Arts Fuse critics select the best in film, theater, music, dance, visual arts, and author events for the coming week.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules — What is playing today, Where and When

Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street
July 18 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, MA

The current Sam Fuller retrospective features a long unseen version of this German-produced film. It was made expressly for his European fans, who gave Fuller far more respect than American moviegoers. The comic drama centers on the attempts of a hard-boiled private detective to bust open a ring of international smugglers. The print is a restoration of the director’s cut, which adds 25 minutes that had been removed from the film when it was originally released. Fuller’s widow, Christa Fuller, a writer and actress who worked on the completion of Fuller’s memoirs (A Third Face) will be present for this screening.

Breathe (Respire)
July 16th at 8 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ma

The 20th Boston French Film Festival continues with this film by 32 year-old model, director, singer, and writer Mélanie Laurent. She has brought a fine and understated understanding of adolescent psychology to this uncomfortable story of obsessive friendship and deceit. Every shot is beautifully composed and filled with meaning. Young actresses Joséphine Japy as ‘Charlie’ and Lou de Laâge as Sarah give mature and convincing performances. Their marvelous French faces convey a serene sensuality that belies a host of troubled and unresolved emotions. Isabelle Carré is spot on as the confused mother who is working through her own issues. Based on a novel by Anne-Sophie Brasme, this a women’s picture that had Provincetown Film Festival audiences gasping when it reached its conclusion.

Charlie’s Country
July 17–19 at 7 p.m.
Brattle Theater, Cambridge, MA

Dutch filmmaker Rolf de Heer’s Aboriginal drama features David Gulpilil. Since Walkabout in 1971 the actor has appeared in some remarkable films, such as Peter Weir’s The Last Wave, Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence, and de Heer’s Ten Canoes and The Tracker. Now 62 years old, Gulpilil stars as Charlie, the wise and mischievous resident of an Aboriginal reserve in Australia’s Northern Territory. Heer and Gulpilil collaborated on the script. “What it adds up to is a broadly drawn, but thoughtful, tragicomic vision of an impoverished indigenous life, with allusions to Gulpilil’s background as a dancer and his public struggles with alcoholism.” (The AV Club)

Revenge of the Mekons
July 17 — 19 at 9:30 p.m.
Brattle Theater, Cambridge, MA

This second Brattle premiere this week is Joe Angio’s documentary, which chronicles the decades-long career of the critically-acclaimed, genre-shifting band. “Using a mixture of archival and contemporary footage as well as interviews with the band’s members, music critics, and such fans as the well-known writers Luc Sante and Jonathan Franzen, the filmmaker affectionately chronicles The Mekons’ long history that includes forays with such artists as Vito Acconci and Kathy Acker.” (Hollywood Reporter)

— Tim Jackson

The Wild Bunch, directed by Sam Peckinpah. At the Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA on July 15 at 8 p.m.

This magnificent, unruly action film/ allegory dovetails the Vietnam War with the end of the myth of the old West. “Sam Peckinpah was probably the greatest, and surely the most influential, director of action in the past half-century of movies,” wrote critic Terrence Rafferty, “a virtuoso of speed, chaos, the intimate blur of violence. When his fourth feature, The Wild Bunch, invaded movie theaters in the summer of 1969, audiences were stunned, and in some cases appalled.” Will contemporary audiences be stunned and appalled? Not sure, but it is being shown in glorious 70 mm on a big screen, so the epic has a fighting chance to shock our psyches once again.

— Bill Marx

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Dance

Outside the Box Festival
July 14-19
On the Boston Common
Boston, MA

Outside the Box returns to Boston after a year’s reprieve, showcasing more than 100 artists in music, dance, and theatre — the festival transforms the Boston Common into a celebration of regional arts.

Summer in the City: Luminarium Dance Company
July 21 from 10-11 a.m.
Bergin Park
Cambridge, MA

Join Luminarium Dance Company for a morning of dancing in the grass, presented by Cambridge Arts’ Summer in the City. The company will present an outdoor performance/class combo that will be fun, family-friendly, and encourage child participation. Enjoy Luminarium favorites performed under the sun.

And further afield…

Southern Vermont Dance Festival
July 16-19
Various locations
Brattleboro, VT

Now in its third year, Southern Vermont Dance Festival presents four days of classes, lectures, informal showings, and professional gala productions in the artistic town of Brattleboro, Vermont. An added treat — choreographer Billbob Brown joins the festival as this year’s keynote speaker on “reframing the arts.”

— Merli V. Guerra

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Visual Arts

American Folk Art: Lovingly Collected
July 15 – November 29
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA

Like the New York neighborhoods SoHo, Nolita, and the East Village, “Folk Art” is a dealer’s term invented to brand a category that didn’t previously exist. Until well into the 19th century, professional artists in the northeast, many of them self-taught, traveled from town to town in search of their daily bread. They painted for such local worthies as had funds to immortalize themselves or their children. They were paid for their services and then these journeymen moved on. They left behind art that looked pretty bumpkinish to later generations. But nobody called them “folk.”

In the twentieth-century, these once embarrassing portraits slowly emerged from New England attics and barns to be looked at with eyes newly trained in a modernist aesthetic. Many of the sitters and painters had by then long been forgotten. Much about this itinerant art had to be reconstructed with patient scholarship. Wrapped up in a blanket called “folk art tradition,” this work was revalued as a true expression of home-grown American taste.

The Worcester Art Museum’s American Folk Art: Lovingly Collected is exactly this: a private collection of rural New England art on loan for this show. The exhibition features some 40 works, including country-produced furniture, assigned to such names as John Brewster, Zedekiah Belknap, Ruth Henshaw Bascom, William Matthew Prior, and Sturtevant Hamblin. What was once seen as clumsy now has charm: the taste of our forefathers’ day here seems fresh and full of color and life.

Whistler’s Mother: Grey, Black, and White
through September 27
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA

Purchased by the French state in 1891, James McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1, known to so many as “Whistler’s Mother,” was for decades the only American painting in the Louvre (nowadays, it normally resides in the Musée d’Orsay, along with work by Whistler’s contemporaries). For some reason, the painting wanders fairly often in its creator’s and sitter’s native land: to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, where it was a big hit, to Atlanta in 1962, the National Gallery in Washington in 1994, Detroit in 2004, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2006, and San Francisco in 2010, among other places.

This summer, the well-traveled old lady visits bucolic Williamstown, where she will be on public view through September as the centerpiece of the exhibition Whistler’s Mother: Grey, Black, and White. Organized in cooperation with the Colby College Museum of Art and the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies, the show explores a painting endlessly reproduced, parodied, referenced, copied, and imitated ever since it was made. The work’s instantly recognized seated pose is one of the most familiar art images in the world.

Architectural Allusions
through November 29 (Public Opening Reception, July 15)
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA

Set amidst the deCordova’s splendid suburban country house grounds in Lincoln, Architectural Allusions features, according to the museum, “works that explore the presence of architecture in contemporary sculpture.” The distinction between what is architectural and what is sculptural will inevitably be a fine one. The far side of contemporary architecture has some time ago liberated itself from any sort of practical function or need to provide shelter. The near side of recent sculpture has, for its part, completely co-opted architectural materials like concrete, glass, and granite.

The deCordova mix is made up of new commissions, long-term loans, and permanent collection installations. The show’s vision reaches back to the fake ruins, picturesque follies, and “little hamlets” of classic garden design. Artists on view range from locals to internationals; the lineup includes Stephanie Cardon, Dan Graham, Esther Kläs, Sol LeWitt, Monika Sosnow-ska, Kenneth Snelson, and Oscar Tuazon.

— Peter Walsh

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Classical Music

Tosca at Tanglewood
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 11, 8:30 p.m.
Tanglewood Music Shed, Lenox

Sandra Radvanovsky and Bryn Terfel headline the cast who will perform the first act of Puccini’s masterpiece. Bramwell Tovey conducts the program, which also includes further Italian music TBA.

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 13, 8 p.m.
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox

The TMCO offers an enticing program that closes with a new piece by Osvaldo Golijov, Sign of the Leviathan, commissioned to commemorate the Music Center’s 75th season this summer. Former BSO assistant conductor and current Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot conducts. Also on tap is the Prelude to Parsifal, Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, and Debussy’s Images.

Rhapsody in Green
Presented by Boston Landmarks Orchestra
July 15, 7 p.m.
Hatch Shell, Boston

BLO opens its season with a water-themed program that includes a couple of old favorites (Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and Debussy’s La mer), plus a pair of premieres: Francine Trester’s At the River (world) and Kevin Puts’ River’s Rush (New England). In the middle comes Alan Hovhaness’ splendiferous And God Created Great Whales.

American Masters
Presented by Monadnock Music
July 18, 7:30 p.m.
Peterborough Town House, Peterborough, NH

BMOP returns to Monadnock Music for a bracing program of ballets by William Schuman (Night Journey) and Samuel Barber (Medea), plus pieces by George Perle and Charles Fussell. Pianist Donald Berman is the soloist in Perle’s Serenade no. 3; Gil Rose conducts.

Sir Neville Marriner at Tanglewood
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 19, 2:30 p.m.
Tanglewood Music Shed, Lenox

The great Neville Marriner comes to Lenox for the first time in ten years with a program of two Mozart symphonies – the Haffner and Linz – plus Schumann’s Piano Concerto (featuring the great Paul Lewis).

Festival of Contemporary Music
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 20-27, various times
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox, MA

There’s much to be excited about with this year’s FCM, which offers a spate of premieres and some of the summer’s liveliest programming. It begins with Stefan Asbury and the TMCO performing pieces by Rautavaara, Pinto-Correia, Glanert, Zuidam, and Jacob Druckman and ends with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the TMCO in Ives’s New England Holidays; Leonard Bernstein’s Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs; Lukas Foss’s Quintets; and Copland’s granitic Orchestral Variations. In between comes Oliver Knussen directing an evening of music by Bruno Maderna, Elliott Carter, George Perle, Gunther Schuller, and Charles Wuorinen; a John Harbison-led afternoon of pieces by James Primosch, Luigi Dallapiccola, Helen Grime, Shulamit Ran, and Gerald Levinson (plus a Harbison premiere); Dawn Upshaw singing Augusta Read Thomas, Steven Mackey, and Bright Sheng, plus pieces by Andy Vores, Marti Epstein, and Michael Gandolfi; and Asbury again leading the TMCO in pieces by Knussen, Perle, Anderson, Bettison, Hans Werner Henze, and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

The Edge of Greatness
July 14 at 2 p.m.
At the Northshore Unitarian Universalist Church, 320 Locust Street, Danvers, MA
Same program will be performed: July 15 at Peabody Institute Library, 82 Main Street, Peabody, MA; July 16 at Peirce Farm at Witch Hill, 116 Boston Street, Topsfield, MA; July 17 at North Shore Arts Association, 11 Pirates Lane, Gloucester, MA

Music At Eden’s Age presents an open rehearsal featuring violinists Annie Rabbat, and Susanna Ogata, violist Jason Fishoer, and cellist Jacques Lee Wood. On the program: Schubert’s Quartettsatz, D. 703 and String Quartet in E-flat major No.10, D.87; Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello; and Andrew Norman’s Sabina from The Companion Guide to Rome.

Canzonare:
Virtuose Giovani – Musical Experimentation and the Women of Ferrara
July 14 at 8 p.m.
At St Peter’s Church, 320 Boston Post Road, Weston, MA
Same program performed: July 15 at 8 p.m. at Chapel of West Parish, 129 Reservation Road, Andover, MA; July 16 at 8 p.m. at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston, MA.

In 1598, the music publisher Giacomo Vincenti praised the young women of the famous concerto delle donne, established by Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara as virtuose giovani. This program showcases music composed by Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Giulio Caccini for the ladies of the concerto delle donne, as well as the musica secreta of Ferrara at the turn of the 17th century by Girolamo Frescobaldi and Carlo Gesualdo.

Eternal Seasons
July 16 at 7 p.m.
Slosberg Recital Hall 415 South Street, Waltham, MA

Aston Magna Festival presents a program that includes Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; J.S. Bach’s Cantata “Wiederstehe doch der Sünde;” J.S. Bach’s Concerto in D Minor; Johann Christoph Bach’s Motet “Ach, daß ich Wassers g’nug hätte.”

Borromeo String Quartet
July 19 at 1:30
At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The Fenway, Boston, MA

On the program: Bartok’s String Quartet No. 5; Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, Op. 132.

— Susan Miron

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Theater

Henry V by William Shakespeare. Directed by Jenna Ware. Staged by Shakespeare & Company in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA, through August 23.

Those hungry for more history plays by the Bard after Henry VI, Part 2 have an opportunity to continue the adventure with the prequel: “Henry V is rare among Shakespeare’s works because it contains explicit references to true events in England’s history. Following the death of his father, Prince Hal takes on the crown, rallies his exhausted troops and sets forth to repair his post-civil war nation.” Is the text pro-war? Anti-war? A little of both? It depends on where director Ware puts the emphasis.

Saving Kitty by Marisa Smith. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. Staged by the Nora Theatre Company at the Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA, through August 2.

A political satire in which American ids and odds collide: “Kate and Huntley Hartley, atheist Manhattanites, anxiously await the arrival of their daughter, up-and-coming television news producer Kitty, and her new beau Paul, for dinner—and much, much more. When Paul turns out to be an Evangelical Christian educator—the liberal, cultured Kate’s worst nightmare—everything is turned upside down as Kate tries to scuttle the budding romance.” Jennifer Coolidge (American Pie, Best in Show, and TV’s 2 Broke Girls) makes her Boston debut as Kate.

The How and the Why by Sarah Treem. Directed by Nicole Ricciardi. Staged by Shakespeare & Company in the Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA, through July 26.

Dramatist Sarah Treem once told an interviewer that for a good play, “you put people in a room who have very good reasons to be furious at each other and you don’t let them leave. The How and the Why is somewhat based on that principle.” Tod Randolph and Bridget Saracino star in this production of a clash between two highly intelligent female scientists. See the Arts Fuse feature on The How and the Why. And here is the Arts Fuse review.

Out of Sterno by Deborah Zoe Laufer. Directed by Paula Plum. Staged by the Gloucester Stage Company, 267 Main Street, Gloucester, MA, through July 18.

This “zany” feminist satire tells “the story of Dotty, who lives a kind of reverse Alice-in-Wonderland existence in the colorful and cartoon-like apartment she shares with her husband Hamel. Dotty’s life in Sterno is a fairy tale despite the fact that, in their seven years of marriage Hamel has forbidden her to leave their tiny apartment or speak to anyone.” The cast includes Amanda Collins, Jennifer Ellis, and Richard Snee. Arts Fuse review

Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Staged by Apolinaire Theatre Company in collaboration with Escena Latina Teatro at the PORT Park, 99 Marginal Street, the Chelsea Waterfront, Chelsea, MA, through July 26.

An unusual summer offering on several fronts. Lorca’s lyric tragedy about ill-fated love is not your standard summer fare. Escena Latina Teatro will be producing its own distinctive version of the Spanish original on Friday nights. And the location for this ambitious production (English and Spanish versions) will be at “Chelsea’s new PORT Park, which features an amphitheater inside what was a large oil storage tank. Audience members will also get to explore the park’s structures and playgrounds where some of Lorca’s more surrealistic scenes will be staged.” In case of rain, call (617) 887-2336 to check status.

Thoroughly Muslim Millie by Ryan Landry. Performed by The Gold Dust Orphans. At the Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford Street, Provincetown, MA, through September 6.

Leave it to Landry to take musical parody where most American theaters fear to tread. Seen many plays about the Middle East lately? With music? The satiric set-up: “A young girl from a Canadian convent! Thrust across the border into the Middle East and straight into the arms of the Prince of Persia! And what do Dick and Lynne Cheney have to do with all this?” WARNING: This is an ADULT parody! DO NOT BRING YOUR CHILDREN!

A Little More Alive, by Nick Blaemire. Directed by Sheryl Kaller. Staged in the St. Germain Stage by the Barrington Stage Company, Pittsfield, MA, July 17 through August 8.

The East Coast premiere of Blaemire’s songfest: “in this heartfelt and original folk-pop musical, two estranged brothers reunite at their childhood home after their mother’s funeral. An unexpected revelation distorts every memory they have as they uncover secrets that had been hiding in plain sight their whole lives. Brothers Nate and Jeremy find that no one is exempt from the grey area between right and wrong.”

Your Body and You, written and performed by Rogue Burlesque. At Oberon, Cambridge, MA, July 17 and 26.

“Did you learn anything in health class besides fear, abstinence, and maybe how to roll a condom onto a banana? Well, attendance is mandatory at this striptease spectacular, a summer health assembly full of cautionary tales, celebratory moments and your daily recommended dosage of striptease!”

Warning: The show “may contain references to street drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, heavy metal, smoking and dental hygiene. There will be striptease, and the viewer will face between zero and 16 pasties on stage at any given moment. Please make sure your permission slips are signed.”

Off the Main Road by William Inge. Directed by Evan Cabnet. Staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival on its Main Stage, Williamstown, MA, through July 19.

This is an intriguing world premiere of a script that was “until recently, a lost work among Inge’s canon – found and reintroduced by the Inge Estate in 2008.” “Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Krya Sedgwick makes her WTF debut in the world premiere of a play by Pulitzer Prize-winner Inge. As the second wave of feminism crests in America, the elegant but emotionally fragile Faye Garrit (Sedgwick) seeks refuge from her husband, a former professional baseball player, by checking into a run-down resort on the outskirts of St. Louis with her 17-year-old daughter.” Arts Fuse review

Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin. Lyrics & Music by Irving Berlin. Book by Hershey Felder. Directed by Trevor Hay. Presented by Arts Emerson at the Emerson/Culter Majestic Theatre, Boston, MA, through August 2.

The latest in Felder’s series of dramatic explorations of the music and lives of famous composers. According to the Los Angeles Times review, his take on Irving Berlin is “richly entertaining and ultimately touching, though not without some issues. Repetitions in tone and text could stand a few trims, and Berlin’s output affords Felder less options for concert fireworks at the keyboard than previous excursions.”

Northside Hollow written and directed Jonathan Fielding and Brenda Withers. Directed by At the Harbor Stage Company, 15 Kendrick Avenue on Wellfleet Harbor, Wellfleet, MA, July 16 through August 8.

The world premiere production of a play expressly written for the HSC: “Trapped underground after a deadly collapse, a miner finds his salvation in the arrival of a scrappy first responder. An intimate portrait of mortality, memory, and redemption.”

Halcyon Days by Deirdre Kinahan. Directed by James Warwick. Staged by Chester Theater Company at Chester’s Historic Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, MA, through July 19.

A New England premiere of what sounds like a script inspired by the film Awakenings: “Patricia storms into the nursing-home conservatory where Sean sits alone, submerged in his memories. Her feisty zest for life prompts an intriguing intimacy—by turns charming and combative, tender and funny. A witty, touching play about reawakening to life’s possibilities, from one of Ireland’s most celebrated contemporary playwrights.”

Kinship by Carey Perloff. Directed by Jo Bonney. At the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Williamstown, MA, July 15 through 25.

Cynthia Nixon and Penny Fuller make their WTF debuts in the American premiere of this “gripping and sexy new drama. The tightly wound lives of a fiery newspaper editor, an upstart journalist, and his overly-protective mother unravel when a passionate entanglement turns into an intense power struggle.”

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Allan Chase Trio
July 15, 8 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA.

The superb saxophonist and composer Allan Chase (see also July 9) hauls his soprano, alto, and baritone down to the Lily Pad to play with bassist Bruno Råberg and percussionist Fabio Pirozzolo.

Dave Bryant Quartet
July 19, 8 p.m.
Outpost 186, Cambridge, MA.

Former Ornette Coleman Prime Time keyboardist Dave Bryant convenes with saxophonist/electronics guy Neil Leonard, bassist Jacob William, and drummer Curt Newton.

Revolutionary Snake Ensemble
July 22, 7:30 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

The venerable Boston band that specializes in pushing the limits of the New Orleans second-line tradition and African grooves hits the Calderwood Courtyard at the MFA with special guests Jason Palmer (trumpet) and Godwin Louis (alto saxophone). The core lineup comprises leader/alto saxophonist Ken Field, tenor saxophonist Tom Hall, trumpeter Jerry Sabatini, trombonist and tuba-man David Harris, bassist Blake Newman, and drummer Phil Neighbors.

Lookie Lookie
July 23, 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA

The concept and the players couldn’t be more promising: a reimagining of New York 1960s Puerto Rican boogaloo (or, in the band’s preferred historical term: bugalu), with non-traditional instrumentation and shades of contemporary funk. As for the players: bassist/leader Chris Maclachlan, of legendary Boston New Wave band Human Sexual Response; former Bim Skala Bim percussionist Rick Barry; trumpeter Scott Getchell (Agachiko, Lars Vegas); and, from the Either/Orchestra, percussionist/vocalist Vicente Lebron and saxophonist/flutist Russ Gershon.

Yuka Hunt Trio + One
July 25, 8 p.m.
The Green Room, Somerville, MA

Harmonica virtuoso Mike Turk joins pianist/singer/composer Yuka Hunt and her trio with the distinguished drummer Joe Hunt (Yuka’s husband) and bassist Mark Harrist. The program will include Yuka’s originals and her arrangements of pieces from the Great American Songbook as well as Brazilian samba and compositions by Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans.

— Jon Garelick

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Roots and World Music

Steve Earle & the Dukes
July 14
Wilbur Theatre, Boston, MA

Earle changes personas like the typical Americana star changes hats. He’s been a new country insurgent, a radical leftie, a bluegrass picker, and a sensitive folkie. These days he’s a bluesman, churning out music that’s more Clarksdale than Nashville on his latest release Terraplane.

Orfeas
July 15
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Stalwarts of the region’s Greek Orthodox Church festival circuit, Orfeas buff up Greek’s traditional melodies to a modern sheen.

Dale Watson and his Lonestars
July 15
Atwood’s, Cambridge, MA
July 16
Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA

Has it really come to this? One of the greatest singers of traditional honky tonk has requested that he not be called a country act, afraid that someone might confuse him with the mildly twangy fratboy rockers coming out of Nashville these days. Whatever you think of his preferred “Ameripolitan” moniker for his music, Watson continues to blaze his own beer-soaked path on his new release Call Me Insane. Not surprisingly, the advance tickets for his Cambridge club appearance are already sold out, but some extras will be released the night of the show.

Community Sing/Play-In & Concert for Students in Afghanistan
July 17 at 6 p.m.
At the Church of the Covenant, 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA

The music for the program will encompass folk, classical, and improvising traditions from Afghanistan, Turkey, Europe, and America, weaving together threads of celebration, peace, spirituality, and freedom. The musicians participating will include New England Conservatory faculty members Ran Blake and Eden MacAdam-Somer, NEC students, and internationally renowned artists Burcu Gulec and Nima Janmohammadi.

The event begins with a workshop at 6 p.m. in which the musicians will work with audience members (the more the merrier) on performing traditional Afghan works, a Turkish Sufi improvisational piece, and an American sacred harp song. The concert will begin and end with this ad hoc community ensemble performing the works that they learned earlier in the evening. All voices and instruments are invited to participate!

Andeisha Farid, founder of the Afghan Child Education and Care Organzation, will speak about her work as an activist and advocate for women and children in Afghanistan. Traditional Afghan arts and crafts will be available before and after the concert. All donations go to benefit AFCECO, which provides safe homes for orphans and war widows in Afghanistan and refugee camps in Pakistan.

Robbie Fulks and Redd Volkaert
July 17
Bull Run Restaurant, Shirley, MA

No one can mix the sentimental and the snarky like Fulks – which is why he was one of our top shows of the year the last time he was in town. This visit is extra special because Fulks will be performing in a duo with supreme picker Redd Volkaert. The ex-Merle Haggard guitarist rarely performs outside of Austin.

Janka Nabay & The Bubu Gang with Yonatan Gat
July 17
3s ArtsSpace, Portsmouth, NH

A hipster Brooklyn backing band would probably be the artistic kiss of death for an African music pioneer, but Sierra Leone’s Nabay is the exception to the rule. Back home he popularized bubu music. Since settling in the US he’s found collaborators who add just the right shine. The dance party starts with guitarist Gat, who brings a punk ethos to his Balkan/surf rock sound.

— Noah Schaffer

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Rock

U2
July 14 and 15
TD Garden, Boston, MA

It’s been nearly a year since U2 upset everyone by placing their album Songs of Innocence in every iTunes library in the world, for free, whether the holder of that iTunes library wanted it or not. Ten months later, it’s hard to imagine anyone would much care if that happened again—they’re all too busy streaming music to pay attention to what’s sitting in their personal libraries. With that furor now behind them, and with lead singer Bono healed after taking a nasty spill on his bicycle back in November 2014, U2 have embarked on yet another ambitious concert trek, this one dubbed the “iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour.”

Billy Joel
July 16
Fenway Park, Boston, MA

The Piano Man hasn’t released an album of new songs since 1993’s River of Dreams. That’s so long ago I actually own it on cassette. On the bright side, this means that every Joel set of the past three decades has been a greatest hits show by default (with a few deep cuts thrown in for the die hards), because he’s got nothing else to sell. So expect all the songs you know and love at Fenway this week.

Raekwon & Ghostface Killah
July 17
Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA

Nothing makes 30-somethings feel older than stumbling across tours and reissues celebrating the 20th anniversary of albums that were released when they were coming of age. This year marks two decades since the release of Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which heavily featured fellow Wu-Tang man Ghostface Killah. The two are now taking the record on the road and will be at Paradise this week.

Foo Fighters
July 18 and 19
Fenway Park, Boston, MA

I’ve never particularly liked Foo Fighters, but it’s hard to knock the band’s leader Dave Grohl. This is a man who broke his leg during a concert and then continued the show from a chair while medical personnel fit him for a cast. The group had to cancel the remainder of their European tour after the injury, but they’re on for the U.S. and for two nights at Fenway, a venue typically reserved for rockers from the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Upcoming and On Sale…

Neil Young + Promise of the Real (7/22/2015, Xfinity Center); Modest Mouse (7/23/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Interpol (7/23-24/2015, House of Blues); Greg Trooper (7/25/2015, Atwood’s Tavern); Bombino (7/27/2015, The Sinclair); X (7/30/2015, The Sinclair); Veruca Salt (7/30/2015, Paradise Rock Club); (the) Thurston MoOre Baand (8/2/2015, The Sinclair); Brandon Flowers (8/3/2015, House of Blues); Jamie XX (8/9/2015, The Sinclair); Dick Dale (8/15/2015, Middle East-Downstairs); Willie Nelson & Family (8/21/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); AC/DC (8/22/2015, Gillette Stadium); Counting Crows (8/23/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Social Distortion (8/23/2015, House of Blues); J. Geils Band (8/27/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); The Vaccines (8/30/2015, The Sinclair); Speedy Ortiz (8/30/2015, Rock and Blues Concert Cruise); Death Cab For Cutie (9/11/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Rancid (9/15/2015, House of Blues); Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters (9/20/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Albert Hammond Jr. (9/20/2015, The Sinclair); Bob Mould (9/23/2015, The Sinclair); Frank Turner & the Sleeping Souls (9/25/2015, House of Blues); Boston Calling (featuring Avett Brothers, Alt-J, and Alabama Shakes) (9/25-27/2015, City Hall Plaza); Ghost (9/28/2015, House of Blues); The Jesus and Mary Chain (9/29/2015, House of Blues); Kurt Vile and the Violators (10/2/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Kraftwerk (10/3/2015, Wang Theatre); Ride (10/3/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Mark Knopfler (10/9/2015, Orpheum Theatre); Catfish and the Bottlemen (10/16/2015, Royale); Garbage (10/21/2015, Orpheum Theatre); Ringo Starr and His All Star Band (10/23/2015, Citi Performing Arts Center); The Who (10/29/2015, TD Garden)

— Adam Ellsworth

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Author Events

Go Set A Watchman Midnight Release
July 14 at 12:00 a.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

Harper Lee’s fans have waited a long time for a new novel to come from the author who penned the classic To Kill A Mockingbird. At last, the wait is over. Lee’s brand new novel will be available to the reading public at midnight, following a special 9:30 screening at the Brattle Theatre of the revered film version of Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck. This is a literary event decades in the making. The book is already available for preorder, so Mockingbird fans, set your watches.

Matthew Quick
Love May Fail
July 15 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

The best selling author of The Silver Linings Playbook returns with a new novel about the highs and lows of everyday existence. In his new novel, an aspiring feminist and a neglected housewife embark on a journey to rediscover human goodness after a meltdown in suburbia. The are assisted in the quest by a sarcastic nun, an ex-heroin addict, and a young heavy metal enthusiast.

Elijah Wald
Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Pete Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties
July 15 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

Fifty years ago, Bob Dylan made a radical break with his folkie base of support, plugging in and turning off a large portion of his audience for good. Musician and rock scholar Wald goes deep into the controversial and historic night, taking a fresh perspective on the cultural and aesthetic divides of the era we think we already know by heart.

Lou Ureneck
The Great Fire: One American’s Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocide
July 15 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner MA
Free

In 1922, an American named Asa Jenningshad went to the Turkish coastal town of Smyrna to coach youth sports. Little did he realize that the Armenian Genocide was unfolding and the Turkish army was advancing to Smyrna, where half a million refugees had settled. Jennings decided to evacuate as many Armenians as possible, an event that has been lost to history until his amazing, honorable feat is recounted in this book.

Deirdre Heekin & Ann Hood
An Unlikely Vineyard & The Italian Wife
July 16 at 7:30 p.m.
The Meetinghouse, Canaan Town Library, Canaan NH
Free

Heekin is the author of a new book about wine, named one of the best wine books of 2014 by The New York Times. Hood is a novelist, whose sense of character is so sure that critics say “you don’t so much read about Hood’s characters as you inhabit them.”

Frank Wilczek
A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design
July 16 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

Ever wonder if the universe can be embodied in an idea? Former MIT professor and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek thinks so, and can explain its beauty. His new book explores the amazing history of discoveries about the nature and form of the universe from Plato to Pythagoras up to the present day, explaining in accessible style how the intricate patterns of the universe consist of a world of beauty uniquely its own.

— Matt Hanson