Our expert critics supply a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.

Film

Wicked Queer: 40 Film Festival
Through April 14, with virtual encores April 15 through 30 on the Eventive channel.

The opening night features for Boston’s venerable LGBTQ Festival will be Febrero from director Hansel Porras Garcia at 6:30 p.m. and Nowhere from director Gregg Araki at 9 p.m. — both screening at the Brattle Theatre. The closing night selections, Transsexuals from Space and The Devil Queen (A Rainha Diaba) will screen at the Brattle on November 20 at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., respectively. The full schedule is available at wickedqueer.org. Arts Fuse review

Boston International Film Festival
April 11 – 16
Regent Theatre, Arlington: Simons Imax Theatre 1 Central Wharf, Boston; Strand Theatre 543 Columbia Road, Boston

This under-the-radar film festival will take place over 16 sessions held throughout the week. Many include a feature along with a short film. The opening film, Mr Blake at Your Service, features John Malkovich and Fanny Ardant (at Simons IMAX). A discussion panel for VIP pass holders will take place on April 13 from 10 a.m.-12 p.m.at the Regent. The festival features local filmmakers and movies outside mainstream distribution, such as the locally produced feature The Art Thief, based on the Gardner Museum heist (Session 5 – April 13 at 10 a.m.) and Growing Pains (Session 15 – April 14 at 5 p.m. at the Strand Theatre), made by all-female filmmakers, featuring authentic stories about young women and shot entirely in Massachusetts. (The latter film will also be featured at the Somerville Theatere on April 16)   Schedule of Films

Massachusetts Space Film Festival
April 15–22
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

Space Week, presented by The Space Consortium, returns with a weeklong film festival along with more than 20 other activities, from stargazing to a space career fair. The films this week will include 2001: A Space Odyssey (4/15), Sunshine (4/16), Gravity (4/17), Deep Impact (4/18), Men in Black (4/20), Wall-E (4/21), and Elysium (4/21).

Grrl House Cinema
April 18
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

Grrl House, operated entirely by volunteers, presents 13 short films promoting the works of women, trans, non-binary, and genderqueer filmmakers with experimental and underground cinema. There will be an emphasis on low budget and DIY culture. Complete film descriptions

When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before
April 21
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

Goethe German Film presents Sonja Heiss’s film about a woman growing up on the grounds of one of Germany’s largest psychiatric hospitals. It features a cast of professional and nonprofessional actors, with and without psychiatric disorders. The main character is played by three different performers. Cineuropa calls it “a big and complex film bearing the right message, resolutely refusing to underestimate the capacities of young audiences.”

Coup de Chance
Now Playing
Capital Theatre, Arlington

Coup de Chance is about the important role chance and luck play in our lives. Fanny and Jean look like the ideal married couple; they live in a gorgeous apartment in an exclusive neighborhood of Paris. They seem to be forever in love, but when Fanny accidentally bumps into Alain, a former high school classmate, she’s swept off her feet. This witty murder-mystery-comedy is Woody Allen’s latest and possibly last film. Given the scandal that has accrued to the 88-year-old director’s reputation, you can decide for yourself whether to go. But we are fortunate the film has found a venue so Bostonians have a choice. In French.

Pick of the Week

Defending My Life: Albert Brooks
Streaming on MAX (also Hulu with MAX and Prime with MAX)

The scope of Albert Brooks’s influence on late 20th-century comedy is revealed in this hysterical documentary chronicling the comedian’s life and career. He went to elementary school with Rob Reiner, who conducts the interview on which clips and anecdotes are based. Other testimonials to the comedian’s genius come from Steven Spielberg, with whom he shot fly-by movie pranks in the early ’70s, and Larry David, who claims Brooks as an inspiration for his comedy, as well as Conan O’Brien, Judd Apatow, Sarah Silverman, Jonah Hill, and others. The film offers a new perspective on Brooks’s important comic legacy.

— Tim Jackson

Techne: Evidence in the Anthropocene
April 8 at 6 p.m.
Bartos Theater, MIT E15-070
Wiesner Building, 20 Ames Building, Cambridge
Free

Daniel R. Small screens and then discusses Techne: Evidence in the Anthropocene, a film culled from “his episodic documentary series based on diverse sets of research from a wide range of experts in fields such as philosophy, zoology, astrophysics, planetary science, robotics, and Artificial Intelligence among other fields. The aim of the series locates these research groupings as being in direct conversation with the inquiries of contemporary artists and the ways that the term ‘artist’ has become a catch-all for generating ideas in fields such as philosophy, archaeology, cultural anthropology, law, biology, technology, and various other disciplines. Through analyzing case studies involving the evolution of humans, the natural world, and the amplification of technologies, Techne forms an epistemology of the present that models generative bodies of evidence.”

— Bill Marx

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Classical Music

Ma & Stott in recital
Presented by Celebrity Series
April 9, 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Yo-Yo Ma and his longtime accompanist Kathryn Stott join forces one last time — Stott’s retiring at the end of the year — for a recital at Symphony Hall. Their program includes works by Shostakovich, Arvo Pärt, and a transcription of Franck’s A-major Violin Sonata.

Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
April 11 at 7:30 p.m., 12 at 1:30 p.m., 13 at 8 p.m., and 14 at 2 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Pianist Yuja Wang and ondes Martinot-ist Cécile Lartigau join Andris Nelsons and the BSO for the ensemble’s once-every-quarter-century performances of Olivier Messiaen’s sprawling meditation on nature, love, philosophy, and God.

Hilary Hahn plays Brahms
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
April 18 at 7:30 p.m., 19 at 1:30 p.m., and 20 at 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Violinist Hahn plays Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Nelsons and the BSO. Further pieces by Mozart and Anna Thorvaldsdottir complete the program.

Labadie conducts Brahms
Presented by Handel & Haydn Society
April 19 at 7:30 p.m. and 21 at 3 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Bernard Labadie leads H&H in a pair of meditative works by Brahms: the Begräbnisgesang and Ein deutsches Requiem. They’re joined by soprano Lucy Crowe, baritone James Atkinson, and the H&H Chorus.

Jacob Hrůša & Bamberger Symphoniker
Presented by Celebrity Series
April 23, 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Hrůša makes his Celebrity Series debut and the Bambergers return for the first time in 40 years with an unapologetically Romantic program of favorites by Brahms, Wagner, and Schumann. Lukáš Vondráček is the soloist in the latter’s Piano Concerto.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Popular Music

Ms. Ezra Furman
April 10 (doors at 6:30/show at 7:30)
The Rockwell, Somerville (Davis Sq.)

Ms. Ezra Furman’s early 2024 monthly residency at The Rockwell — at which the Somerville resident “does what she wants” — continues (concludes?) on April 10. This date promises “surprise support,” and since previous engagements have sold out, it’s probably smart to get your tickets in advance rather than take your chances at the door.

Rosali with Verity Den
April 11 (doors at 7:30/show at 8)
The Rockwell, Somerville

Bite Down is Rosali’s fourth album and her first for Merge Records. Its March 22 release was preceded by the singles “Rewind,” “On Tonight,” and “Bite Down.” Collectively, the tracks demonstrate the depth and range of the singer-songwriter’s folk-flavored, experimental indie rock,with vocals delivered in a fashion reminiscent of Aimee Mann. Rosali opened seven West Coast shows for Mary Timony before embarking on a 13-date headlining tour with fellow North Carolinian Verity Den that stops in Davis Square on April 11.

Hotline TNT with Cicada
April 11 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Arts at the Armory, Somerville

The first band, album, and genre that one is likely to see referenced in reviews of Hotline TNT’s latest album, Cartwheel, are My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, and (naturally) shoegaze. Given auteur Will Anderson’s ardent utilization of layered guitars and low-in-the mix vocals, these mentions are justified. But while shoegaze is the trunk of Anderson’s musical tree, power pop, jangle pop, and spirited indie rock are certainly among its branches.

And if you’re wondering about the meaning of that cryptic, somewhat awkward-sounding name, I’m afraid you’re outta luck.

“It does stand for something, but I cannot reveal publicly what it is because me and the original members of the band from four years ago came up with it,” Anderson told Premier Guitar. “It’s our sacred vow to keep that a secret.”

GA-20 with Cody Nilsen
April 13 (doors at 7:30/show at 8:15)
The Cut, Gloucester

The three-time Billboard Blues Albums chart-toppers and four-time Boston Music Awards Blues Artist of the Year–winning trio will headline The Cut in Gloucester on Saturday the 13th. Warming up the crowd will be Providence-based, Massachusetts-born singer-songwriter and session musician Cody Nilsen, who will showcase his brand new (and third) album, Benchwarmers, which was co-produced by Dropkick Murphy Tim Brennan.

Matthew Sweet with Abe Partridge
April 15 (doors at 6:30/show at 7:30)
The Wilbur, Boston

The veteran power pop master (click for my 2017 Arts Fuse interview) isn’t promoting any new material on his current tour. However, a recording of his headlining gig at the 1993 July Fourth concert in Chicago’s Grant Park has recently been unearthed and made public. The set includes nine songs from Altered Beast, the follow-up to his 1991 breakthrough, Girlfriend, which was as many days away from being released at the time. Abe Partridge of Mobile, AL — who released his first full-length album Love in the Dark last May — will open Sweet’s April 15 show at The Wilbur. Here is the interview he did with me in advance of his upcoming visit.

Real Estate with Marina Allen
April 17 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Royale, Boston

Three years have elapsed between each of Real Estate’s new releases since they reached what was arguably a critical and artistic apex with 2014’s Atlas. However, the wait has never not been worth the while, and the three years and 360 days that separate The Main Thing — which had the somewhat unfortunate release date of February 28, 2020 — and the February 23, 2024 unveiling of Daniel is no exception. (They did release a highly satisfying EP, Half a Human, in 2021.)

While I must confess to having fallen out of the Real Estate market in recent years, Daniel restored and added to all of the fandom that I had built up in the 2010s, and it’s hard to imagine more committed longtime fans and newcomers embracing it with any less enthusiasm. At the risk of making another unwelcome pun, if the band’s namesake concept is all about “location, location, location,” then everything on Daniel is in its ideal place. Those who come for the singles “Water Underground,” “Haunted World,” and “Flowers” (cool video with Kafkaesque images!) will be rewarded with “Somebody New,” “Say No More,” and “Airdrop,” all of which are hypnotically catchy tracks that will surely arouse the aural sense of any listener.

L.A.-based singer-songwriter Marina Allen, who is in between her second and third LPs — the latter of which, Eight Pointed Star, will be available on June 7 — is supporting the quintet on its Infinite Jangle tour, which will call Royale home on April 17.

Gracie Curran & the High Falutin’ Band
April 20 (doors at 7:30/show at 8:30)
The Cut, Gloucester

The voice of this Winthrop native has been compared to Mavis Staples, Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Irma Thomas, and Brittany Howard, and praised by critics nationwide and internationally.

No surprise then that early in their career, she and her High Falutin’ Band won the Boston Music Award for Blues Artist of the Year, served a spell as a house band at Rum Boogie Café on Beale Street, and Curran was named “Most Charismatic Entertainer” by the New England newsletter The Blues Audience.

At The Cut on April 20, Curran and her band — guitarist Chris Hersch, bassist Geoff Murfitt, and drummer Owen Eichensehr — will be joined by saxophonist Mark Earley, who played on Grammy-nominated recordings by Victor Wainwright and the Train and Roomful of Blues. The gig will afford fans a sneak peek (or listen) to their forthcoming fall release The Underdog, which is being produced by Dave Gross, whose credits include Victor Wainwright and the Train’s 2018 Grammy-nominated eponymous album.

— Blake Maddux

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World Music and Roots

Tami Fest
April 9, 6 to 11 pm
Warehouse IX, Somerville

Longtime music venue bartender Tami Lee is facing some health challenges, so the Somerville/Cambridge roots music community is holding a fundraiser to help her out. There’s a GoFundMe as well as a marathon concert featuring a true who’s who of local music: Andrea Gillis Band, To Catch a Dinosaur, Chris Cote and his band of These Guys, Sarah Borges Band, The White Owls, Blue Ribbons, Dennis Brennan Band Featuring Duke Levine, Kevin Barry, Billy Beard, and Richard Gates, Tim Gearan Band, and Abbie Barrett Band.

QWANQWA & Fully Celebrated Orchestra
April 10
Midway Cafe, Jamaica Plain

Local audiences may remember violinist Kaethe Hostetter playing Ethiopian music with Debo Band. She later moved to Ethiopia, resulting in the birth of QWANQWA, a breathtaking outfit whose psychedelic take on traditional Ethiopian music also includes Endris Hassen on mesenko (one string fiddle), Bubu Teklemariam on bass krar (Ethiopian lyre), Selamnesh Zemene on vocals, and Misale Legesse on kebero (goat skin drum). Their appearance alone would make this a can’t-miss affair, but sweetening the deal is that local free jazz heroes Fully Celebrated Orchestra will be playing a set and also jamming with the members of QWANQWA. And speaking of Debo Band, its leader D.A. Mekonnen will be performing as dragonchild to help the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem usher in its new Ethiopian art exhibit on Saturday afternoon.

Lee Fields and Monophonics
April 11
The Paradise Rock Club, Boston

Speaking of enticing double bills, here’s a soulful pairing if there ever was one: Monophonics play dreamy and funky wah-wah-drenched R&B. They’re the longtime vehicle for blue-eyed frontman Kelly Finnigan and regulars on the great soul revival label Coalmine. For this rare local date they’re sharing the bill with the master of deep soul Lee Fields, who is still riding high on “Sentimental Fool,” his 2022 Daptone release which was his best in years.

Alejandro Escovedo
April 13
City Winery

One of the great poets of rock ‘n’ roll, Alejandro Escovedo has just released an arresting new recording, Echo Dancing, which finds him radically reworking many of his past masterpieces. He’s bringing those arrangements to the City Winery in a show that will find James Mastro both opening and playing in Escovedo’s band. Given Escovedo’s legacy of intensely memorable shows, it’s not surprising that tickets are quickly disappearing.

Caetano Veloso
April 13
The Orpheum, Boston

One of the undisputed all-time legends of Brazilian music, 81-year old Caetano Veloso is claiming that this is his farewell US tour. If so, he’s going out with a bang: His 2021 record Meu Coco found his experimental heart beating as loud as ever. This Global Arts Live presentation is the only New England date on a tour that has been getting excellent reviews.

— Noah Schaffer

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

The Drowsy Chaperone Music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison and book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar. Directed by Larry Sousa. Staged by the Lyric Stage at 140 Clarendon Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, through May 17.

According to the Lyric Stage press release, this revival will be an escapist treat: “A comfortable chair with an old record crackling away is the perfect cure for the ‘blues’ for a charming but lonely ‘Man in Chair,’ our guide into the world of the show-within-a-show, The Drowsy Chaperone. His favorite cast album from the Jazz Age comes to fizzy life complete with a self-admiring showgirl, her gin-soaked chaperone, a saucy Latin lover, a bumbling best man, a clueless soon-to-be groom, and a cornucopia of characters, from a befuddled producer to a dippy hostess and gangsters posing as pastry chefs. This bubbly love letter to musical theater sparkles with one show-stopper after another, mix-ups, mayhem, and a wedding (or two).”

Beyond Words by Laura Maria Censabella. Inspired by the life story of Irene Pepperberg and Alex. Directed by Cassie Chapados. Originally commissioned and developed by The Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project. A Catalyst Collaborative@MIT Production staged at Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, through April 14.

A world premiere of a drama about the relationship between us and animals. From the Central Square Theatre website: “Meet Alex and his friend, Dr. Irene Pepperberg. Alex is an African Grey parrot. Irene is a researcher at Harvard University. Over the protests of her male colleagues, Irene teaches Alex to meaningfully communicate and solve problems at the level of a five-year-old child. This highly theatrical new work tracks their 30-year research experiment turned love story and asks: in a world where we are rapidly destroying animal habitats, just who exactly are we sharing our planet with?”Arts Fuse review

Editor’s Note: “Global warming is projected to commit over one-third of the Earth’s animal and plant species to extinction by 2050 if current greenhouse gas emissions trajectories continue — a catastrophic loss that would irreversibly reduce biodiversity and alter both ecosystems and human societies across the globe.” Source: Center for Biological Diversity.

Burn This by Lanford Wilson. Directed by Daniel Bourque. Staged by the Hub Theatre Company of Boston at the Boston Center for the Arts Black Box Theatre, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, April 6 through 21.

The plot of this well-received 1987 script by a Pulitzer prize-winning dramatist: “Anna, a gifted dancer, is grappling with the artistic and personal void left by the untimely death of her roommate and creative partner Robbie. Enter Pale, Robbie’s fiery older brother, whose unexpected intrusion ignites an unanticipated explosive dance of love, laughter, and longing between two seemingly incompatible strangers.” The accomplished Hub Theatre Co cast includes Steve Auger, Tim Hoover,  Kiki Samko, and Victor Shopov.

Touching the Void adapted by David Greig. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Staged by Apollinaire Theatre Company at the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea, April 19 through May 19.

According to Apollinaire Theatre Company, this script, based on Joe Simpson’s bestselling memoir turned BAFTA-winning film, “recounts Joe Simpson’s struggle for survival after an accident leaves him stranded with a shattered leg on Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes. His climbing partner, Simon Yates, attempts a near impossible rescue, but when Joe disappears over an ice cliff, Simon, battered by freezing winds and tethered to his injured partner, makes the heart-wrenching decision to cut the rope.”

The Porch on Windy Hill Written by Sherry Stregack Lutken, Lisa Helmi Johanson, Morgan Morse, and David M. Lutken. Conceived and directed by Sherry Stregack Lutken. Presented by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell, through April 21.

From the MRT website: “A bi-racial Korean classical violinist, Mira, and her music history grad-student boyfriend, Beck, escape months of Covid-isolation to the mountains of North Carolina. Their journey takes a surprising turn when they meet Edgar, and Mira faces a flood of memory, pain, hope, and discovery that follows. A moving, modern American play about family — with enough music for a real ‘hoot ‘n’ holler’ as the cast — Lisa Helmi Johanson, Morgan Morse, and David Lutken — perform a dozen traditional and bluegrass gems.”

Suga, conceived, created, and performed by Travis Coe. Directed by Stacy Klein. Staged by Double Edge Theatre at 948 Conway Road, Ashfield, April 17 through 21.

According to Double Edge’s publicity material: “Travis began working on Suga in 2016 as he explored the Afro-Caribbean/Latinx history of his family, and their native lands spanning Belize, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico. Klein, DE’s Founder and Artistic Director, watched some of Travis’ early creative process and began working in dialogue. It is an investigation of freedom, and the bounds — personal, artistic, societal, and political —one must break through to achieve that end. As a caretaker of a museum of memory, Coe touches/reveals/remixes all the aspects of himself — as Queer, Black, Latinx, and American, to find the path to sing, fly, run — toward Freedom.”

Hadestown Music and lyrics by Anais Mitchell. Directed by Rachel Chavkin. Staged at the Wang Center, 270 Tremont Street, Boston, April 23 through 28.

The  national touring production of a show that “cleaned up during the 2018/19 awards season,” this “plucky folk opera garnered eight Tony Awards (including the coveted Tony for Best Musical), four Drama Desk Awards, six Outer Critics Circle Awards and a Drama League Award.” It is billed as “a vibrant retelling of a classic story and a sumptuous score that evokes smoky New Orleans jazz and bubbling Americana-tinged folk.”  Written by indie singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812).

It Can’t Happen Here by Tony Taccone and Bennet S. Cohen. Directed by Wes Savick and based upon the novel by Sinclair Lewis. Presented and produced by the Suffolk University Theatre Department at the Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street, Boston, April 11 through 14.

Written while the specter of European fascism became a menacing force of violence and intolerance in the United States, Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel rose to #4 on Amazon’s Bestseller List in the days following the 2017 inauguration of the 45th president. In 1936, It Can’t Happen Here premiered in 21 theaters around the country on the exact same night. The powerhouse of a play was produced by the Federal Theatre Project (a theater program established during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal to fund live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States).” It has been a while since I have read Lewis’s novel. but I wager it still carries plenty of dystopian punch.

In conjunction with the show, the Modern is hosting a series of related events. On April 12 at 4 p.m. a Ford Hall Forum will feature UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus, sociologist, and author Arlie Russell Hochschild and her husband, author, historian, and journalist Adam Hochschild. The forum will be moderated by award-winning PBS NewsHour journalist Paul Solman. The pair will also participate in a talk-back following that evening’s performance. And on April 13 at 4 p.m. there will be a Political Science & Legal Studies roundtable conversation featuring Mimi Arbei,t a specialist in adolescent development, sexuality development, antifascism, and social justice; and Jeffrey Johnson, who specializes in ethics and contemporary social issues. The session will be moderated by award-winning author and playwright James Carroll.

Book of Mountains and Seas Composer and librettist, Huang Ruo. Direction and production design, Basil Twist. Produced by Beth Morrison Projects and presented by ArtsEmerson at the Emerson Paramount Center, Robert J. Orchard Stage, 559 Washington Street, Boston, April 19 through 21.

From the ArtsEmerson publicity machine: “A daring, new work by award-winning composer Huang Ruo and MacArthur Fellow puppeteer/artist Basil Twist. In this pitch perfect collaboration, the show takes on ancient Chinese creation myths — first transcribed in the 4th century BC — which are strikingly relevant to our current climate change emergency. An ensemble of massive puppets, as beautiful as they are intimidating, and the chorus of Ars Nova Copenhagen harness music and a stunning visual tableau to offer a portrait of the natural world and our vital, yet tenuous, relationship to it.”

Thru Hike by Michael Cormier. Directed by Myriam Cyr. Staged by Puncuate4 Productions at the Larcom Theatre, 13 Wallis Street, Beverly, on April 22 at 7 p.m.

A partial reading and video presentation of a new play with original music in celebration of Earth Day. According to the website: “Ever dreamed of hiking the Appalachian Trail? Join Erin Burke-Moran, formerly of the band Caspian, and his wife Adrienne as they share their journey to get closer to nature and, in the process, rediscover themselves. Through songs and stories, Erin and Adrienne will narrate their transformative experience on the trail, brought to life in a new play with original music based on this life changing journey created by Punctuate4 artist-in-residence Michael Cormier.”

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. Directed by James Wilkinson. Staged by Praxis Stage at Chelsea Theatre Works, Chelsea, April 11 through 28.

Harold Pinter’s 1957 absurdist tale about unknown forces taking people away — in light of our times. According to Praxis Stage: “Our thinking on what to do for our first post-pandemic show could not help but be informed by that pandemic and the quarantine experience, which so fundamentally altered many people’s realities and understanding of self. The lingering disaster of the COVID 19 pandemic exacerbated a trend of social breakdown in our society at large and brought that sense of breakdown more directly into people’s homes and consciousness. Finding a play that reflected and commented on all that seemed important to us. We were most interested in doing a piece that explored the frailty of human connection in hostile times and within hostile environments.”

— Bill Marx

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Visual Arts

The title for the Peabody Essex Museum’s exhibition Ethiopia at the Crossroads is more geological than historical and refers to Ethiopia’s position at the physical crossroads of Africa, Western Asia, and the Mediterranean. Home of some of the earliest modern humans, Ethiopia is also the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world. In the early 4th century, it was the second country to convert to Christianity and the first major power.

Billed as “the first major exhibition in America to examine Ethiopian art in a global context,” Ethiopia at the Crossroads follows two millennia of Ethiopian art with more than 200 objects, including icons, illuminated manuscripts, carvings, metalwork, and the work of prominent Ethiopian contemporary artists. The show opens in Salem on April 13.

“Playing dress up,” says designer Kate Spade in the epigraph to the MFA show Dress Up, “begins at five and never really ends.” This exhibition of more than 100 works from the museum’s collection seems to have no particular overarching theme or agenda. Instead, the 20th- and 21st-century clothing, jewelry, accessories, fashion illustrations, and photographs on view explore, like any fashion magazine, “adornment and its role in the creation of a look.” The show opens to the public on April 13.

40 years ago, Alabama artist Yvonne Wells began creating “story quilts” that address various issues that engaged her. The Great American Pastime: The Negro Baseball League, speaks of the days when nonwhite players were excluded from playing in the major leagues of American professional baseball. The segregation lasted until 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. This quilt, on loan from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, forms the focus of Yvonne Wells: Stitched Stories, which opens at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art on April 11.

In the last years of Communist Yugoslavia, several groups of artists in Slovenia —  the industrial band Laibach, The Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, and the visual art collaborative IRWIN — formed the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). The loosely organized artists’ collective focused attention on the absurdity of authoritarian bureaucracies by mimicking their manifestos, double speak, and symbols with the end “to reassert Slovenian culture in a monumental and spectacular way.”

Neue Slowenische Kunst | Monumental Spectacular, which opens at the Bates College Museum of Art on April 12, is an exhibition of 11 NSK prints in a “heroic graphic style” from a portfolio in the museum’s collection. The show highlights the group’s multimedia approach to the complex elements of Slovenian culture, ideology, and politics, just as Slovenia was becoming an independent state.

Around the turn of the century, Western music notation helped spread modern musical styles throughout Japan, including jazz, Broadway tunes, and music for Japanese film. Songs for Modern Japan: Popular Music and Graphic Design, 1900-1950, opening at the Museum of Fine Arts on April 13, includes some 100 sheet music covers along with paintings, textiles, film clips, and musical instruments from the first half of the 20th century. The designs show how leading Japanese graphic designers interpreted and adapted such modernist visual arts movements as Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and how the growth of military sheet music and nationalistic images reflected gathering imperialist politics in Japan.

The Williams College Museum of Art, in conjunction with its exhibition Emancipation (on view through July 14), will present a “Genealogy Workshop + Lecture with Dr. Kendra Field” on April 12. At 5:30 p.m., Dr. Field’s public lecture will explore the history of African-American genealogy from the Middle Passage to the present. A genealogy workshop for Williams College students will precede the lecture from 4 to 5 p.m. (Arts Fuse review of Emancipation)

— Peter Walsh

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Jazz

Allan Chase
April 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Peabody Hall, Parish of All Saints, Dorchester

The superb saxophonist (alto, soprano, baritone) and composer Allan Chase debuts a new project with an excellent band: trumpeter Lemuel Marc, bass trombonist Bill Lowe, guitarist Amanda Monaco, bassist Bruno Råberg, and drummer Luther Gray. The program will feature “original music, improvisations, and compositions by Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington: blues, swing, and free.”

Grace Kelly with Strings
April 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Regent Theatre, Arlington

With various ventures into pop (including a John Lennon Songwriting Contest “Song of the Year” award, in 2018, for “Feels Like Home”), saxophonist, singer, and songwriter Grace Kelly has “returned” to jazz with Grace Kelly with Strings: At the Movies, which takes inspiration in part from Charlie Parker with Strings but also from a love of movies that allows her to encompass the Bond themes (with a convincingly breathy vocal take on Billy Eilish’s “No Time to Die”), Disney movies, John Williams, Huey Lewis, Ennio Morricone, you name it. And yes, she totally kills the Bird-like alto introduction to Cole Porter’s “The Way You Look Tonight,” not to mention rocking a hard-funk baritone sax on the Mission: Impossible theme. After assaying various with-strings performances over the past couple of years, she celebrates last month’s release of the CD with this show at the Regent.

Mehmet Ali Sanlíkol Trio
April 12 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Mehmet Ali Sanlíkol — who has been mixing jazz and the sounds of his native Turkey and other musics of the Levant — brings the trio from his highly regarded 2022 album An Elegant Ritual to the Regattabar, with bassist James Heazlewood-Dale and drummer George Lernis.

Emmett Cohen
April 12 and 13 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The dynamic young pianist Emmett Cohen is joined by the terrific drummer Joe Farnsworth (who excels in any context; last seen in these parts with his own band at Scullers and Kurt Rosenwinkel’s trio at the Regattabar) and, we guess, Cohen’s usual trio bassist, Joey Ranieri.

Stephane Wrembel
April 12 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

Of all the Django-ologists following in the footsteps of the great Roma guitarist, Stephane Wrembel is one of the few who is doing anything new with the format — stretching those “pomp” rhythms and traditional song forms into adjacent styles with original compositions and arrangements while sustaining the requisite demon-like fingerwork. This show celebrates the release this month of a triple-CD collaboration (Phase I, II, and III) with the pianist Jean-Michel Pilc. Joining Wrembel and Pilc for this show are Wrembel’s longtime bandmates, guitarist Josh Kaye, bassist Ari Folman-Cohen, tenor saxophonist Nick Driscoll, and drummer Nick Anderson.

High Life: The Music of Wayne Shorter
April 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

Expect this, like most New England Conservatory faculty concerts, to be curated with insight and performed with inspired enthusiasm. Jazz studies co-chair Ken Schaphorst is joined by Carl Atkins (who was a founding director of jazz and African American studies at NEC) in directing the NEC Jazz Orchestra, featuring faculty members Jerry Bergonzi (sax) and Ethan Iverson (piano), and alumna Rachel Z (keyboards). The concert is free, but tickets are required, available at the link.

Dave Bryant “Piano Summit”
April 18 at 8 p.m.
Harvard-Epworth Church, Cambridge

Former Ornette Coleman Prime Time member Dave Bryant convenes an all-piano summit for this edition of his Third Thursday series. Joining him taking turns on the Harvard-Epworth’s 1910 Steinway “A” (rebuilt in 1995) are Boston-area heavies Tatiana Castro Mejía, Pandelis Karayorgis, Steve Lantner, and Eric Zinman.

Caroline Davis & Wendy Eisenberg
April 19 at 7:45 p.m.
New School of Music, Cambridge

On the heels of the April 12 release of their Accept When, dauntless experimenters Caroline Davis (alto sax, flute, and synthesizer) and Wendy Eisenberg (electric guitar) give us a taste. (You can probably also expect to hear some of the vocal performances from the album.)

Wadada Leo Smith
April 20 at 7 p.m.
Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge

The celebrated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith continues his years-long association with Harvard, now as Fromm Distinguished Scholar, in a program premiering two works, with the umbrella title “Revolutionary Fire-Love: A Sonic Odyssey in Search of Democracy and Humanity’s Rights.” The first half of the concert will feature Smith’s String Quartet No. 17, “The Capital, Washington DC: An American Experiment with Democracy and Capitalism,” performed by the FLUX Quartet. The second half will feature Smith’s quintet piece “Gardens of Peace: A Sonic Meditation for Peaceful and Nonviolence Acts toward a Resolution-Accords.” The quintet will include Smith, trumpet; Yosvany Terry, saxophone, chekere; Seiyoung Jang, electronics; Vijay Iyer, piano, electronics; Yvette Janine Jackson, electronics; and Andrew Cyrille, drums.

Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo
April 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

The virtuoso Puerto Rican alto saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón and his longtime quartet partner pianist Luis Perdomo last year issued a second volume of their El Arte del Bolero — intimate duo sessions that should take on an extra shine in live performance. The album took home this year’s Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album.

Hot Sardines
April 20 at 8 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center, Boston

If you’re in the mood for eminently danceable jump-swing (think: Louis Prima, Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Running Wild,” “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen”), you could do a lot worse than Brooklyn’s Hot Sardines, fronted by irrepressible vocalist Elizabeth Bougerol and pianist Evan Palazzo. Not sure how Berklee will handle the dancers.

—  Jon Garelick

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Author Events

A Virtual Event: An Evening of Poetry: Ashia Ajani, Sebastian Merrill, & Sahar Muradi – brookline booksmith
April 9 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Ashia Ajani is a sunshower, a glass bead, a carnivorous plant, an overripe nectarine hailing from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains and the unceded territory of the Cheyenne, Ute, and Arapahoe peoples, now living in the Bay Area (unceded Ohlone land).  ebastian Merrill’s debut collection Ghost:: Seeds was selected by Kimiko Hahn as the winner of the 2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, published by Texas Review Press in November 2023. Sahar Muradi is author of the collection Octobers, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the National Poetry Series.”

Dr. Sharon Malone at the Brattle Theatre  – Harvard Book Store
Grown Woman Talk: Your Guide to Getting and Staying Healthy
April 10 at 6 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge MA
Tickets are $32 with book, free without

“Grown Woman Talk is for all women who have often not been seen or heard. For more than three decades as a practicing Ob/Gyn in the nation’s capital and now as chief medical officer of Alloy Women’s Health, Dr. Malone has served women across the city all the way to the upper echelons of power. In this book, she gives us the nudge we all need to become effective and efficient advocates in getting the care we deserve.

“Part medical memoir of the Malone family experience tracing from the Jim Crow South to the highest corridors of power in Washington, part relatable clinical scenarios of women from all walks of life and experiences, and part practical medical and logistical advice, this book is a reliable and easy-to-understand resource. In addition to information on ailments like fibroids, cancer, heart disease, and perimenopause, it also helps us navigate the medical establishment of today with advice on how to choose a doctor, why our family’s health history matters, and how to decide among treatments. Combining emerging practices with the latest research, the book addresses many women’s greatest gap, the one between what they believe and what is actually true.”

Susanna Kaysen, author of Girl, Interrupted: 30th Anniversary Celebration – Porter Square Books
April 12 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The ward for teenage girls in the McLean psychiatric hospital was as renowned for its famous clientele — Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles — as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen’s memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a ‘parallel universe’ set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties.

“Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.”

Julia Alvarez at The Cambridge Public Library – Harvard Book Store
The Cemetery of Untold Stories: A Novel
April 16 at 6 p.m.
Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge MA
Tickets are $29.75 with book, free without

“Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories — literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.

The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.”

Ieva Jusionyte at Harvard Book Store
Exit Wounds: How America’s Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border
April 16 at 7 p.m.
Free

“American guns have entangled the lives of people on both sides of the US-Mexico border in a vicious circle of violence. After treating wounded migrants and refugees seeking safety in the United States, anthropologist Ieva Jusionyte boldly embarked on a journey in the opposite direction —following the guns from dealers in Arizona and Texas to crime scenes in Mexico.

“An expert work of narrative nonfiction, Exit Wounds provides a rare, intimate look into the world of firearms trafficking and urges us to understand the effects of lax US gun laws abroad. Jusionyte masterfully weaves together the gripping stories of people who live and work with guns north and south of the border: a Mexican businessman who smuggles guns for protection, a teenage girl turned trained assassin, two US federal agents trying to stop gun traffickers, and a journalist who risks his life to report on organized crime. Based on years of fieldwork, Exit Wounds expands current debates about guns in America, grappling with US complicity in violence on both sides of the border.”

Virtual Event: Salman Rushdie – Harvard Book Store
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
April 16 at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $36 with book

“From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring — and surviving — an attempt on his life 30 years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

“Speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie answers violence with art, and reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art — and finding the strength to stand up again.”

Neel Mukherjee with Namwali Serpell – brookline booksmith
Choice: A Novel
April 19 at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $28.99 with book, free without

“An ingenious, devastating, explosive novel about the ramifications of choice from one of the most original and talented authors working today.

“How ought one to live? This is the question that obsesses London-based publisher Ayush, driving him to question every act of consumption. He embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to him: his practical economist husband; their twins; and even the authors he edits and publishes. One of those authors, a mysterious M.N. Opie, writes a story about a young academic involved in a car accident that causes her life to veer in an unexpected direction. Another author, an economist, describes how the gift of a cow to an impoverished family on the West Bengal-Bangladesh border sets them on a startling path to tragedy.

“Together, these connected narratives raise the question: How free are we really to make our own choices? In a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, Neel Mukherjee confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life.”

— Matt Hanson