From a legendary jazz pianist to a festival devoted to whales, there is a lot to see and do in the Bay Area this weekend.
Here’s a partial rundown.
A jazz icon hits town
Bay Area Kenny Barron fans are in for a treat.
Actually, they are in for a number of different treats, as the legendary jazz pianist visits SFJAZZ Center to perform four very different shows in four nights.
First up, Barron — whose talent has graced literally 100s of recordings since he got his start in the late 1950s — leads his quintet into the San Francisco venue tonight 10 to perform music from his latest album, “Beyond This Place,” as well as other pieces. Besides Barron, this terrific group also includes bassist Christian McBride, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, drummer Johnathan Blake and trumpeter Mike Rodriguez.
He follows up that opener with a solo piano show on Friday and then performs with a chamber orchestra on Saturday. Barron closes the SFJAZZ Center run on Sunday with the West Coast premiere of new chamber work with harmonica player Grégoire Maret, flutist Elena Pinderhughes and cellist Noah Johnson.
Details: Show times are 7:30 p.m. today through Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday; tickets start at $35; sfjazz.org. Barron also performs a sold-out show Monday at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz; kuumbwajazz.org.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
A whale of a festival (literally)
For whale enthusiasts, there’s one must-attend event in Northern California every year: Whalefest Monterey, taking place over two days with more fun stuff than you can shake a barnacle-covered flipper at.
The 15th annual Whalefest on Monterey’s historic waterfront this weekend has something for serious marine buffs, other things for foodies and then plain goofy events like the Racing of the Live Abalones. A weekend symposium gathers world-renowned scientists to discuss whale migration, the problems of entanglement, shark behavior and plankton. There’s a calamari cooking demonstration — squid being a favorite whale food source — and wharf walks where people get the chance to spot otters and dolphins.
Then there’s live music, interactive marine exhibits, sea-themed crafts like scrimshaw and gyotaku — the traditional Japanese method of “printing fish” — and the opportunity to tour research and rescue vessels. Also this year is a 30-foot, real whale skeleton attendees can assemble, and a life-sized inflatable humpback whale model you can walk inside. Now that’s a whale of a good time.
Details: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; Custom House Plaza and Old Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey; free; whalefest.org.
— John Metcalfe, Staff
Classical Picks: Outdoor “Bohème,” opera recitals, Baroque faves
Spring brings a week of opportunities to experience opera in Bay Area parks, hear recitals and new works in an intimate venue, and enjoy Baroque music designed for dancing.
“Bohème Out of the Box”: San Francisco Opera’s family-friendly “La Bohème” offers Puccini’s enduring masterwork in hour-long performances at four parks beginning this weekend. Directed by Jose Maria Condemi and performed by a cast featuring guest artists and company Adler Fellows with piano accompaniment, this “Bohème” is sung in Italian with English translations on audience smartphones.
Details: Sunday through June 29, with performances in Sausalito, San Ramon, Los Altos Hills and Hayward; free with registration; sfopera.com.
Schwabacher Recitals: Presented in the Atrium Theater next door to the War Memorial Opera House, these recitals present top opera artists in an intimate atmosphere; Thursday offers a program by the powerhouse soprano Leah Crocetto, accompanied by pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson.
Details: 7:30 p.m. today; Atrium Theater, San Francisco; $30; sfopera.com.
New and recent works by Saariaho, others: S.F. Opera isn’t the only organization to use the Atrium Theater; on Saturday, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players present “Northern Lights,” featuring “Lichtbogen” by the late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. New and recent music by Jesper Nordin, Magnus Lindberg, and Mika Pelo are also on the program.
Details: 7:30 p.m. April 12, Atrium Theater; $18-$45; sfcmp.org.
Feel Like Dancing: The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra presents “Tout de Suite,” with Baroque dance music by J.S. Bach and Handel alongside pieces by French composers Jean-Féry Rebel and Jean-Philippe Rameau. Conductor Avi Stein leads three performances of the program, spanning works from poised to vivacious.
Details: 7:30 p.m. today at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; 7:30 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church, Palo Alto, and 2:30 p.m. Saturday at First Congregational Church, Berkeley; $20-$132; philharmonia.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Lots of laughs in the Bay Area
We could all use a giggle or a guffaw these days, no? Here are a few noteworthy comedy shows to catch in the Bay Area.
Second City: The famed Chicago troupe that has birthed the careers of such chuckle icons as Tina Fey, Keegan-Michael Key, Steven Colbert, Tim Meadows and Bill Murray — among countless others — brings its tour to the Bankhead Theater in Livermore on Friday.
Details: 8 p.m.; $25-$80; livermorearts.org.
Atsuko Okatsuka: The Taiwan-born comedian has been burning up the stand-up circuit and late-night TV landscape of late, with Variety dubbing her in 2022 one of the “Top 10 Comics to Watch.” She was also only the second Asian American female comedian to land a standup special on HBO. She’s bringing her latest work, “Atsuko Okatsuka Writes a New Show” to San Jose Improv for five performances Friday through Sunday.
Details: $37.17 per show; improv.com/sanjose
Tommy T’s: The Pleasanton club hosts Jessica Singleton, whose shows are described as “high energy, overly honest, always silly, and often dark and dirty,’ for two shows on Friday, and Justin Silva, who dumped a career as an electrician (those people make a lot of money, you know) after killing it at an open mic event, for two shows on Saturday.
Details: 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. Friday; 7 and 9:45 p.m. Saturday; $25-$40; tommyts.com
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Sneak peak at R-Evolution
Public art installations are hit-or-miss affairs. Some are so simple and sublime – and fit so well in their surroundings – you can’t believe that they haven’t been there forever. But for every San Francisco Hearts installation or beloved work like Ruth Asawa’s hyper-detailed San Francisco Fountain on Stockton Street, there is the arresting red Pax Jerusalem sculpture outside the Legion of Honor, which it seems has always been controversial. And even though they ‘ve been gone almost a quarter century, the subject of Concord’s Spirit Poles still prompts some to gnash their teeth. Who knows what kind of reaction the city of San Francisco will draw with its latest art work? Titled “R-Evolution,” the 45-foot-tall statue of a female figure was created by Venice-born, Berkeley-raised artist Marco Cochran from 55,000 welds of steel rod and tubing, says the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. On April 10, you can watch the unveiling of the statue in its new home, the Embarcadero Plaza, at Market and Steuart streets. The free event takes place from 5 to 8 p.m. and will feature live music and DJs, a night market, photos ops with Ms. R-Evolution herself, and plenty to eat and drink. The new statue is part of the city’s drive to add spice to its downtown scene and is an attempt to even the score a bit when it comes to the gender mix of public art works. According to Recreation and Parks officials, women are the subjects in only 8 percent of the public statues in the U.S. “R-Evolution,” created in 2015 for the Burning Man festival and displayed previously in Miami, is the final work in Cochran’s “Bliss Project” series. Details: More information on the event and the statue is available at sfrecpark.org/CivicAlerts as well as at building180.com/r-evolution
All that jazz in Walnut Creek
The Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek hasn’t quite resurrected its impressive jazz concert series from years past, but this week the venue is hosting two of the genre’s most popular and acclaimed musicians in back-to-back shows. On Thursday night, the Lesher Center welcomes one of jazz’s finest and most versatile musicians and composers, trumpeter Terence Blanchard. The New Orleans native has won five Grammy Awards, composed two operas and some 80 film and television scores (including the acclaimed one for Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman”) recorded or collaborated more than 30 albums, and is currently executive artistic director for the SFJAZZ Center as well as Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles. Blanchard, touring on the 20th anniversary of his acclaimed album “FLOW,” performs with his E-Collective band at the Lesher Center 7:30 p.m. April 10; tickets are $68-$115. Meanwhile, Miguel Zenon, a Puerto Rican-born saxophonist and composer who’s won a Grammy and a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, brings his Quartet to the Lesher Center at 7:30 p.m. Friday ($40-$65). Zenon and his band also perform at 7 p.m. April 10 at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa Cruz; ($21-$42; www.kuumbwajazz.org) and 7 & 9 p.m. April 12 at Keys Jazz Bistro, San Francisco ( $50; keysjazzbistro.com). Tickets and more information on the Lesher Center shows are at www.lesherartscenter.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
A double dose of Mozart
There will be a heady influx of a certain youthful vitality as Pocket Opera, San Francisco’s plucky little little theater company, brings its spring production to the Legion of Honor this Sunday, a two-pronged program that encompasses both an animated film and the performance of a live opera. That’s because the film, “A Pocket Magic Flute,” was designed, staged and filmed by Pocket Opera last year in concert with several collaborators, including the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, to introduce schoolchildren to the delights of the Mozart classic. It went on to win multiple honors, most notably the Award for Digital Excellence from Opera America. Both singers and actors were engaged for the production, with the vocal roles taken by Orson Van Gay as Prince Tamino, Rabibah Dunn as Pamina and Shawnette Sulker as the Queen of the Night. The second half of the program is a performance of a little opera that Mozart composed at 12 (one, amazingly, of three he produced by that tender age). Bastien and Bastienne, starring Camryn Finn and Sidney Ragland, tells the tale of a young shepherdess, distraught over the fidelity of her shepherd swain, who consults a magician to help bring him back into her embraces. Details: Performance time is 2 p.m.; $35-$89; pocketopera.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
See, hear and feel at Soundbox
The reverberations are bound to be impressive and all-encompassing at this weekend’s edition of SoundBox, the innovative and groundbreaking performance space developed by the San Francisco Symphony in the cavernous rehearsal space equipped with an amazing state-of-the-art sound system at 300 Franklin St. Percussionist and composer Andy Akiho, nominated for Grammy awards consecutively for best contemporary classical composition from 2022-24, is bringing his “Sculptures” program, a sound world he has created in collaboration with the larger-than-life works of sculptor Jun Kaneko, to the nightclub-like environs, with the participation of some S.F. Symphony musicians. Details: The doors — and the cocktail bar — open at 8 p.m., and the show starts a half-hour later on Friday and Saturday nights. General admission is $80, and tickets are going fast at sfsymphony.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
