been America’s most dependable voters and were coveted by political can-didates because they historically voted at the greatest rate in elections. Nevertheless, the country has been undergoing an upheaval that has hard-ened political views and is causing the electorate to make decisions based more on personality than on political competence. Will the 2020 election bring unprecedented younger voters to the polls based on political issues, a trust of the principles of democracy, and a desire to see America regain its prominence in the world?

Called the “most-quoted political analyst in Florida,” Susan MacManus returns to Einstein’s Circle to share her experienced insight with us. She will talk about voting history, changing de-mographics in Florida, and what the numbers are telling us about the outcome of this very conten-tious race.

Online.

Jennifer and Austin delighted judges and audience members alike at Artist Series Concerts’ 2016 National Voice Competition, where they took first and second place respectively. Fast-forward to 2020 and the duo, each now pursuing a busy music career, returns to Sarasota to perform together at the first soirée series concert of the organization’s 25th season. Soprano Jennifer Kreider is pursuing a performer’s diploma under the guidance of Jane Dutton at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Her past roles include Musetta (La Bohème), Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel), Linfea (La Calisto) and many others. She has been a young artist at Opera in the Ozarks, the CoOPERAtive Program in Princeton, New Jersey, and the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien, Austria. A native of Brandon, Florida, tenor Austin Cripe is currently pursuing his master’s degree at Florida State University. He has performed with Florida State Opera in the roles of Gastone in La Traviata, King Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, the title role in Candide and others. He has also performed with Red River Lyric Opera, the Savannah Voice Festival and Opera Tampa. Tickets are $53. 

Taiwanese American violinist Max Tan has been praised as “eloquent” by the New York Times and as a “warmly rhapsodic player” by the Boston Globe. As a winner at Artist Series Concerts’ 2018 National String Competition, an alumnus of the Perlman Music Program and a member of the Sarasota Orchestra, Tan is a welcome and familiar presence on Sarasota’s arts scene. He has also been the recipient of numerous other awards, most recently the 2019 Foote Prize from the Harvard Musical Association. He has been featured on WNYC/WQXR and on Belgian radio Musiq3 as a semifinalist in the 2019 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition. He has performed as a soloist with many orchestras including the Juilliard Orchestra, New Juilliard Ensemble, Longwood Symphony, Boston Philharmonic Youth, and Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestras. Tan performs on the 1701 “ex-Franko” Stradivarius on generous loan from the Juilliard School. Pianist, arranger and conductor Joseph Holt is director of artist programs for Artist Series Concerts and artistic director of Choral Artists of Sarasota. Dr. Holt served more than 20 years as principal pianist with the United States Army Chorus, performing for U.S. presidents, military officials and dignitaries from around the world. Tan and Dr. Holt perform a variety of works by the composers Tchaikovsky, Paganini, Beethoven, Ravel, Beach and Wieniawski. This program will be presented live at Michael’s On East as well as streamed for an online audience.

Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota , Michael’s On East, 1212 S. East Ave

Madama Butterfly is one of most performed and best loved operas of all time. The tragic story of the geisha Cio Cio San and the U.S. naval officer Pinkerton touches all audiences. Director Mario Gas sets his new interpretation in a 1930's film studio, where they are working on a movie adaptation of Puccini's soaring opera of romance and innocence lost.