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

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

House In The Fields
February 26 at 7 p.m.
Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA

The thousand-year history of the Amazigh in Morocco has been, for the most part, recounted, preserved and transmitted by bards and storytellers in oral form among Tamazight speaking pastoral communities. House in the Fields continues this tradition of transmission, in an audiovisual form, in an attempt to faithfully document and present a portrait of a village and community that has remained unchanged for hundreds of years despite being confronted with the rapidly changing sociopolitical realities of the country at large.

Wajib (duty)
March 4 at 3:30 p.m.
March 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

In this rousing family drama from Annemarie Jacir (When I Saw You), the only daughter of a divorced father living in Nazareth is getting married. The father’s estranged son has returned from Rome after years abroad to honor his wajib (duty in Arabic) to help his father hand-deliver wedding invitations to each guest, as per local Palestinian custom. As father and son spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head. Wajib is Palestine’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film in this year’s Oscar race.

Wilde Maus (Wild Mouse)
March 4 at 11 a.m.
Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, MA

Goethe-Institut German Film co-presents the screening of tragicomic midlife meltdown (of a music critic), directed by the Austrian stage and screen comedian Josef Hader.

Under the Skin
March 9 at 8 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

A selective recommendation from one of the entries in the Femme Fatale Series screening in the MFA. The Guardian called director Jonathan’s Glazer’s distinctively stylish sci-fi thriller “visually stunning and deeply disturbing: very freaky, very scary and very erotic.” It features an excellent performance by Scarlett Johansson. Other classic featured films in the line-up include Gilda, Miller’s Crossing, Double Indemnity. Dishonored, La Femme Nikita, and To Die For.

Harry Houdini Double Feature
March 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Aeronaut Brewing Company, Somerville, MA

Rare surviving films from the great illusionist’s brief movie career. In Terror Island (1920), Houdini stars as a swashbuckling inventor who steers his high-tech submarine to a forbidden tropical isle to rescue the woman he loves; in The Man From Beyond (1922) Houdini plays a guy who has been frozen 100 years in the Arctic. He returns to civilization to reclaim his reincarnated love. The evening is part of the Aeronaut Brewery’s commitment to showcase local music, art, and performance. This evening features Jeff Rapsis at the organ. Limited seating so reserve early; for more details on tickets, visit Aeronaut Brewing online.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
March 12 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

This silent film masterpiece is being shown with Richard Einhorn’s (Voices of Light) score and then at 9 p.m. with a score by British band Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory, featuring vocalizations by Jónsi of Sigur Rós. “Chronicling the trial of Joan of Arc in the hours leading up to her execution, Carl Theodor Dreyer depicts her torment with startling immediacy, employing an array of techniques—expressionistic lighting, interconnected sets, painfully intimate close-ups—to immerse viewers in her subjective experience. Anchoring Dreyer’s audacious formal experimentation is a legendary performance by Renée Maria Falconetti, whose haunted face channels both the agony and the ecstasy of martyrdom.”

— Tim Jackson

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Dance

Untitled Scores: Experiments in Improvisation
March 1, 2, and 3 at 7:30 p.m.
The Granoff Center for the Creative Arts at Brown University,
Providence, RI

Doppelgänger Dance Collective presents its third evening-length program. Untitled Scores: Experiments in Improvisation includes choreography by Danielle Davidson and Riley Watts, SET Go, and features New England artists Heidi Henderson, Shura Baryshnikov, Cathy Nicoli, and Lila Hurwitz. The concert aims to highlight the elegant and diverse approaches to movement improvisation.

PARt
March 1, 2, and 3 at 7:30 p.m.; March 4 at 2 p.m.
The Wilbury Theatre Group
Providence, RI

Choreographer Ali Kenner Brodsky and musician MorganEve Swain present PARt, a multifaceted performance piece integrating dance, music, and art. Over the past year, PARt has developed its raw, emotional material — some of which reflects on memories –while its music and the choreography are being treated as “two working parts of a larger machine.”

Circa, “S”
March 2 at 7:30pm; March 3 at 8 p.m.; March 4 at 3 p.m.
Boch Center Shubert Theatre
Boston, MA

Hailing from Australia, contemporary circus group Circa makes its third Celebrity Series presentation, “S.” The company explores the letter’s sensual and sophisticated connotations, along with honoring its shape, functions, and sound—all told through an amalgamation of dramatic acrobatics, athletic aerial acts, and poignant solos.

Flamenco Festival
March 10 & 11 at 8 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center
Boston, MA

World Music/CRASHarts presents Flamenco Festival 2018, now marking its 17th year in Boston. The gathering celebrates the powerful art of flamenco, and this year features famed flamenco dancer Jesus Carmona performing the Boston premiere of Impetus on Saturday and Compania Eva Yerbabuena staging the Boston premiere of ¡Ay! on Sunday. Led by two of the greatest flamenco artists of modern times, this year’s festival performances promise to be bold, percussive, and emotionally charged.

Stolen Hearts
Through March 18
The Sanctuary Theatre
Cambridge, MA

In the stunning Sanctuary Theatre the José Mateo Ballet Theatre proffers an homage to Valentine’s Day with Stolen Hearts. The evening features three original Mateo ballets. Enjoy wine and beer while witnessing Mateo’s “Time Beyond Time” (2005), “Released” (2014), and “Affairs” (2017) within the stunning Sanctuary Theatre.

— Merli V. Guerra

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Visual Arts

Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today
At the Bridgitt and Bruce Evans Family and West Galleries, Institute of Contemporary ArtBoston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston, MA, through May 20

This contemporary exhibition examines how the internet has generated a profound transformation in the art world, focusing on changes in its production, distribution, and reception.  Technological Influences are displayed across a broad range of work done in a wide variety of mediums, including painting, performance, photography, sculpture, and web-based projects. One piece of note — Judith Barry’s five-channel video installation features a massive minimalist cube that presents a digital composite of a male and female visage that remains impassive, even though it is assaulted  by mysterious onslaughts of gelatinous ooze.

Inventur – Art in Germany, 1943-55
At the Special Exhibitions Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, through June 3

Borrowing its name from a 1945 poem by Günter Eich, “Inventur (inventory) implies not just an artistic stocktaking, but a physical and moral one as well – the reassurance of one’s own existence as reflected in the stuff of everyday life.” Following World War II, Germany had to reconcile with how it committed grave atrocities. This exhibition showcases the work of fiercely persistent artists who remained unwavering in their dedication to their practice. Their insistence in continuing to further the discourse of modern art presents viewers with a stark portrayal of stubbornness.

Puppets: World on a String
Through June 3
Shelburne Museum, 6000 Shelburne Road, Shelburne, VT

Storytelling, performance, and visual arts magically combine in this captivating exhibition, which promises to immerse its viewers into fantastical realms “where animals speak, shadows come alive, and politicians face their harshest critics.” On show there will be a plethora of multimedia works by local and national artists that celebrate and push the boundaries of this treasured, age old art form. Masterfully sculptured figurines and set designs span from 19th century marionettes to contemporary digital installations and mediate between worlds real and imagined.

The Paston Treasure: Microcosm of the Known World
Through May 22
Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT

This curious exhibition examines the backstory of a puzzling masterpiece, the seventeenth century Dutch painting The Paston Treasure (1663). The work defies categorization, gathering together different aspects of several genres: still life, portraiture, animal painting, and allegory. On display are 140 different objects from the widely disbursed collection of the wealthy estate created by the Pastons, a landowning family of Norfolk. Among the objects will be five treasures from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that appear in The Paston Treasure painting: a pair of silver-gilt flagons, a Strombus shell cup, two unique nautilus cups, and a perfume flask with a mother of pearl body.

The Beast: Herd Mentality
Through March 30
30 Montserrat Gallery, 23 Essex Street, Beverly, MA

Students and local contractors join forces, with Chicago based artist John Preus, in the construction of a large scale beast whose hollowed out interior will serve the community as a temporary sculpture/ performance pavilion. After the majestic Bull’s unveiling, the gallery will use the space to host a myriad of different events, from concerts  and performances to academic talks, poetry readings, writing sessions, and simple conversations. In a time of social and political division, this monumental work will provide a safe haven for which community members can propose programing as well as use the space for their own organized gatherings.

William Kentridge: Triumphs and Laments
Through April 14
Emerson Urban Arts: Media Art Gallery, 120 Boylston Street, Boston, MA

“Every victory has a [corresponding] defeat; therefore, for every person riding in triumph, there will always be someone following behind with a lament.” – states William Kentridge, an internationally revered South African artist, who lives and works in Johannesburg. His 550-meter-long frieze created on the banks of the Tiber River in Rome depicts a procession of ninety figures; a broad sweep of Italian history stenciled on the walls between Ponte Sisto and Ponte Mazzini. Created via process described as “reverse graffiti,” the work contains portions of the grime that has accumulated on the travertine over the centuries. This exhibit includes the complete set of aquatint etchings and woodcuts used in the frieze, two long maquettes that diagram the processional, a set of monumental stencils, and a video showcasing its opening performance.

Renée Green – Within Living Memory
Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (CCVA), Harvard University, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA
Through April 15

This exhibition ties together several bodies of work created over the past decade from a prolific and internationally recognized American artist, writer, and film maker. In her highly layered and formally complex installations, Green addresses “conditions of residency and displacement, subjective experience, institutional memory, notions of progress, and the inevitability of decay.” She creates immersive encounters that slowly untangle themselves through “films, videos, sound works, photographs, banners, and prints.” Her work is not didactic, but explores complex shifting perspectives that invite viewers to participate as equals in the creation of meaning. In the show, she debuts a new film, inspired by her extensive material findings in the Harvard libraries during her two year residency at the Center.

M. C. Escher: Infinite Dimensions
Charlotte F. and Irving W. Rabb Gallery, Museum of Fines Arts, Boston
Through May 28

“We adore chaos because we love to produce order” – M. C. Escher. The MFA hosts Boston’s first exhibition dedicated to displaying a selection (50 of his works from public and private collections) of the famous Dutch mastermind’s original prints. Escher’s genius, via his flawless technical ability, was for creating perspectival puzzles and interlocking forms that have mesmerized and intrigued millions. The exhibition is an absolute must-see. The major Escher show stopper: the “13-foot-long Metamorphosis II (1939-40), a monumental exploration of the fluidity of time and space in which a chessboard, hive of bees, rustic village, and other elements merge into a continuous woodcut printed from 20 blocks.”

Fantastical, Political
Fitchburg Art Museum, 185 Elm Street, Fitchburg, MA
Through June 23

In this unique exhibition, five talented local artists create unexpected meaning by layering together the political and the extravagantly absurd. Many of the show’s works initially lure viewers in with a decorative appeal created through marbling, blue and white ceramic traditions, and architectural ornamentation. A closer look reveals their underlying political agendas. One towering work of surreal fantastical aesthetics: Dave Cole’s “The Music Box, 2012,” a massive caterpillar CS-553 compacter that plays the national anthem.

Storytellers: Picasso, Chagall, Matisse & More
Galerie d’Orsay, 33 Newbury Street, Boston, MA
Through March 30

This joyous exhibition of masterful works is a celebration of scholarly love. Marvel at examples of the famed art of Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali, and Joan Miro, amongst others. The show highlights the rich history of the artist’s book, a trend that was popular from the late 19th century to the 1970s. The exhibition also details the stories behind the creation of these works.

– Aimee Cotnoir

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Theater

Richard III by William Shakespeare. Directed by Robert Walsh. Staged by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project at the Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA, through March 11.

The company’s timely exploration of despots moves onto Richard III, one of the theater’s premier overreachers. “The story of a scoundrel’s Machiavellian overthrow of government, filled with deceit, lies, treachery and murder. Richard III is Shakespeare’s most charismatic villain, delighting in every moment of his ruthless homicidal path to absolute power.” Cast includes the veteran Boston actors Paula Plum, Steven Barkhimer, and Jennie Israel. Arts Fuse review

Bad Dates by Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Jessica Stone. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Avenue of the Arts, Huntington Avenue Theatre, Boston, MA, through March 11.

A HTC revival of a one-woman show it produced 15 years ago. This go-around stars Haneefah Wood. “Restaurant manager and shoe connoisseur Haley Walker is finally ready to re-enter the dating world in New York City. But add in the responsibility of raising her 13-year-old daughter, spats with her gang-affiliated co-workers, and Haley’s own superstitions, and it becomes clear that finding Mr. Right may not be so simple. From the privacy of her bedroom, Haley relates a series of hilarious tales while preparing for, and recovering from, one dreadful date after another. Does she have the luck and tenacity to find her perfect match?”

Statements After and Arrest Under the Immorality Act by Athol Fugard. Directed by Jim Petosa. A New Repertory Theatre staging co-produced with Boston Center for American Performance, at the blackbox theater at the Mosesian Center of the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown, MA, through March 3.

“In apartheid South Africa, where intimate interracial relationships are illegal, a black man and a white woman share more than just their love, baring all in the face of oppression and uncertainty.” Note: “THIS PRODUCTION CONTAINS EXTENSIVE NUDITY THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PERFORMANCE, and makes use of haze and fog effects.” Part of the Statements of Survival series.

Into the Breeches! by George Brant. Directed by Tyler Dobrowsky. Staged by the Trinity Repertory Company at the Dowling Theater, 201 Washington St. in Providence, Rhode Island, through February 25.

Another valentine to the Bard and the human spirit, in the mode of Shakespeare in Love, perhaps. “Set in 1942 Providence, the play follows the women of the fictional Oberon Playhouse, who endeavor to continue with their Shakespearean production even though the company’s men (including their director) are fighting overseas in World War II.”

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange. Directed by Dayenne CB Walters. Staged by Praxis Stage at Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, Boston, MA, through February 25.

A rare Boston-area outing for “a cornerstone of contemporary American theater due to the vibrancy of its language, its powerful sense of urgent determination, and, ultimately, its universal message –delivered by seven women of color who share their stories, and find strength in each other through this sharing and ‘a layin on of hands.'” Arts Fuse review

Lost Laughs: The Slapstick Tragedy of Fatty Arbuckle by Andy Bayiates and Aaron Muñoz. Directed by Nathan Keepers. Staged by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre at 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA, through March 11.

“During silent film’s golden age, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s comedic genius outshone even Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as Hollywood’s first million-dollar man. Then after one tragic weekend, he became America’s biggest villain. What really happened to him and Virginia Rappe?” Arts Fuse review

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, adapted by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by A.Nora Long. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, through March 25.

“In this joyful romance of gender roles and expectations, Orlando the man wakes up, after a particularly wild night in 17th-century Constantinople, to find himself a woman! She abandons herself to three centuries of navigating love, desire, and the world from an entirely different perspective.”

The White Card by Claudia Rankine. Directed by Diane Paulus. ArtsEmerson presents the American Repertory Theater staging at the Emerson Paramount Center, the Robert J. Orchard Stage, Boston, MA, through April 1

“At a dinner party thrown by an influential Manhattan couple for an up-and-coming artist, questions arise about what—and who—is actually on display. Claudia Rankine’s 2014 New York Times best-selling book, Citizen: An American Lyric, unpacked the insidious ways in which racism manifests itself in everyday situations. Now, this world premiere play poses the question, ‘Can American society progress if whiteness stays invisible?'”

Hedda Gabler, a new version by Patrick Marber of the Heinrik Ibsen play. A National Theatre Live screening at Emerson Paramount Center, Bright Family Screening Room, Boston, MA, On February 25.

One of Ibsen’s masterpieces in a production that looks as if it is giving the script a racy shaking up, with Tony Award-winning director Ivo van Hove at the helm. Attendance recruited for Ibsenites, many of whom will be rubbed the wrong way.

Ripe Frenzy by Jennifer Barclay. Directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary. A New Rep co-production with the Boston Center for American Performance at Studio ONE, Boston University, 855 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA, through March 11.

“Winner of the National New Play Network’s 2016 Smith Prize for Political Theatre, this site-specific premiere brings us to Tavistown, New York, where a recent tragedy has rocked the community to its core. Narrator and town historian, Zoe, recounts the days leading up to the incident, as the high school prepares for the semi-annual production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.”

Brawler by Walt McGough. Directed by M. Bevin O’Gara. Produced by the Boston Playwright’s Theatre in collaboration with Kitchen Theatre Company at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, March 1 through 18.

A world premiere production: “Adam was the scariest man in the National Hockey League, but now he’s been demoted to the minors, gotten high on painkillers, and trashed the locker room at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. His friends need to talk him down before he gets into real trouble, but he’s got his own agenda…and it isn’t about making saves, dekes, dangles, snipes, and passes. A modern-day take on Sophocles’ Ajax as seen through the lens of the last true gladiator sport.”

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Staged by the Underlings Theatre Company at the Blackbox Theatre, Chelsea Theatre Works, Boston, MA, February 23 through March 3.

A very contemporary take: “While spoken in the original dialect, this production will still be modernized—set in a 1980s high school setting and performed with a Heathers style twist, this Romeo and Juliet will hold true to Underlings’ founding principle of old, but new. The cast draws from a range of underrepresented groups including women, people of color, and trans and other LGBT individuals.”

Old Money by Wendy Wasserstein. Directed by Karen MacDonald. Staged by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company at the Carling-Sorenson Center, Babson College, 231 Forest Street, Wellesley, MA., March 6 through 18.

“A dinner party in a fashionable home offers a rich and witty look at social classes and issues of wealth and privilege from the Gilded Age of the early 20th century to the present day. A wealthy robber baron and his family, their descendants and assorted characters in their midst — a Hollywood producer, a social climbing decorator, an Irish maid, confused teenagers, and eccentric artists — mingle in a contrast of old money and new.”

Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph. Directed by Gabriel Vega Weissman. Staged by the Underground Railway Theater at the Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA, March 1 through 10.

“Rajiv Joseph’s dark comedy incisively examines two average men who get swept up in the beauty, carnage, and zealotry surrounding one of the legendary wonders of the world.”

AcousticaElectronica , written and performed by ToUch Performance Art. Presented by the American Repertory Theater at Oberon, 2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA, on March 2.

Billed as “Boston’s best immersive show.” “Succumb to an awe-inspiring experience that stimulates all of your senses.” After party till 2am with DJ Danny Satori!

The Hotel Nepenthe by John Kuntz. Directed by Alex Lonati. Staged by Brown Box Theater Project at the Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street, Boston, MA, March 2 through 11.

A revival of John Kuntz’s zany dark comedy with a difference. “At Brown Box, we are committed to breaking down the geographical and financial barriers that keep potential audiences away from the theatre. We are proud to make this brilliant piece by John Kuntz accessible to all audiences by offering completely free tickets for all six performances.”

Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan MacMillan. Directed by Marianna Bassham. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, March 2 through 31.

Adrianne Krstansky stars “in this warm and winning one-person show about the lengths we go to help those we love, and the irrepressible resilience inside all of us.”

Steve by Mark Gerrard. Directed by David J. Miller. Staged by the Zeitgeist Stage Company in the Plaza Black Box Theater at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, March 2 through 23.

“Longtime partners, Steven and Stephen, are raising a son conceived with a surrogate while chafing at the confines of domesticity. A casual case of sexting sets off a series of questions and recriminations between the couple and their circle of friends. A surprisingly serious comedy.”

Bedlam’s Hamlet and Saint Joan in repertory. Directed by Eric Tucker. Staged by Bedlam at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston, MA., March 7 through 25 (Hamlet); March 9 through 24 (Saint Joan).

“2 Plays, 4 Actors, 49 Characters: Behold William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw’s most famous creations side by side, in repertory, in Hamlet and Saint Joan. Iconic figures are brought vividly to life in two riveting, unexpectedly funny, stripped-down stagings by four actors from Bedlam, the high-wire, adrenaline fueled New York City theater company, and directed by Eric Tucker.” I saw an earlier visit by Bedlam’s Saint Joan and it was fabulous.

Berlin: or, The Part of You That Wants It: A Musical Comedy Love Story (Written by Accident) by Shaoul Rick Chason. Directed by Pete Riesenberg. Staged by O.W.I. (Bureau of Theatre) at the Thalia, Central Square, Cambridge, MA, March 8 through 31.

A world premiere production of a very political play that the dramatist wrote because he “wanted to critique a new trend in leftist movements toward an unwillingness to accept criticism and their self-righteous creation of a new status quo of social etiquette which reinforces the oppressive tendencies of the very conservative rhetoric it tries to upend.”

Winter Solstice by Roland Schimmelpfenning. Translated by David Tushingham. Directed by Brooks Reeves. Staged by Apollinaire Theatre Company at Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea, MA through March 11.

“Fascism doesn’t show up in jackboots and swastikas. It arrives in the form of a polite older gentleman on Christmas Eve.”

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Sarrow + HD Quintet
February 25 at 8 p.m.
Outpost 186, Cambridge, MA.

Allison Burik’s 2016 album Mythos was a collection of probing and lyrical original compositions ,all based on, yes, “themes and characters found in world mythology and folklore.” Sarrow features Burik, on alto saxophone and bass clarinet; Eunhye Jeong, on piano and vocals; and singer Tamar Sella. The double bill also features the HD Quintet: Alex Hamburger on flute and vocals, trumpeter Nicole Davis, guitarist Andrew Latona, bassist Mike Roninson, and drummer Juan Sanchez.

Laszlo Gardony
March 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

Laszlo Gardony’s solo-piano Serious Play, was one of the best jazz CDs I heard in 2017 – technically masterful, a deeply felt rumination on our current political moment, ranging through various standards and spontaneously improvised originals.

Miguel Zenón
March 2 at 8 p.m.
Kresge Auditorium, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

The 41-year-old Puerto Rican alto saxophonist, composer, and MacArthur “genius” fellow runs the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble through its paces with a new piece, “En Pie De Lucha,” dedicated to the resilience of the people of his homeland. The concert (which is also being performed tomorrow night at Hunter College in New York) is a benefit for the Puerto Rico Recovery Fund. Aside from the new piece, the band will play other Zenón originals and other pieces. MIT faculty member Evan Ziporyn, a long-time member of the Bang on a Can collective, will guest on clarinet, and the fine MIT pianist Peter Godart will also be featured. You can also expect some special guests from the Boston-area Puerto Rican community.

Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra
March 3 at 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

Pianist and composer Fred Hersch is usually heard in trio or solo settings. For this show he brings his Pocket Orchestra: singer Jo Lawry, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez, and percussionist Rogerio Boccato.

Pat Martino Organ Trio
March 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

One of the gods of jazz guitar, Pat Martino, now 73, brings a classic format to the Regattabar, with organist Pat Biachi and drummer Carmen Intorre.

Anat Cohen/Ben Wendel
March 10 at 8 p.m.
Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA.

A killer double-bill from the Celebrity Series of Boston. Woodwind player and composer Anat Cohen assembles the tentet from her engaging recent CD Happy Song, with its mix of internationally flavored Cohen originals, pieces by music director Oded Levi-Ari and Egberto Gismonti, and some Benny Goodman swing, including, for good measure, Gordon Jenkins’s “Goodbye.” The band is Cohen on clarinet, James Shipp on vibes and percussion, cellist Rubin Kodheli, trumpeter/flugelhornist Nadje Noordhuis, trombonist Nick Finzer, baritone saxophonist/bass clarinetist Owen Broder, pianist/accordionist Vitor Gonçalves, guitarist Sheryl Bailey, bassist Tal Mashiach, and drummer Anthony Pinciotti. Saxophonist Ben Wendel, a member of the band Kneebody, among other projects, brings his Seasons group: guitarist Gilad Hekselman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Brewer, and drummer Henry Cole.

Lello Molinari’s Italian Job
March 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

The show celebrates the second CD volume of Italian Job, a disc from esteemed Boston bassist and bandleader Lello Molinari. The album features Italian folk and opera arias arranged for jazz ensemble. And yes, there are some Italians in the band: Marco Pignataro on saxes, clarinet, flute, and Ewi; Sal Difusco, on acoustic and electric guitars; and drummer/percussionist Marcello Pellitteri. The treatments on the CD cover a broad range of approaches, from acoustic swing to electric jazz-rock, all executed with depth of experience and a go-for-it daring.

— Jon Garelick

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Roots and World Music

Spider John Koerner
February 27 at 7 p.m.
Sally O’Brien’s, Union Square, Somerville MA

A chance to hear one of the last of the real-deal folkies;  79 year old Koerner brings his blues, ballads, and rags to his favorite local watering hole.

Karsh Kale
March 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Oberon, Cambridge MA

Some of Karsh Kale’s fans know him as a trailblazer for global electronic music. Others know him best as a master tabla player. Both sets of followers will get their fix, because Kale will perform ragas with an Indian trio and then spin a DJ set during his rare visit to Boston.

Mierlita
March 2 from 8-10 p.m.
Arts at the Armory Café, Somerville MA

Several of the members of this Romanian fiddle combo went straight to the source (in Chișinău) in order to lear melodies right from the Roma people. Ceren Türkmenoğlu and Volkan Efe who play a variety of instruments (oud, kemençe and ney) are slated to perform an opening set of Turkish folk dance music.

Dervish
March 2 at 8 p.m.
First Parish Church, Cambridge MA

March means that you’ll find more Celtic masters touring the US than you will performing around Ireland. Case in point: the sextet Dervish, who kick off their 25th anniversary trek in Cambridge.

Soul Yatra Trio
March 3 from 3-4 p.m.
Hibernian Hall, Roxbury MA

A gift from the Celebrity Series to the Boston community: this Roxbury family-friendly freebie concert features three members of the Silk Road Ensemble: cellist Mike Block, tabla player Sandeep Das ,and violinist Shaw Pong Liu.

Bardic Divas
March 6 at 8 p.m.
Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

The all-female Central Asian ensemble features Raushan Urazbayeva, master of the two-stringed qyl qobyz. The group will present their musical retelling of the nomadic myth Qyrq Qyz (40 Girls) in a free concert.

— Noah Schaffer

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Classical Music

Josefowicz plays John Adams
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
March 1-3, 8 p.m. (1:30 p.m. on Friday)
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Violinist Leila Josefowicz is the soloist in the Boston premiere of John Adams 2014 “dramatic symphony” for violin and orchestra. Former New York Philharmonic music director making a welcome return, conducts, and leads further works by Sibelius and Debussy.

Ancient, Modern, and Bernstein
Presented by New England Philharmonic
March 3, 8 p.m.
Tsai Performance Center, Boston, MA

The NEP’s season continues with two premieres – the orchestral version of Eric Nathan’s Paestum and the local debut of Steven Stucky’s final Symphony – plus music by Debussy, Ferrucio Busoni, and the three “Dance Variations” from Leonard Bernstein’s Fancy Free.

Together
Presented by Chorus pro Musica
March 10, 8 p.m.
First Baptist Church, Newton, MA

Jamie Kirsch and CpM present a concert on the theme of divine peace that spans from Bach to the present day. Highlights include the cantata “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” Arvo Pärt’s L’Abbé Agathon, and Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.

Zander conducts Mahler
Presented by Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra
March 11, 3 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Benjamin Zander leads the BPYO in Mahler’s valedictory Ninth Symphony. If last year’s Mahler Sixth was any indication, this is one of the season’s mustn’t-be-missed events.

BMV’s Family Concert
Presented by Boston Musica Viva
March 11, 3 p.m.
Tsai Performance Center, Boston, MA

Boston Musica Viva’s annual Family Concert features two pieces: the world premiere of Barbara White’s ballet The Wrong Child (featuring the Northeast Youth Ballet), and Bruce Adolphe’s The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses (with the Boston City Singers). Joyce Kulhawik narrates both.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Missa Fors seullement & other music based on songsOckeghem@600, Concert 7
March 1 at 7:30 p.m.
At St. Cecilia Parish, 18 Belvidere Street, Boston, MA
March 2 at 7:30 p.m.
At St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 79 Denton Street, Wellesley, MA
March 3 at 8 p.m.
At First Church in Cambridge Congregational
11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA

Blue Heron Renaissance Choir’s Ockeghem@600 series continues with a program of sacred music based on secular song, featuring Ockeghem’s song Fors seullement and his own Mass based on it, as well as Binchois’s Je ne vis onques la pareille and pieces that quote it by La Rue, Agricola, and Ghiselin.

Masterworks Chorale
March 4 at 3 p.m.
At Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA

The program features Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and French music for choir and organ.

First Monday
March 5 at 7:30 p.m.
At Jordan Hall/New England Conservatory, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA

Among the pieces on the program: Mozart’s great Quintet for Winds and Piano in E-flat Major, K.452 and the Mendelssohn Sextet, Opus 110.

Giants of Romanticism
March 9 at 8 p.m.
At Hamilton Hall, 9 Chestnut Street, Salem, MA
March 11 at 3 p.m.
At St. Paul’s Church, 15 St. Paul Street, Brookline, MA

On the Boston Artists Ensemble’s program: Schumann’s Quartet in A minor, Opus 41, No. 1 and Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Opus 115.

The Dinner Party: Barbara Strozzi & Claudio Monteverdi
March 10 at 8 p.m.
At the Emmanuel Church/Lindsey Chapel, 15 Newbury Street, Boston, MA
March 11 at 4 p.m.
At the Eliot Church, 474 Centre Street, Newton, MA

Once again Cappella Clausura invites the listeners to gather “after dinner” for an intimate feast of music. “Our small group of singers and players will transport you to a Venetian palazzo, in a relaxed atmosphere of friendly competition during an imagined meeting of two great musical minds. Hear Strozzi’s amazingly chromatic and romantic madrigals for 2-5 voices, Monteverdi’s similar, plus some amazing duets for both men and women (“Zefiro torno”!) and more.”

 

— Susan Miron

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Rock, Pop, and Folk

Joanne Shaw Taylor
March 1 (doors at 6 p.m., show at 8 p.m.)
City Winery, Boston, MA​

Joanne Shaw Taylor is a British guitarist and songwriter whose was inspired to play the blues by American masters such as Albert Collins, Jimi Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Four of her studio albums have reached top 10 on the Billboard Blues chart and she won Best Female Vocalist at the British Blues Awards in 2010 and 2011. Her work has attracted the notice of, among many others, Annie Lennox and Stevie Wonder. Taylor’s latest release, Wild (2016), includes nine songs that she co-wrote and covers of “Wild is the Wind” and “Summertime.” City Winery will host the first date of her US tour on Thursday.

Amy Rigby Trio
March 4 (show at 9 p.m.)
Atwood’s Tavern, Cambridge, MA

I never tire of including Amy Rigby’s shows in my Coming Attractions picks. Her appearance at Atwood’s Tavern on March 4 will be all the more special because it will feature selections from her new album, The Old Guys, which was released on February 23. I interviewed Rigby and her husband, Wreckless Eric (who comes to Atwood’s on May 1), in 2013.
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​Godspeed You! Black Emperor with Tashi Dorji​
March 8 (show at 8 p.m.)
Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA​

The March 7 show at The Sinclair is sold out, but it appears that tickets are still available for the following night’s performance across Harvard Yard. Like their previous two efforts, GY!BE’s 2017’s album, Luciferian Towers, is more than 40 minutes long but contains only four tracks.

​Kristen Hersh and Tanya Donelly​
​March 9​-11 (doors at 6 p.m., show at 8 p.m.)​​
C​​​ity Winery, Boston, MA

Stepsisters and former Throwing Muses bandmates Kristen Hersh and Tanya Donelly will be at the City Winery for the whole of March’s second weekend. Saturday night is sold out, and the smart money says that Friday and Sunday will be so soon enough. Here is the Arts Fuse interview that I did with Kristen Hersh in December 2016.

Other upcoming shows include Howard Jones (March 1, Shalin Liu Performance Center), The Zombies (March 3 and 4, City Winery), and Alice Cooper (March 6, Boch Center)

— Blake Maddux

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Author Events

Junot Diaz BBC World Service Book Club
February 27 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

Diaz is the author of the Pulitzer winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Drown, and This Is How You Lose Her. The first of these books will be featured as a part of the BBC’s World Book Club, which means that Diaz (a charismatic public speaker) will be in Porter Square Books to field questions about his tome and will discuss its resonance over the international airwaves. You can submit questions and reserve your place to be part of the event in the link above.

Nancy MacLean
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
February 28 at 7:15 p.m.
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, 106AB, South Hadley MA
Free

“Behind today’s headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules, but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect — the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan — and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.

In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last gasp attempt to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.”

Patton Oswalt in Conversation with Robin Young
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
March 1 from 6- 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Coolidge Corner, Brookline MA
Tickets are $27.99, including a copy of the book

Michelle McNamara was the late wife of beloved standup comic Patton Oswalt. She died unexpectedly while she was writing her magnum opus. A well-regarded crime journalist, McNamara spent years researching the hunt to find the sadistic Golden State Killer, focusing on the story of a woman who was determined to track him down. In an event sponsored by WBUR, Oswalt will discuss the book live onstage as a tribute to the passion project of his departed wife.

Ryan Walsh
Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968
March 6 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner MA
Free

Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is the kind of seminal record that comes along once in a performer’s lifetime. A high water mark for an already gifted songwriter, Morrison’s record has moved generations. It was recorded in New York City, but developed in large part while Morrison was living in Boston during the momentous year of 1968, which was a strange and fertile time for the art and for the city itself. Walsh will discuss the creation of this masterpiece with Carly Carioli, the former editor in chief of Boston Magazine.

Jenny Erpenbeck
Go, Went, Gone
March 6 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Library, Coolidge Corner MA
Free

Erpenbeck’s novel revolves around Richard, a retired and widowed professor of classics who is moping through his days in Berlin until he has a chance encounter with African refugees staging a hunger strike. The academic begins to spend more time with the marginalized and his growing empathy gives him a sense of purpose. The refugee crisis is controversial topic across Europe; Erpenbeck will discuss her approach to the contentious issue with novelist Claire Messud.

Marci Shore
The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution
March 9 at 3 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

“In this lyrical and intimate book, Marci Shore evokes the human face of the Ukrainian Revolution. Grounded in the true stories of activists and soldiers, parents and children, Shore’s book blends a narrative of suspenseful choices with a historian’s reflections on what revolution is and what it means. She gently sets her portraits of individual revolutionaries against the past as they understand it—and the future as they hope to make it. In so doing, she provides a lesson about human solidarity in a world, our world, where the boundary between reality and fiction is ever more effaced.”

An Evening with Michael Wolff
April 7 at 8:45 p.m.
The Boch Center Shubert Theatre, 270 Tremont St, Boston MA
Tickets begin at $45.50

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the fire and fury over Michael Wolff’s The Fire and the Fury, his scabrous account of the inner world of the Trump White House. Incredibly, Trump’s inner circle didn’t mind letting Wolff hang around and they spilled their guts to him about the Trump Administration’s operatic incompetence. Thrill to tales of relentless infighting, dysfunctional paranoia, and the near-universal disdain for the Commander in Chief, who comes off in Wolff’s pages as some kind of unholy combination of Homer Simpson and Tony Soprano. Wolff will discuss his massively bestselling book and take questions from the audience. The event will take place in April, but tickets went on sale last Friday.

— Matt Hanson