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Music

Hot Tickets: Tori, Tori, Tori

By SEAN DALY and JOHN FLEMING
Published August 11, 2005

Maybe it's her trademark 'do, a Heat Miser-red coif with a bit of banshee in the curls. Maybe it's those eyes, piercing blue peeps that have never lost a staring contest. Or maybe it's her melodic confessionals, her fluttery soprano, her crescendo-rich piano pounding - all of it adding up to something akin to a choir girl in a juke joint.

Whatever the reason, Tori Amos is an intimidator, a pop powder keg capable of soft soaring highs and hard swaggering lows. A little Carole King, a little Ani DiFranco - and with some '70s classic rock in her blood, too - the North Carolina-born talent has built a rabid fan base by mixing equal parts catchy hooks and bare-bones honesty. (Thursday's show will be her second appearance in the Tampa Bay area this year; she played Ruth Eckerd Hall in April.) A victim of sexual abuse, which she detailed in the 1992 song Me and a Gun, Amos founded the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, one of many organizations that post information booths at her concerts. Her new album, The Beekeeper, reflects her recent move to the English countryside, and is filled with traditional flourishes and relative emotional well-being. Amos might finally be feeling at peace, but don't go thinking her concerts will pack any less punch.

Tori Amos performs tonight at 7:30 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 1010 N W.C. MacInnes Place, Tampa. $39.50-$42.50. (813) 229-7827, (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.

- SEAN DALY, Times pop music critic

The Moretti Duo is an unlikely combination: violin and percussion. The violin is Amy Schwartz Moretti, former concertmaster of the Florida Orchestra and now in the same chair with the Oregon Symphony. And the percussion is her husband, Steve Moretti, a jazz drummer with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Toni Tennille, Michael McDonald, Lorna Luft and Joe Henderson. The Morettis will mix and match classical and jazz Sunday afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, in a program that includes a premiere, Appalachian Sketches, for violin and multipercussion by Rick L. Smith. Two works are for violin and marimba: an arrangement of a set of Etude-Caprices by Wieniawski and Legal Highs by David P. Jones. The concert is at 2 p.m. in the museum's Marly Room. $8, $15. (727) 896-2667.

- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic

[Last modified August 10, 2005, 13:50:09]