From an alt-rock icon to the acclaimed Silkroad Ensemble, there’s a lot to see and do within the Bay Space this weekend.
Right here’s a partial rundown.
‘Go Crazy’ with alt-rock icon
Bob Mould, a first-tier alt-rock pioneer, is out on the street supporting the newly launched “Here We Go Crazy.”
It’s Mould’s fifteenth solo album and first full-length studio effort since 2020’s “Blue Hearts.” The 11-track set was partially recorded and absolutely combined at Oakland’s personal Tiny Phone recording studio. The singer-songwriter-guitarist was backed on the set by drummer Jon Wurster and bassist Jason Narducy.
“On the surface, this is a group of straightforward guitar-pop songs. I’m refining my primary sound and style through simplicity, brevity and clarity,” Mould says in a information launch. “Under the hood, there’s a number of contrasting themes. Control and chaos, hypervigilance and helplessness, uncertainly and unconditional love.”
The primary single from the album is the hanging “When Your Heart Is Broken.”
Followers will probably get the possibility to expertise “When Your Heart Is Broken” and different new album cuts — in addition to hopefully some materials from Mould’s days with Husker Du and Sugar — when the alt-rock icon performs on the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco on April 5.
Particulars: Showtime is 8 p.m.; tickets are $44; livenation.com.
— Jim Harrington, Workers
Giddens’ many items
Rhiannon Giddens has completed a lot you possibly can’t assist however surprise if perhaps there are 4 or 5 hyper-talented artists working cooperatively beneath that title. She gained early-career fame as a member of the extensively acclaimed people/blues/old-time music revival band the Carolina Chocolate Drops. She additionally launched a number of solo albums stuffed with her distinctive model of folks/blues/roots music and contributed to a lot of well-received compilation recordings, together with the T Bone Burnett-created album, “Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes,” which married not too long ago found Bob Dylan lyrics to new tunes.
Two years in the past, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Music with Michael Abels for the brand new opera “Omar,” based mostly on the memoir “The Life of Omar ibn Said,” a Muslim American slave. Giddens can also be the inventive director of Silkroad Ensemble, the musical outfit created a number of years in the past by Yo-Yo Ma. She’s additionally appeared on two seasons of the musical drama “Nashville” and written a number of children books.
On April 4, Giddens brings the Silkroad Ensemble to the Bankhead Theater in Livermore to carry out a program titled Uplifted Voices, which focuses on the music and origins of the group’s varied musicians. The undertaking is in step with Giddens’ longtime objective of shining a light-weight on the world’s ignored folks and artists.
Particulars: The live performance begins at 8 p.m.; $25-$90; livermorearts.org.
— Bay Metropolis Information Basis
Classical picks: Bach, ‘Prayer for Peace’
Listed here are a pair of concert events classical music followers ought to find out about.
Chic Bach: Underneath conductor Jeffrey Thomas, American Bach Soloists current their thirty sixth season finale concert events. Three works by the group’s namesake are on this system, together with the sacred cantata “Gottes Zeit die allerbest Zeit.” Vocal soloists embrace Elijah McCormack, Kyle Tingzon, Steven Soph, and David McFerrin.
Particulars: 8 p.m. April 4 at St. Stephen’s Church, Belvedere; 7 p.m. April 5 at St. Marks Episcopal, Berkeley; and 4 p.m. April 6 at St. Marks Church, San Francisco; $44-$110; americanbach.org.
“A Prayer for Peace”: Additionally this weekend, New Century Chamber Orchestra offers the West Coast premiere of this new concerto grosso for string orchestra co-commissioned with A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra. Works by Richard Strauss and Adolphus Hailstork full this system.
Particulars: 7:30 p.m. April 4 at First Congregational Church, Berkeley; 2 p.m. April 5 at St. Marks Lutheran Church, San Francisco; and three p.m. April 6 at St. Stephens Church, Belvedere; $35-$80, ncco.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Paging all e-book lovers
Some folks prefer to learn books; others favor to play with them. The transformation of studying materials into stunning, generally weird objects is the topic of a captivating exhibition on the Sonoma Valley Museum of Artwork, “Book Becoming Art.”
Operating till April 27, the present presents about 40 handmade books from up to date artists who’re working within the Japanese aesthetic. (Many are literally from Japan.) There’s Yohei Nishimura, who topics his supplies to excessive warmth to disclose hidden qualities. Right here he provides a model of “Webster’s Third New International Dictionary” that appears prefer it’s arrived from the fires of hell. Veronika Schäpers infuses her books with the essence of Japanese road meals; Kyoko Matsunaga paints over photographs in white pigment to offer a way of awe and rebirth; and Hiroko Fukumoto turned a paperback e-book right into a residing mushroom farm.
Presiding over the exhibit (actually) is Maki Aizawa’s free-form “book” constituted of items of mulberry paper, stitched by 35 ladies in her hometown within the wake a devastating earthquake and tsunami. You won’t have the ability to learn it within the conventional sense, however it speaks volumes in regards to the human situation.
Particulars: Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday by way of Sunday; 551 Broadway, Sonoma; $10 basic admission (free on Wednesday); svma.org.
— John Metcalfe, Workers
JCC hosts ‘Broken Seder’
On Oct. 7, 2023, the world of Judaism – the faith itself, its relationship to Palestinians, and its sophisticated standing in Center East politics and historical past – was pressured to reset. Once more. The Hamas assaults and Israel’s response – and the ensuing Gaza warfare – has opened a violent new chapter in a saga that appears to haven’t any finish and continues to cry out for brand spanking new responses on the earth of politics, faith and artwork. On Thursday by way of Sunday, guests to the Jewish Group Middle of San Francisco can view one such new response, from Bay Space artist Day Schildkret and his free immersive exhibit “The Broken Seder.” Described as an exploration of “the impact of Jewish identity in a post-Oct. 7 world,” the exhibit is timed to the Jewish vacation of Passover (April 12-20), a time that’s meant to instill togetherness, storytelling and custom. But, because the title makes clear, many Jews are experiencing a extra troubling and sophisticated vary of feelings, from vary and betrayal to a concern of what the Jewish/Palestinian panorama holds in retailer. As organizers put it, “The ritual became a rupture, revealing deep fractures – political, personal, spiritual and generational. For Schildkret, what sounds like a metaphorical response is also in fact literal. The exhibit consists of a series of seders that are broken in half in a variety of ways, representing a variety of emotional responses to current events.
Details: Exhibit open 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. April 3, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. April 4, 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. April 5, and 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. April 6; free but visitors must reserve a one-hour viewing time during its run, more information and reservations available at www.jccsf.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
A timely debut by NCCO
Something we need now more than ever, “A Prayer for Peace,” a concerto grosso for string orchestra by San Francisco composer Jungyoon Wie, a Korean immigrant to the U.S., makes its West Coast debut April 3 at 7:30 p.m. within the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. Co-commissioned by a Far Cry Chamber Orchestra of Boston and the Bay Space’s personal New Century Chamber Orchestra, the work might be given three performances by NCCO with music director Daniel Hope, for whom it was a ardour undertaking, within the lead. The seek for peace additionally informs the remainder of this system, which opens with composer Adolphus Hailstork’s Sonata da Chiesa for String Orchestra. The live performance concludes with Richard Strauss’ well-known “Metamorphosen,” with its “solo” components for 23 particular person string gamers, which was composed simply after the conclusion of World Struggle II. Repeat performances happen at 2 p.m. April 5 in St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco and three p.m. April 6 in St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Belvedere.
Particulars: Tickets, $35-$80, can be found at ncco.org.
— Bay Metropolis Information Basis
Again to the fundamentals for ABS
The American Bach Soloists shut out their thirty sixth season with “Bach’s Paradise,” a triumphant return to the type of programming that established their status as preeminent traditionally correct interpreters of the music of the Baroque period. Carried out by inventive director Jeffrey Thomas, the instrumental ensemble and vocal soloists will carry out the composer’s “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,” (God’s time is the easiest time), an early cantata that expresses Bach’s imaginative and prescient of paradise. Additionally on this system are the Easter cantata “Christ lag in Todesbanden,” the Palm Sunday piece “Himmelskönig, sei willkomen” and the attractive Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.
Particulars: Performances are at 8 p.m. April 4 in St. Stephen’s Church in Belvedere, 7 p.m. April 5 in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley, 4 p.m. April 6 in St. Mark’s Church in San Francisco and seven p.m. April 7 in Davis Group Church. Discover tickets, $44-$111, at americanbachsoloists.org.
— Bay Metropolis Information Basis
