From a world-class jazz bassist to a model new house opera, there’s a lot to see and do within the Bay Space this weekend.
Here’s a partial rundown.
Bass legend lands in Bay Space
Christian McBride retains proper on crafting what’s little question one of many best careers for any bassist in jazz music historical past.
Having already received eight Grammy Awards — and carried out with such illustrious figures as Paul McCartney, McCoy Tyner, James Brown, Sting, Sonny Rollins, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Kathleen Battle and James Brown — McBride is hardly resting on his laurels, however moderately forging forward to create fantastic new music with a wide range of collaborators.
Jazz followers can hear what we imply by testing the bassist’s present quintet — Ursa Main — on Friday and Saturday on the SFJAZZ Middle in San Francisco and Sunday on the Kuumbwa Jazz Middle in Santa Cruz.
Christian McBride’s Ursa Main options Oakland-born drummer Savannah Harris (who has spent a lot time on the street with Cécile McLorin Salvant), tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover (who has carried out with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Middle Orchestra), pianist Mike King (who has toured with Dee Dee Bridgewater) and guitarist Ely Perlman (who’s finding out at Berklee School of Music).
Particulars: SFJAZZ showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Friday and seven p.m. Saturday; tickets begin at $35; sfjazzcenter.com; Kuumbwa Jazz Middle occasions are 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday; tickets begin at $23.50; kuumbwajazz.org.
— Jim Harrington, Workers
Opera blasts off in S.F.
Are you into music that’s REALLY on the market, as in, in house? Oakland is holding a efficiency of a science-fiction opera that offers with love, loss and galactic colonization — and naturally, it’s happening inside a planetarium.
“Xixoxa’s Spaceship: A Space Opera” is premiering on March 22 on the Chabot Area and Science Middle’s full-dome and state-of-the-art planetarium. Composed by Victoria Younger, and produced by Opera on Faucet, the two-act story follows a younger college scholar who leaves Earth after the demise of her father on a doomed mission to Nebula X-3 – a “mysterious and mostly unknown region in distant space rumored to be the physical manifestation of human afterlife.” Alongside the best way she meets Captain Samara, a Proxima Centauri spaceship pilot who presents solace, and turns into stranded in house earlier than finally discovering a potential street to redemption.
The opera options dwell singers and music, an electroacoustic rating with surround-sound enhancement, and is accompanied by the planetarium’s wow-worthy HD pictures of house. In case you’re not bought by all that — want we point out there’s an intergalactic cantina and house pirates?
Particulars: Doorways open at 7 p.m., present runs 7:30-9:30 p.m. on March 21; 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland; $25 for adults (18-plus); chabotspace.org
— John Metcalfe, Workers
Cinequest rolls on
Silicon Valley’s large Cinequest movie competition wraps up its in-theater expertise this weekend, with a number of screenings and presentation of the Maverick Spirit Award to Gillian Armstrong.
Listed here are three occasions to not miss.
“Gunman”: Argentine director Cris Tapia Marchiori is aware of how you can jangle your whole nerves along with his one-shot marvel impressed by a real story. A hitman in Buenos Aires will get takes on an project for an outdated boss in what looks like an easy-peasy job that spins approach out of sweaty management (9:30 p.m. Friday at California Theatre; 2 p.m. March 23 at 3Below Theaters).
“The Summer Book”: Any movie that includes Glenn Shut in a starring function is price seeing, together with Charlie McDowell’s enriching drama. It’s primarily based on Tove Jansson’s poignant novel in regards to the relationship between a 9-year-girl and her sick grandmother (7:15 p.m. in the present day at California Theatre).
“The Salt Path”: Armstrong provides one other multi-layered efficiency reverse “The White Lotus Season 3” star Jason Isaacs in a transferring adaptation of Raynor Winn’s memoir. It’s attractive to behold because it follows a immediately unhoused couple that takes a trek for 630 miles alongside the southwest English shoreline. Armstrong will obtain her Maverick Spirit Award after the 5:45 p.m. screening on March 22 on the California Theatre.
Particulars: Most screenings $8-14; particular occasions and screenings, $15-$30; cinequest.org
— Randy Myers, Correspondent
Classical picks: Cal Symph, McGegan returns
The Bay Space’s classical music scene has the perfect form of busy weekend arising, together with performances of a brand new work on the California Symphony, a Bach cantata carried out by Nicholas McGegan, and the return of the elegant pianist and Mozart specialist Mitsuko Uchida.
Haddad’s premiere: Composer Saad Haddad, the California Symphony’s composer-in-residence, is understood for his clever mix of Western music and Center Japanese traditions; his works have been carried out by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, the JACK Quartet and plenty of others. Now he’s unveiling a brand new work in Walnut Creek. Titled “Fantasia for Strings,” the work can be carried out by California Symphony below music director Donato Cabrera; this system that additionally consists of Grażyna Bacewicz’s Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, “Pathetique.”
Particulars: 7:30 p.m. March 22, 4 p.m. March 23; Lesher Middle for the Arts, Walnut Creek; $25-$50; californiasymphony.org.
Bach in Berkeley: Early music specialist Nicholas McGegan returns to Berkeley this week to guide the Cantata Collective for a particular occasion commemorating Bach’s 340th birthday; he’ll lead the orchestra and refrain, members of the San Francisco Ladies Refrain and star singers together with Thomas Cooley and Sherezade Panthaki within the composer’s indelible “St. Matthew Passion.”
Particulars: 7 p.m. March 21; First Congregational Church, Berkeley; $33-$101; cityboxoffice.com.
Uchida performs Mozart: The sensible pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues her multi-year mission traversing Mozart concertos this weekend at Cal Performances; showing with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, she’ll carry her distinctive artistry to the composer’s Concertos in B-flat main, K456, and C main, K467.
Particulars: 3 p.m. March 23; Zellerbach Corridor, UC Berkeley; $90-$185; calperformances.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
‘Natural’ music at Cantor
When Bay Space musician and composer Cheryl E. Leonard performs, she’s extra prone to be tapping on bones, crab shells or driftwood than tickling the keys on a piano. Leonard’s specialty is creating and enjoying compositions on objects one can discover within the pure world. She additionally makes a speciality of “found sounds” – recordings taken from pure landscapes and phenomena. It’s stunning how “musical” such preparations will be, even when they’re a reasonably far cry from the newest Olivia Rodrigo single.
You may hear for your self when Leonard performs a free live performance on the Cantor Arts Middle at Stanford College at 6:30 p.m. in the present day. The occasion is a part of the Varieties and Frequencies live performance sequence on the Cantor that’s meant to pair performances with displays on the museum. On this case, the associated exhibit is “Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene,” a set of pictures chronicling human sort’s affect on the pure world and its local weather and environs. Anthropocene is outlined because the age through which people’ affect on the Earth is profound sufficient to qualify as its personal geological interval. The exhibit runs by Aug. 3.
Particulars: Hours on the Cantor are 11 a.m. to six p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to eight p.m. Thursdays and 10 a.m. to five p.m. Saturdays and Sundays (closed Mondays and Tuesdays). Admission to exhibit and live performance are free; museum.stanford.edu.
‘Cher’ is again in Bay Space
If Cher followers might flip again time, some would possibly decide to spin the dial to June 2024, when the touring musical “The Cher Show” stopped in San Francisco for an all-too-brief run. Besides they don’t must. Cher, or no less than the hit-drenched musical that bears her title, has come again to us. As soon as once more, nevertheless, you don’t have a ton of time to catch the present, which is enjoying on the Middle for the Performing Arts in San Jose by Sunday. The 2 Bay Space runs are perhaps the one abbreviated issues in regards to the present, which crams 35 hits into its 2-hour, 40-minute run time and options not one however three Chers. One represents the Nineteen Fifties and ‘60s (nicknamed “Babe” and played by Ella Perez), one is for the ‘70s (“Lady,” Catherine Ariale), and one for the ‘80s and ‘90s (“Star,” Morgan Scott).
That’s a variety of Cher, and it’s accentuated by the truth that although there’s a chronological arc to the present, all three actors sometimes seem on stage collectively to debate, even argue about, features of her life. It’s form of a superb concept and reinforces the endearing proven fact that whereas Cher is blessed with a boatload of expertise – and darn properly is aware of it – she just isn’t one to take herself too critically. “The Cher Show” obtained its Broadway premiere in 2018 and received two Tony Awards, together with a finest actress nod for Stephanie J. Block and a finest costume trophy for Bob Mackie, whose eye-popping designs, as organizers jokingly put it, “caused a sequin shortage in New York City.”
Particulars: Performances are nightly by March 21; and a couple of and seven:30 p.m. march 22 and 1 and 6:30 p.m. march 23; $47-$120 (topic to alter); broadwaysanjose.com.
In with the New (Ballet)
San Jose’s New Ballet, based in 2016 by Bay Space dancer, choreographer and trainer Dalia Rawson, has proved over its pretty brief historical past to be a flexible firm certainly. Not solely does it routinely sort out the classics – its annual San Jose-set tackle “The Nutcracker” is a spotlight of the vacation season, and it’ll current “Swan Lake” in Could – nevertheless it delights in performing new works as properly. That’s what the Quick Ahead program, which can be delivered to the Hammer Theatre Middle in San Jose this weekend, is all about. “It’s a time to engage new choreographers who are interested in pushing the boundaries,” says Rawson of the occasion. This 12 months’s Quick Ahead options seven world premieres. Of explicit curiosity is “DDDD,” a piece by Julio Hong, set to music by Latin jazz nice Arturo Sandoval. The piece is alleged to be an emotional tribute to the choreographer’s native Cuba, and rooted in classical ballet with Latin prospers added to the combo. Rawson is contributing a brand new piece to this system as properly; it’s set to a up to date solo cello work titled “Lamentations,” with dwell accompaniment by New Ballet music conductor Thomas Shoebotham. Merely put, you possibly can all the time count on a shock or two throughout Quick Ahead, which is again for its eighth 12 months.
Particulars: Performances are 7 p.m. March 21 and a couple of p.m. March 22 on the Hammer Theatre; $17-$50, $136 for premium seats; newballet.com.
Israel Philharmonic returns to Bay Space
Davies Corridor in San Francisco performs host Sunday evening to the Israel Philharmonic, the 88-year-old orchestra primarily based in Tel Aviv that’s the delight of its nation and is now on a five-city tour of america. Led by its younger music director Lahav Shani, a conducting protege of Daniel Barenboim, the orchestra will embrace three works that have been particularly composed for the Jewish neighborhood. The main piece within the lineup is Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor, however the viewers may also be listening to up to date Israeli composer Tvzi Avni’s “Prayer,” a mournful, mellifluous work for strings written in honor of his father, who was killed in 1938 through the Arab revolt in opposition to the Ottoman empire. Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei,” although written by a Protestant, is predicated on essentially the most highly effective Yom Kippur prayer, with its solo cello deployed in imitation of the synagogue cantor. The Israel Philharmonic’s personal principal cellist, Haran Meltzer, would be the featured soloist. This system additionally consists of Leonard Bernstein’s “Halil,” which is Hebrew for flute, and the orchestra’s principal flute participant, Man Eshed, who has performed it many occasions since its 1981 premiere, will fill the honors.
Particulars: Live performance time is 7:30 p.m.; $99-$250; sfsymphony.org.
