Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor

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

EDITOR’S NOTE: Boston area theaters have decided to pretty much ignore what is happening in America and beyond — mounting threats to democracy, the slide toward authoritarianism, the climate crisis, growing economic inequality, ICE’s savage round-up of immigrants, the expansion of internment camps, ongoing genocide in Gaza, the grueling war in Ukraine, etc. The American Repertory Theater tells us to put a spotlight on its upcoming musical Wonder.  I disagree. I have decided in Coming Attractions to point out a production, staged in America or elsewhere, that grapples with today’s alarming realities. Sometimes the productions will be available via Zoom, sometimes not. It is important to present evidence that theater artists are reflecting, and reflecting on, the world around us.

(l) Joseph Patrick Marshall as Sal B. (c) Napaht Na Nongkhai as Mme. Chang (r) George Lugo as Sy in the Great America Play Series staging of The Story of Sal B. and Barbranne: A Mob Fantasia (Cyrano Redux). Photo: Jonathan Slaff.

The Story of Sal B. and Barbranne: A Mob Fantasia (Cyrano Redux)  written and directed by Stephan Morrow. Presented by The Great American Play Series at the Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., New York, NY, December 18 through January 4, 2026.

Tired of the annual parade of Scrooges making their predictable liberal turnaround at this time of year? Ever wonder why, 181 years after Charles Dickens’ published A Christmas Carol, real-life oligarchs have only grown in inhumane power and influence? Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates on Elon Musk and DOGE’s destruction of USAID: “The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.” Instead of an feel-good holiday fantasy, why not take a trip into what might be our mob-driven future with another classic theatrical figure — Cyrano de Bergerac?

Morrow’s play is set “100 years in the future, after World War III, when organized crime has merged with the military and struggles with Eastern enemies over Middle East oil. With mob intrigue, romance, and absurdist action, Edmond Rostand’s classic story of eloquence, unspoken love, and heroism is transformed into a chaotic, modern, and often surreal fantasia, preserving the essence of Cyrano’s wit, heart, and valor.”

— Bill Marx

Film

Columbia Rarities
Through December 14
Harvard Film Archives, Cambridge

To celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures, the 2024 Locarno Film Festival organized a retrospective of Columbia Studio gems made during the era of the Hollywood studio. The films selected for the HFA series are among the studio’s lesser-known gems and curios. This is a rare selection of edgy and innovative films. Several will have repeat screenings. Arts Fuse feature

Girl Climber
December 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Regent Theater Arlington

Professional climber Emily Harrington has summited Everest, 8000-meter peaks, and dominated the competition circuit.But her greatest challenge extends beyond the physical. To cement her legacy in the male-dominated world of elite rock climbing, she sets her sights on a career-defining 24-hour ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan. Caught between the pursuit of personal ambition and life’s ticking biological clock, a near-fatal fall forces Harrington to reckon with what she’s willing to risk.

Cambridge Mosaic
Dec 10 at 5 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

The Cambridge Museum of History & Culture is a museum dedicated to sharing city’s storied past through diverse public educational exhibitions. This series, made up of 30-minute documentaries, is features longtime Cambridge residents, who talk to us about who they are and what the community is building together. Featuring Denise Jillson, Evelyn Riley, Mary Leno, Peter Johnson, Red Mitchell, and Robert Skenderian. Fundraising reception to follow at another location.

Robert De Niro and Sean Penn in We’re No Angels.

We’re No Angels (1955) & We’re No Angels (1989)
Dec 11 at 6 p.m. &  8:30 p.m.
Brattle Theatre

Michael Curtiz directs Aldo Ray, Basil Rathbone, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Bennett, and Peter Ustinov in the original 1955 film. On Christmas Eve, a trio of escapees from Devil’s Island prison arrive in a French colonial town and prove to be affable and helpful. Holing up in a struggling store with its proprietors, the crew sets to work helping them out – both intentionally and by accident – as the business is battered by misfortune during the holiday.

Justin La Liberty introduces the 1989 remake of Cinematographe’s new 4K edition of director Neil Jordan’s version of the story, which stars Bruno Kirby, Demi Moore, Hoyt Axton, Robert De Niro, and Sean Penn. David Mamet’s script transposes the action from 19th-century South America to Depression-era Upstate New York. Two convicts escape jail during a moment of chaos and end up posing as visiting priests at a monastery. Meanwhile, the authorities are searching for a vicious killer who has also escaped. Brattle Debut!

A scene from 1955’s Women’s Prison.

Women’s Prison (1955)
December 13 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Film Archive

Half of film noir’s iconic femme fatales—Ida Lupino, Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, and Audrey Totter—are packed into the cells of this prison melodrama, with Lupino delivering a striking turn as a sadistic warden, her performance laced with subtle hints of lesbian desire. Howard Duff plays the sympathetic prison doctor, dispensing predictably patriarchal advice to both the oppressed and the oppressor. Meanwhile, Vivian Marshall adds an eccentric touch with her spot-on impressions of Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead. (Harvard Archive)

Pickup (1951)
December 13 at 9 p.m.
Harvard Film Archive

The American directorial debut of exiled Czechoslovak auteur Hugo Haas was based on a 1926 novel by Josef Kopta. Jan Horak (played by Hass himself), a railroad dispatcher working in a remote area, enters a marriage of convenience with a scheming blonde (Beverly Michaels). When Horak loses his hearing, Steve (Allan Nixon) is sent in as his substitute. Bored with her isolated life, the wife seduces the young man, and together they plot to murder Horak. Unbeknownst to them, Horak has regained his hearing and now listens in on every sordid word spoken behind his back, including the plot to murder him. (Archive)

Pick of the Week

History of Sound, streaming on Amazon Prime and Mubi

Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor in a scene from The History of Sound.

The History of Sound is set during World War I. Lionel is from a poor Kentucky farm where music serves as a communal bond. He has synesthesia, so hears music as color. David, originally from Newport, Rhode Island, and raised by his uncle in London after his parents’ deaths, is much more academic in his approach to music. The two meet at the New England Conservatory and fall in love. Eventually, carrying along a primitive wax cylinder recording device, they hike together to distant areas of Maine to capture local performances of authentic folk ballads. When David goes off to fight in the war, Lionel leaves for Europe. There, his career blossoms.

At that time, the two could not have had an overt gay relationship. The film avoids their pairing as its central conflict, focusing more on the couple’s humanity and creative bond. Paul Mescal is being praised for his work in this year’s Hamnet, but his quiet, restrained performance as Lionel may be superior. Josh O’Connor, known to many for playing Prince Charles in the series The Crown, and who has had a standout year with three other films — Wake Up Dead Man, The Mastermind, and Rebuilding — expands his range, once again proving himself to be one of our best actors.

— Tim Jackson

Television

Once again, the Criterion Channel is jettisoning a bunch of excellent films from its library before the end of the month, so try to watch these if you can find the time. It astounds me how this channel, which is meant to be an overflowing font of classic and arthouse cinema, dispenses with titles like Bringing Up Baby (1938), Manhunter (1986), To Have and Have Not (1944), or The Shining (1980). Other lesser-known films I recommend catching before they’re gone: Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (2019), Teeth (2007), In Celebration (1975), and Keane (2004).

A scene from Apple TV’s Born to be Wild.

Born to Be Wild (December 19, Apple TV): This new nature documentary series on Apple TV, narrated by Morgan Freeman, devotes the first six episodes to following the lives of six rare baby animals in the wild. If the title sounds familiar, director David Lickley (who also made two documentary films about Jane Goodall) made a short film with a similar moniker in 2011 — it was about two women who raised orphaned baby elephants and orangutans. Now, what could soothe the stress brought on by encroaching fascism and late stage capitalism than watching the antics of a baby lemur or a baby cheetah? Not to mention the antics of a baby elephant, a baby penguin, a baby lynx, and a baby moon bear? What’s a moon bear? I don’t care! I want these baby animals injected into my veins.

Back in the days of broadcast television, December was a month in which anything new rarely appeared on TV. Unless it was a holiday special. I recommend ignoring all the reality TV shows premiering on Netflix and watching some Yuletide classics to get you in the mood for the holidays (and take your mind off everything else). Freeform has a livestream showing holiday classic movies and TV specials (yes, including those wonderful claymation specials from the ’60s). But also consider streaming some more artful holiday-themed films this month, like Eyes Wide Shut (free on Tubi, or rent on Apple TV), Carol (HBO Max, Hulu, Prime), The Holdovers (rent on Prime or Apple TV), Little Women (Hulu, Prime), or animated masterpieces The Nightmare Before Christmas (Prime), or the charming 1982 short film The Snowman (on Youtube).

— Peg Aloi

Theater

Marianna Gailus as Hedda Gabler in the Yale Rep production of Ibsen’s drama.

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. Translated from the Norwegian by Paul Walsh. Directed by James Bundy. At Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, through December 20.

Henry James in the New Review on a 1891 production of Hedda Gabler: “Ibsen is various, and Hedda Gabler is probably an ironical pleasantry, the artistic exercise of a mind saturated with the vision of human infirmities; saturated, above all, with a sense of the infinitude, for all its moral savour, of character, finding that an endless romance and a perpetual challenge.”

A Sherlock Carol by Mark Shanahan. Directed by Ilyse Robbins. Staged by the Lyric Stage at 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, through December 21.

The game’s afoot in this theatrical mash-up: “the tales of Sherlock Holmes and A Christmas Carol come together like you’ve never seen before.” Well, I have never seen it before. The plot: “Moriarity is as dead as a doornail. Sherlock Holmes is depressed. Without his number one adversary, what’s the point of it all? Enter a grown-up Tiny Tim and the mysterious death of everyone’s favorite humbug.” The cast includes Leigh Barrett, Christopher Chew, Mark Linehan, Paul Melendy, Michelle Moran, and Jon Vellante.

Sarah Bockel and Lyla Randall in the Huntington Theatre Company production of Fun Home. Photo: Marc J Franklin

Fun Home Music by Jeanine Tesori, Book & Lyrics by Lisa Kron. Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel Directed by Logan Ellis. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Huntington Theatre (264 Huntington Ave), Boston, through December 14.

A revival of the 2015 hit musical that won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score, and Best Book. From the Arts Fuse review of the 2018 production of the show:

“It made perfect sense for self-described lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel—author of the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For—to use the form of the graphic novel for her 2006 memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. That critically acclaimed, bestselling book told—and showed—in searing, honest detail the story of Bechdel’s growing up as the daughter of a closeted gay father and distant mother in a small Pennsylvania town.

The crux of the tale is the death—a probable suicide—of Bechdel’s father, Bruce, and how it entwined, in her mind, with acknowledging her own homosexuality a few months before his death. Bechdel’s writing is lyrical, sharply funny, filled with literary allusions and discussions with her father, a high-school English teacher who moonlighted as director of the family-owned funeral home—the “Fun Home” of the title—but whose true love was meticulously restoring their ornate, Gothic-style house. And her drawings brilliantly animate her memories, down to the smallest detail (a box of Crayola crayons; The Rifleman, Yogi Bear, and other TV shows she and her brothers watched, for example).”  Arts Fuse review of the HTC production.

Funny Uncle Cabaret, part of The Dance Complex’s “The DC Presents” series. Performed at the Dance Complex, 536 Massachusetts Ave,  Cambridge, December 13 and 14.

Funny Uncle Cabaret’s “first act is a retelling of the Nutcracker story through the lens of LGBTQ+ lives and families of choice- including the adoption of Peter DiMuro’s niece. Having played a funny uncle as Drosselmeier in the Nutcracker, and now one in real life, Peter shares excerpts of these stories in the evening , alongside other odd, queer  and  gay stories through song, dance and narrative.”

“Musical director Brian Patton accompanies guest artists, pre- and post-show singalongs; Co-host Robert McFletcher Jones directs a youth choir in holiday songs and gospel hymns.”

A scene from Holiday Feast 2024. Photo: courtesy of FPAC

Holiday Feast. Directed by Pascale Florestal. Front Porch Arts Collective presents an evening of staged readings at the Modern Theatre, 525 Washington St, Boston, December 13 at 2 and 7 p.m.

FPAC is “turning up the spirit with another year of holiday episodes from classic Black sitcoms that shaped the culture. This season, the company will be reading scripts from such favorites as 227, black-ish, Sanford and Son, and Sister, Sister.

Octet, a chamber choir musical written and composed by Dave Malloy. Directed by Josh Short. Music Direction by Milly Massey. Staged by the Wilbury Theatre Group at 475 Valley Street, Providence, RI, through December 21.

A Rhode Island premiere, the show “offers a hilarious, intimate, and deeply moving exploration of human connection in the digital age.” The plot: “eight Internet addicts gather in a support group called ‘Friends of Saul’ in a church basement and share their stories, in a score for an a cappella chamber choir and an original libretto inspired by internet comment boards, scientific debates, religious texts, and Sufi poetry.”

Parker Jennings as Reality Winner in ATC’s Is This a Room  Photo: Danielle Fauteux Jacques

Is This a Room by Tina Satter. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Staged by the Apollinaire Theatre Company at the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea, December 12 through January 11, 2026

The plot of this docudrama, according to the Apollinaire Theatre Company website: “A tense psychological thriller based on the verbatim FBI transcript of the interrogation of Reality Winner, a young Air Force linguist accused of leaking a classified document about Russian interference in U.S. elections. Using the exact dialogue, pauses, and stutters from the interrogation, the play captures the mounting tension of a high-stakes encounter that is both topical and personal. At its core, Is This a Room explores truth, patriotism, and what it means to have honor in our complex modern world.” Unlike so many local theater offerings, this one draws direct connections to current authoritarianism-on-the-move realities — and during the the holiday season!

Wonder Music and Lyrics by A Great Big World (Ian Axel & Chad King). Book by Sarah Ruhl. Music Supervision by Nadia DiGiallonardo. Choreography by Katie Spelman. Directed by Taibi Magar. Based on the novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio and the Lionsgate and Mandeville film Wonder. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, December 9 through February 8, 2026.

The American Repertory Theater website on this world premiere production: “Based on R.J. Palacio’s novel and Lionsgate & Mandeville Films’ hit feature film, this uplifting new musical follows the Pullman family as they navigate change, identity, and what it means to belong. Auggie Pullman has been homeschooled his entire life, often retreating to outer space in his imagination. But when his family decides it’s time for him to start going to school, Auggie must take off the space helmet he has used to hide his facial difference. As Auggie navigates a world filled with kindness and cruelty, his parents and sister go on their own journeys of transformation and discovery. Featuring a driving, pop-inspired score, Wonder celebrates empathy, resilience, and the power of choosing kindness.”

Midwinter Revels: A Scandinavian Story for Christmas. Written by Debra Wise, Patrick Swanson, and Nicole Galland. Directed by Wise. Staged by Revels at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, December 12 through 28.

This year’s installment of the venerable traditional holiday entertainment was inspired by Gregory Maguire’s Matchless. It is a version of the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale — from the man who gave us Wicked. The plot: “Set on an island so far north that it snows from September to April, a young boy finds warmth and light in the darkest days.” Add to this inspirational story plenty of festive Scandinavian music performed by Revel’s usual roundup of first-rate musicians and actors, along with the company’s intergenerational chorus.

A scene from the Hanukkats. Photo: courtesy of Talking Hands Theatre.

Hanukkats by Talking Hands Theatre. Presented by Puppet Showplace Theater, 32 Station Street, Brookline, on December 13 (10:30 a.m. and 1p.m.) and 14 (10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.)

“How do you play dreidel and why?,” asks the Talking Hands Theatre? “Join Ziva the cat as she goes back to the time of the first Hanukkah to recover the missing letters on her dreidel! You’ll meet Judah Meowcabee, Oliver the olive oil maker, and a cast of other wonderful cat characters who help Ziva solve the mysterious connection between the dreidel letters, the Hanukkah story, and the way the game of dreidel is played. Audience members will have a chance to get up and dance, sing, and act out parts of the story in this musical, interactive journey through time.”

“Stay after the show to meet the artist and see the puppets up close! Plus, enjoy a dress-up station and coloring sheets. These activities are available after every performance, 11:30am – 12:30 p.m. and 2- 2:30 p.m. All ages welcome, especially enjoyed by ages 2 – 9. Plus — on December 13, from 11:45 a.m. – 12: 15 p.m., live klezmer music will be performed by Rebecca Mac & Mattias Kaufmann of Mamaliga Klezmer Band.”

Winter Panto 2025: The BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS (A Prop-Trunk Pantomime!), Conceived and directed by Matthew Woods. Staged by imaginary beasts at the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St, Chelsea, through December 14.

The plot for this “family-friendly frolic”: “Oh, what a worry in the Wayward Wood—Screech-Horn, the Bandit King, has wickedly nicked Fairy Fiddlehead’s magic! To win it back, she’ll need more than a wish; she’ll need to rely on her wits and a motley menagerie of merry misfits.

Enter Figaro—a donkey with an impossible dream to be a famous singer in the musical town of Bremen. But he won’t tread a lonely road for long! Soon he is joined by a woeful hound with a bad case of the blues; a finicky feline, particular about her purrs and paws; and a raddled rooster, who croons by the light of the moon.
​
Will this uncommon, comical crew find their rhythm in time to help the good fairy, or will they lose their way in the wild, wondrous Wayward Wood— where bandits, witches, and galumphing grizzlies aim to lead them astray?”

— Bill Marx

Visual Art

Josefina Auslender, “Untitled,” 1971, graphite; 18 ¼ x 14 ¼ in. © Josefina Auslender. Photo: Sarah Bouchard Gallery

You might not have noticed this, but the definition of modern art has started to shift. For decades, modern art was something that happened in Western Europe and in the United States, especially in the great art capitals of Paris and New York. Now we aren’t so sure. Definitions have expanded thanks to new, inclusive policies at art museums and major expansions of their non-canonical collections. The latter includes the 2016 de Cisneros gift to the Museum of Modern Art of 102 works by Latin American modernists.  Josefina Auslender: Drawing Myself Free, opening at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art on December 11, forms yet another example of how the shift in terms and geography has filtered into the museum mainstream.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1934 to immigrant parents, Auslender attended art school in her native city and exhibited there frequently. She moved to the United States in the 1980s and settled in Maine, where she still lives. For six decades, she has devoted herself to making meticulously detailed drawings, which she describes as “like going on a spaceship to the stars.” The Bowdoin show features more than 100 examples made in Argentina and the United States, blending surrealism and a precise abstraction in a personal take on the idea of modern. This is her first retrospective in North America.

French art in the mid-19th century focused on the Realist school, in particular on the work of Gustave Courbet, the movement’s unofficial leader, who aspired to paint “only what he could see.” But an alternative impulse survived, art born out of the passions and dreams of Romanticism and soon to be born again as Symbolism. Shadow Visionaries: French Artists Against the Current, 1840-1870, opens at the Clark Institute on December 20. Although the exhibition title somewhat exaggerates their outsider status, it makes a convincing case for these artists as a partially underground, independent group working out of the mainstream and centering on monochrome prints and drawings rather than on oil painting. Embracing “imagination, dreams, and allegory,” the selection includes Victor Hugo, Charles Meyron, Rodolphe Bresdin, and some early French photographers, all of whom relied on inner visions more that the objective world.

Also at the Clark is the latest in the First Sunday Free series on December 7. Besides free admission, the museum offers Beasts and Bones from 1 through 4 p.m.  The focus is on Hugh Hayden’s the End, installed on the Clark campus as part of the outdoor sculpture exhibition Ground/work 2025. Drop-in, family-friendly activities planned around the work, which resembles the rib cage of a long extinct giant, include sketching from a skeleton, a video from the artist, an expedition through the frozen Williamstown landscape to see the sculpture itself, and a chance to plant your own mini sculpture on a map of the Clark campus. Free, no registration required.

The Dutch Republic’s celebrated religious tolerance made it a refuge for religious minorities and dissidents from around Europe, including a group of English refugees who later became the Pilgrims of New England and Jews who played a major part in Dutch 17th-century culture. The  visual record of the role Dutch Jews played as patrons,  collectors, and subjects in the art of the Dutch Golden Age is particularly prominent in the work of Rembrandt van Rijn, who lived in the heart of Amsterdam’s Jewish district.

Ferdinand Bol, Judah and Tamar (detail), 1644. Oil on canvas. Robert Dawson Evans Collection. Photo: MFA

The Museum of Fine Arts exhibition, Reality and Imagination: Rembrandt and the Jews in the Dutch Republic, which opens on December 12, includes paintings and prints by Rembrandt and his school, depicting their Jewish neighbors as art patrons, subjects in portraits, and in Old Testament scenes. The Rembrandt material is combined with Dutch Judaica, including one of the oldest surviving pairs of Dutch silver Torah finials.

Old timers in Cambridge might recall the dramatic December 1973 theft from the Fogg Art Museum of more than 6,000 (exact number unknown) gold, silver, and bronze coins minted in ancient Greece and Rome. It was a heist that the Harvard Crimson reported was “believed to be the largest art theft in U.S. history.” The coins, an essential part of Harvard’s teaching collections, were valued at $2 million at the time, more than $8.5 million in today’s money (a figure later far surpassed by the even more notorious 1990 theft of works from Boston’s Gardner Museum). More than 40 FBI agents and state and local police worked on the case, later identified and arrested the thieves and eventually recovered most of the stolen coins, about 85% of them. Some 3,000 were found buried in Rhode Island and State Police worked with an informant to recover 2,883 more. A cache of more than 800 was found in Canada with an American art smuggler.

Tetradrachm of Katane signed by Herakleidas, Greek, 406–405 BCE. Silver. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Frederick M. Watkins, 1972.134.

More than half a century later, an Art Study Center Seminar at the Harvard Art Museums on December 12 will explore the latest ongoing efforts to recover the remaining plundered coins, most of which probably entered the commercial art market. The coins were only partly catalogued and photographed before the theft, making their identification in auction catalogues and dealers’ records especially challenging. “AI at the Museums— Coin Recovery Project,”  held from 11 a.m. to noon, will explore how researchers and computer scientists are using artificial intelligence to bring a nearly impossible task into the realm of the feasible.

Docents at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, which styles itself “CCMoA,” will turn the tables when they organize an exhibition instead of just guiding tours of them.  Preparation for Docent Curated from the CCMoA Permanent Collection, opening December 18, will also add important research on the museum’s holdings of some 2,000 works.

— Peter Walsh

Classical Music

Emmanuel Music’s Ryan Turner. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio
Presented by Emmanuel Music
December 13 at 7:30 p.m. and 14 at 2 p.m.
Emmanuel Church

Ryan Turner leads Emmanuel Music in Bach’s sprawling oratorio that spans Advent to Epiphany. Soloists include Charles Blandy, Carley DeFranco, Jonas Budris, and Dana Whiteside.

Baroque Christmas
Presented by Handel & Haydn Society
December 18 at 7:30 p.m. and 21 at 3 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

Scott Allen Jarrett leads H&H’s annual Christmas program. This year the lineup features music by J. S. and J. L. Bach, as well as Christoph Graupner’s Magnificat.

A Boston Christmas
Presented by Back Bay Chorale
December 19 at 7:30 p.m. and 20 at 4 p.m.
Old South Church, Boston

Stephen Spinelli leads BBC’s annual holiday concert which, this year, features the world premiere of Michael Cheng’s Ring out, ye bells. Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols is also on the docket, as well as carols sung with audience participation.

Blue Heron on stage for its Christmas in Medieval England program. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Christmas in 16^th-century Spain
Presented by Blue Heron
December 19 at 8 p.m. and 20 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
First Church in Cambridge

This year, Blue Heron survey’s 16^th-century Spanish music related to the holiday season. Music by Morales, Guerrero, and Flecha are among the highlights.

The Midnight Cry
Presented by Boston Camerata
December 21, 4 p.m.
First Church in Cambridge

Anne Azéma leads Boston Camerata in a program of seasonal songs, hymns, anthems, and carols from early-American history.

The Seraphim Singers in action. Photo: courtesy of the artist

A Seraphim Christmas
Presented by Seraphim Singers
December 20 at 8 p.m. and 21 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Holy Name Parish, West Roxbury (Saturday); Trinity Parish, Newton Centre (Sunday afternoon); First Church in Cambridge (Sunday night)

Eric Christopher Perry and Seraphim Singers are joined by The Bitumen Brass Quartet for a holiday program that promises to mix familiar seasonal fare with new works.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

The Seimiosis Quartet. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Semiosis Quartet and Brian Church
December at 11 7:30 p.m.
Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, Mass.

The late, revered Boston composer Lee Hyla (1952-2014) is the centerpiece of this Boston-centric concert by contemporary music ensemble the Semiosis Quartet, who will take on Hyla’s daunting, and riveting, Howl, his setting of the masterwork by poet Allen Ginsberg. Baritone Brian Church, who had been working with Hyla on the piece before the composer’s death, will give his first performance of the text. The concert will also feature two other pieces by Boston composers — Stefanie Lubkowski’s This is the light of autumn . . . and an excerpt from Curtis Hughes’s String Quartet No. 2. Both Lubkowski and Hughes studied with Hyla, who was co-chair of New England Conservatory’s composition department.

— Jon Garelick

Roots and World Music

Singer Michelle Willson in performance. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Michelle  Willson
Dec. 11, 7 p.m.
Mechanics Hall Club 321, Worcester

With her soulful swagger, Michelle Willson has long been one of the area’s finest purveyors of swinging jump blues and early R&B. The WICN radio host will be reuniting the band from her Rounder release Wake Up Call: Zac Casher (drums), Ken Clark (organ), Mike Mele (guitar) and Scott Shetler (saxophone) for this cabaret-style event in the Washburne Hall inside Mechanics Hall.

Boston Music Awards
Dec. 17
Big Night Live

Over the years the Boston Music Awards have waxed and waned in relevance. The past few editions have seen the BMAs bounce back in large part because of how the event has been embraced by the local hip-hop community. (Full disclosure: I’m a nominee in the music journalism category, and also submitted suggestions for some of the artists and organizations who ended up on this year’s ballot.) One major improvement: the reggae category has been turned into the more inclusive Afro-Caribbean category, with soca and Afrobeats artists now nominated. One hopes that in the future discrete categories will be created that recognize the local bluegrass and Celtic scenes as well as non-Latin or Afro-Caribbean world music acts. The event will include many awards given out in rapid-fire succession along with mini-sets from nominees The Far Out, Miranda Rae, Megan From Work, Nate Perry & Ragged Company, ISHA!, and EXITFAME.

Klezmer clarinet master Michael Winograd. Photo: Erika Kapin Photography

Somerville Chanukah Party
Dec. 17, 7 p.m.
The Somerville Armory

For the third straight year, the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music is celebrating the holiday of lights with a klezmer bash at the Armory. This year features klezmer clarinet master Michael Winograd and an all-star band performing the music from Tanz! Live in NYC, a new live recording that pays tribute to an influential ’50s klezmer album. Also on hand: Levyosn and the Rachel Linsky Dancers.

Deke Dickerson and Jittery Jack
Dec. 20, 5:30 p.m.
The Burren

Deke Dickerson isn’t just a guitar hero. He’s a global ambassador for classic American roots music, bringing his love and mastery of hillbilly, rockabilly, blues, and early rock ‘n roll to audiences around the world. He’s joined by Boston-based international rockabilly festival headliners Jittery Jack with Amy Griffin on guitar for an early evening of musical excitement.

— Noah Schaffer

Jazz

Melissa Kassel-Tom Zicarelli Group
December 7 at 6:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

The long-running Kassel-Zicarelli Group — featuring the assured risk-taking and warmth of singer Kassel and the compositions of pianist Zicarelli, as well as standards — makes its regular stop at the Lilypad with saxophonist Bill Jones, bassist Bruce Gertz, and drummer Gary Fieldman. The band combines crafty songwriting with occasional free-form improv.

Mr Sun Plays Ellington’s Nutcracker
December 7 at 7 p.m.
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, Mass.

The Ellington band’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite has been equally revered among jazz and classical heads. Not long ago, the bluegrass-folk-roots supergroup Mr Sun took on Billy Strayhorn’s Nutcracker score for Ellington, coming up with a quartet version, which was eventually expanded for auxiliary string ensemble, leaving plenty of room for fresh improvisation as well as transcriptions of the original recorded solos by the likes of Johnny Hodges and Lawrence Brown. The core Mr Sun quartet — fiddler Darol Anger, mandolinist Joe K. Walsh, guitarist Grant Gordy, and bassist Aidan O’Donnell — bring their touring Nutcracker production to Groton Hill, with “additional regional string players to re-create a full orchestra of sound.”

Delfeayo Marsalis “Big Easy Holiday Bash”
December 11-13
Arrow Street Arts, Cambridge, Mass.

Delfeayo Marsalis headlines this three-night event with his Uptown Jazz Orchestra, performing Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite” (see Mr Sun, Dec. 7) in its entirety. Marsalis will also perform other “jazz favorites” joined by singer Nicole Zuraitis. Boston choreographer Adrienne T. Hawkins is setting the “Nutcracker” with performers Russel Furgerson and Tron Hunt. Says Marsalis, “We are going to bring a bit of the New Orleans brass band sound, mix it with the sophisticated orchestral sounds of Duke Ellington, and a bit of the nightclub sound for a unique experience you won’t find anywhere else.”

Myanna
December 12 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Jazz-funk saxophonist and songwriter Myanna is joined for this show by the exceptional singer Cassandra McKinley and the venerable Ken Clark Organ Trio.

Kneebody will be performing at the Regattabar, Photo: courtesy of the artist

Kneebody
December 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

The groove-centric post-modern quartet returns to Boston with original members Adam Benjamin (keyboards), Shane Endsley (trumpet), Ben Wendel (tenor saxophone), and Nate Wood (bass and drums).

The young saxophonist and composer Edmar Colón. Photo: Robert Torres

Stringfest: Edmar Colón Ensemble
December 13 at 3 p.m.
Salvation Army Kroc Center, Boston
FREE

The exciting young saxophonist and composer Edmar Colón fronts this Stringfest concert from the Celebrity Series of Boston’s Neighborhood Arts program, performing with his own band along with youth ensembles from the Boston Music Project, City Strings United, and Project STEP. “The youth ensembles open the concert with winter selections, followed by Colón’s ensemble and side-by-side jazz-inspired interpretations of Puerto Rican folk songs.” It’s free, but first come, first served.

Aardvark Christmas Concert
December 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Church of the Covenant, Boston

The magnificent Aardvark Jazz Orchestra offers its 53^rd (!) annual Christmas concert in the very location where the band started, in December 1973, the Church of the Covenant on Newbury Street in Boston. “In honor of America’s 250^th Anniversary, Aardvark will perform ‘Shepherd’s Carol’ by Revolutionary War-era Boston composer William Billings, the African-American spiritual ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain,’ and the lovely ‘Cradle in Bethlehem,’ made famous by Nat King Cole.” The band will also give the premiere of “The Work,” a new gospel-inflected piece by Aardvark founder and music director Mark Harvey and “an energetic arrangement” of the 17^th-century Advent hymn “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” which was performed at that first concert in 1973. The band’s wonderful singer, Grace Hughes, takes on the vocal duties. Proceeds from the concert go to the Greater Boston Food Bank.

The Either/Orchestra — back after a six-year hiatus. Photo: Eric Antoniou

Either/Orchestra
December 17 at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

After a six-year hiatus, the Either/Orchestra is back to play on “the exact 40^th anniversary of their first show,” December 17, 1985, at the Cambridge Public Library. The current line-up includes a cast of characters spanning the band’s entire history: trumpets Tom Halter and Dan Rosenthal; trombone Joel Yennior; saxophones Sam Spear (the one brand new addition), Russ Gershon (E/O founder and musical director), and Charlie Kohlhase; pianist Alexei Tsiganov; bassist Rick McLaughlin; drummer Brooke Sofferman; and conguero Vicente Lebron. Th first show has sold out; a second has been added. See Arts Fuse preview

Vocalist José James will perform at the Regattabar. Photo: courtesy of the artist

José James
December 18 at 7:30 and 9:30
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

José James’s 2021 Merry Christmas from José James (Rainbow Blonde) is a real jazz album and it’s pretty damned good — more than just the usual suspects in the holiday song selection (“I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and “My Favorite Things,” thank you very much), and sung in James’s warm, pliant baritone, honestly and with swing, but not too much swing.

Dave Bryant “Third Thursdays”
December 18 at 8 p.m.
Harvard-Epworth Church, Cambridge, Mass.

Harmolodic keyboard master and composer Dave Bryant is joined for this edition of his Third Thursdays series by saxophonist Neil Leonard, bassist John Turner, and drummer Chris Bowman.

John Pizzarelli
December 19 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli has more than one Christmas album under his belt (including one with James Taylor), so we expect he’ll be swinging a few holiday nuggets at these shows. Otherwise, expect graciously direct, understated delivery of standards old and new (he does have a McCartney album), and the drummerless set-up of the Nat “King” Cole Trio.

— Jon Garelick

Author Events

Holiday Grown Up Book Fair at Trillium Brewing! – Porter Square Books
December 7 from 12- 4 p.m.
Trillium Brewing~Fort Point Location, 50 Thompson Pl. Boston, MA
Free

“Join us on Sunday, December 7 from 12-4 p.m. at Trillium Brewing’s Fort Point location for a Grown Up Book Fair! This Holiday Grown Up Book Fair will have everything you love about school book fairs, including all of those fun gift-y items you remember, plus beer! It’s the perfect time to get some holiday shopping done.”

Winter Warehouse Sale Last Day – Harvard Book Store
December 7 at 9 a.m.
330 Reservoir Street, Needham, MA
Free

“The Harvard Book Store Warehouse Sale features thousands of new books deeply discounted up to 40-80% off the list price. The sale features books across genres, hardcover and paperback, adult and children’s literature. For fans of our used books department, a featured selection is available at the sale to browse as well. The Warehouse Sale also features other bookish merchandise including totes, stationary, and apparel.”

Tracy K. Smith at Harvard Book Store
Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times
December 8 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Drawing on deep passion and personal experience, former US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith demystifies the art form that has too often been mischaracterized as “inaccessible,” “irrelevant,” or “intimidating.” She argues that poetry is rooted in fundamentally human qualities innate to our capacities to love, dream, question, and cultivate community.

Lifting the veil on her own creative process, Smith shows us how reading and writing poetry allows us to better confront life’s many uncertainties and losses, build camaraderie with strangers, and understand ourselves more fully. In six insightful chapters, she grounds readers in the technical elements of the craft and provides close readings of the works of contemporary poets such as Joy Harjo, Danez Smith, and Francisco Márquez, alongside classic poems by Dickinson, Keats, Millay, and others. By reimaging and reexamining the age-old art form, Fear Less is a warm invitation to find meaning, consolation, and hope through poetry for poetry fans and newcomers to the art form.”

John Fabian Witt at Harvard Book Store
The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America
December 9 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In 1922, a young idealist named Charles Garland rejected a million-dollar inheritance. In a world of shocking wealth disparities, shameless racism, and political repression, Garland opted instead to invest in a future where radical ideas—like working-class power, free speech, and equality—might flourish. Over the next two decades, the Garland Fund would nurture a new generation of wildly ambi­tious progressive projects.

The men and women around the Fund were rich and poor, white and Black. They cooperated and bickered; they formed rivalries, fell in and out of love, and made mistakes. Yet shared beliefs linked them throughout. They believed that Amer­ican capitalism was broken. They believed that American democracy (if it had ever existed) stole from those who had the least. And they believed that American institutions needed to be radically remade for the modern age.

By the time they spent the last of the Fund’s resources, their outsider ideas had become mass movements battling to transform a nation.”

Christmas Ghost Stories! – Brookline Booksmith
December 9 at 7 p.m.
United Parish in Brookline, 210 Harvard St Brookline, MA
Tickets are $7.18

“In the bleak midwinter, what better way to pass the long hours than ghost stories in the dark? Brookline Booksmith is resurrecting the Victorian custom of Christmas ghost stories with some of your favorite authors!

Join us at United Parish of Brookline for a candlelit evening of unsettling tales read by Kylie Lee Baker, Kayla Cottingham, and Nicky Gonzalez. Copies of each author’s books will be available for purchase at the event.”

Natan Last at Harvard Book Store
Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle
December 10 at 7 p.m.
Free

“From Wordle to Spelling Bee, we live in a time of word game mania. Crosswords in particular gained renewed popularity during the Covid-19 lockdown, when games became another kind of refuge. Today, 36 million Americans solve crosswords once a week or more, and nearly 23 million solve them daily. Yet, as longtime New Yorker crossword contributor Natan Last will tell you, the seemingly apolitical puzzle has never been more controversial—or more interesting.

A surprisingly ubiquitous influence in the worlds of art, literature, and technology, as Last demonstrates, the puzzle and its most popular purveyors—including publications such as The New York Times, still the gold standard for word games—have in recent years been challenged for the way they prioritize certain cultures and perspectives as the norm, demoting others to obscurity. At the same time, the crossword has never been more democratic. A larger, younger, more tech-savvy, and solidaristic group of people have fallen in love with puzzle solving, ushering in a more inclusive community of constructors, challenging the very idea of what “normal” actually means.”

Patti Smith – Brookline Booksmith
Bread of Angels
December 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Chevalier Theatre, 30 Forest St, Medford, MA
Tickets from $65 to $320

“On November 4, 2025, fifteen years after publication of the National Book Award Winning classic Just Kids and capping off the 50th Anniversary Tour of Horses, Smith’s iconic first album, Random House, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, will publish poet, writer, and performer Patti Smith’s long-awaited memoir, Bread of Angels.

In Smith’s most intimate and visionary work, she describes her post-World War II childhood in working class Philadelphia and South Jersey, her teenage years when the first glimmers of art and romance take hold, her rise as punk rock icon to her retreat from public life when she meets her one true love and starts a family on the shores of Lake Saint Clair, Michigan. As Smith suffers profound losses, she also returns to writing, the one constant on a lifelong path driven by artistic freedom and the power of the imagination.

‘November 4th is especially meaningful to me,” says Smith. “It’s the birthday of Robert Mapplethorpe and the anniversary of my late husband Fred “Sonic” Smith’s passing. It took a decade to write this book, grappling with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime. I’m hoping that people will find something they need.'”

— Matt Hanson