As an arts correspondent based at NPR West, Mandalit del Barco reports and produces stories about film, television, music, visual arts, dance and other topics. Over the years, she has also covered everything from street gangs to Hollywood, police and prisons, marijuana, immigration, race relations, natural disasters, Latino arts and urban street culture (including hip hop dance, music, and art). Every year, she covers the Oscars and the Grammy awards for NPR, as well as the Sundance Film Festival and other events. Her news reports, feature stories and photos, filed from Los Angeles and abroad, can be heard on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, Alt.latino, and npr.org.
Gulfshore Opera takes a “Taste of Opera” to Isles Yacht Club in Punta Gorda on February 10. On Friday the 13th, Opera Naples celebrates the opera chorus at the Wang Opera Center with “Voices of Triumph.” And Puccini's most beloved and frequently performed opera, “La bohème,” opens Valentine’s Day at the Sarasota Opera House.
Lee County motorists should be alert on three dates in February and March when Spring Training games will be played at the same time and same day by the Red Sox and the Minnesota Twins.
The Collier Community Foundation has continued its financial support of Audubon Florida’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the popular environmental attraction east of Naples, with a $100,000 grant. The foundation’s money is being added to donations from many other individuals, groups, and businesses in the sanctuary’s $20 million renovation effort to transform and expand the aging sanctuary.