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.

Film

A scene from Naruse Mikio’s 1955 film Floating Clouds. Photo: HFA

Floating Clouds… The Cinema of Naruse Mikio screening at the Harvard Film Archive, through November 3.

A generous retrospective of the films made by a Japanese filmmaker Harvard Film Archive calls “still underrated and underappreciated.” Here is what The Arts Fuse‘s Betsy Sherman wrote about the HFA’s 2005 Centennial Tribute to a “Japanese master” who spotlit “the plight of women on the margins of society”: “Was he a precursor to Lars Von Trier, who seems to take sadistic delight in putting his female protagonists through the wringer? Or was Naruse an artist of rare courage, who could depict the pitfalls of desire while retaining a respect for those who fall prey to it?” Arts Fuse preview

— Bill Marx

The Great Remakes
July 7 through September 1
Somerville Theatre in Davis Square

The cleverly curated series screens double features that pair films in which both the original and the remake are solid movies. “The Great Remakes series celebrates films where both versions are terrific movies that complement each other in a variety of ways.” Double Features include: The Thing, The Fly, 3:10 to Yuma, The Parent Trap, The Departed & Internal Affairs, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Airplane & Zero Hour, Cat People, Cape Fear, and A Star Is Born (1954 & 2018) Complete details and times

A scene from Kaneto Shindô’s Kuroneko.

Chilling Tales from Japan
Tuesdays in July
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

According to the Coolidge Corner Theatre website: “As a way of chilling their bones in the heat, the Japanese challenge themselves to watch kaidan, or ghost stories known as Kimodameshi.” Here is a sampling, co-presented with the Japan Society of Boston.

Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindô) on July 8

Demon Pond (Masahiro Shinoda) on July 15

Ringu (Hideo Nakata) on July 22

Why Are You You?
July 9 at 7 p.m.
Regent Theatre, Arlington

A feature documentary about the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) program where adolescents claimed to discover their true selves and were empowered to inspire positive change in the world. Forty years later, those former participants reflect on how being a part of the movement, and its complicated past, continued to exert a positive impact on their lives.

Josh O’Connor in La Chimera. Photo: Ad Vitam Distribution

La Chimera
July 11 at 7 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston

This story of a British archaeologist, just released from prison and grieving his lost love, who falls back in with a gang of petty thieves who are plundering pre-Roman tombs in the Italian countryside. The film can seem unstructured, but director Alice Rohrwacher goes at her own pace, and she strategically directs the attentive viewer’s attention to revealing details in the narrative’s many detours. According to the Arts Fuse review: “La Chimera celebrates the porousness of borders: between time periods, spiritual realms, and all living beings (one of the tombaroli says the Etruscans believed ‘the flight of birds could predict our destiny’). The film also posits the strength of connection: the tensile strength of a piece of red yarn can support a passage between states of consciousness.”

Trailer Treats
July 10 at 7 p.m.
Brattle Theatre in Cambridge

The Brattle’s Annual Trailer Show in 35mm of short films, cartoons, and music videos from the theater’s archive

Kathleen Chalfant in a scene from Familiar Touch. Photo: courtesy of New Directors/New Films

Familiar Touch
July 11 – 17
Brattle Theatre in Cambridge

Sarah Friedland’s feature charts the path of octogenarian Ruth’s shifting memories and desires in a memory care facility. The film is rooted in the character’s perspective as we watch her accept and adapt to her new life where at first she feels out of place. It is a deeply compassionate film, brought to life through Kathleen Chalfant’s masterful and heartfelt performance. (Arts Fuse reviews here and here)

Christiane F.
July 11 – 14
Brattle Theatre in Cambridge

Christiane Felscherinow achieved dubious fame when she fell into heroin addiction and prostitution on the streets of West Berlin at age 13. Her story became a book, We Children of Bahnhof Zoo, and finally this unblinking biopic by Uli Edel (The Baader Meinhof Complex) in 1981

Sunlight
July 13 at 7 p.m.
Tuesday July 15 at 7 p.m.
Somerville Theatre in Davis Square

I am delighted to see this film playing locally, having seen the premier in Edinburgh last August at the city’s Fringe Festival. It was co-written (with Shenoah Allen) by Nina Conti, the brilliant ventriloquist, of whom I am an irrepressible fan. The plot is inspired by her performances with her Monkey puppet. She plays Jane, who creates a new persona when she disappears into a monkey costume. She strives to break free from a toxic relationship when she encounters a suicidal radio show host, Roy (Allen), who “presents a path to freedom,” The film is a darkly funny and unconventional love story between a man and a woman who doesn’t want to come out of a monkey suit. Executive produced by This Is Spinal Tap creator Christopher Guest.

Goddess of Slide: The Forgotten Story of Ellen McIlwaine
July 13 at 7 p.m.
Regent Theatre, Arlington

Alfonso Maiorana (Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World) directs this story of groundbreaking slide-guitarist Ellen McIlwaine’s pursuit to claim her rightful place in music history. McIlwaine was one of the first women to choose the slide guitar as her instrument of choice. She would lose out on lucrative record contracts and management, all because she refused to conform to what managers and music producers believed an up-and-coming artist should look and sound like. Live Q&A follows with the filmmaker.

Outdoor Screenings

The Coolidge Corner Theater “En Plein Air” screenings will take place at the Kennedy Greenway, the Charles River Speedway, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, the Rocky Woods, and more!

All shows begin at sunset. All films are linked with details and locations.

Point Break (Wednesday, July 16)

Mean Girls (Wednesday, July 23)

The Blob (1988) (Wednesday, August 13)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Wednesday, August 20)

Cemetery Cinema: The Sweet Hereafter and Gates of Heaven (Tuesday, August 26)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) (September 17)

I Know What You Did Last Summer (October 15)

— Tim Jackson

A scene from Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse. Photo: courtesy: Zipatone Films)

Boston Jewish Film: Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse 
Presented by Brookline Booksmith at Coolidge Corner Theatre
July 24 at 7 p.m.
Free

“This insightful documentary delves into the life and work of Art Spiegelman, the Queens-raised artist who revolutionized comics by exploring dark, complex themes. Shaped by his Holocaust-survivor parents and inspired by MAD magazine’s irreverent satire, Spiegelman’s most famous work, MAUS, is a poignant Holocaust narrative that redefined the medium. The film showcases his resistance to fascism, from Nazis to Trump, and features rich illustrations from his comics, highlighting his significant impact as an artist and cultural critic.” Followed by a conversation with director/producer Philip Dolin, moderated by Emmy Waldman, PhD.

— Matt Hanson

Pick of the Week

The Order
Amazon Prime

Jude Law in The Order

Justin Kurzel’s film from a screenplay by Zach Baylin (King Richard, Creed III), revolves around an FBI agent who travels to Idaho to track down a white supremacist fringe group called The Order. Nicholas Hoult plays Bob Mathews, who led a violent guerilla offshoot of Richard Butler’s National Socialist Aryan Nations. Among other violent acts, Mathews organized the assassination of Alan Berg, the Denver radio call-in host, in 1984. Their mission was inspired by five steps outlined in The Turner Diaries: recruiting, fundraising (or bank robbing), armed revolution, domestic terror, and assassination. The notorious book was one inspiration for the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Jude Law disappears into his role as Agent Terry Husk — it is one of his finest performances. Kurzel’s (Macbeth, Nitram) brutal first film The Snowtown Murders, also based on true events, anticipated the style and intensity of his latest film. Perhaps the film’s subject matter is too timely for our rocky political moment: it seems to have had little exposure in theaters. It is certainly worth the $3.99 rental fee.

— Tim Jackson

Theater

Our Domestic Resurrection Revolution in Progress!, performed, written, and staged by Bread & Puppet at the company’s farm at Glover, VT, July 13 through August 31 at 3 p.m.

A “serious and silly circus.” “Ladles and Jellyspoons! The one and only Bread & Puppet Circus is back with Anti-Empire Art that acknowledges our beloved Mother Dirt, who makes us and unmakes us, and who presents urgently needed domestic resurrection services for the victims of this latest genocide. We are joined by Palestinian cranes on their way to Washington to replace the excrement in the White House with organic bird droppings, green frogs who teach the art of hopping over seemingly insurmountable problems, and gaggles of kindergarten butterflies who frolic to their hearts’ desire.”

Out of Character written & performed by Ari’el Stachel. Directed by Tony Taccone. Berkshire Theatre Group Presents a Berkeley Repertory Theatre staging at the Unicorn Theatre, 6 East Street, Stockbridge, through July 26.

“This one-person solo play takes audiences on an intimate journey through identity, mental health, and self-acceptance.”

Que Diablos! Fausto, adapted by Jesús Valles from Christopher Marlowe’s play, Doctor Faustus. Directed by Armando Rivera. A Teatro en El Verano touring production that will be performed in parks across the state of Rhode Island, including Payne Park, Dexter Park, Roger Williams Park, Jenks Park, and more, through August 1.

“In the depths of the earth between heaven and hell, demons and humans fiercely fight for souls. One such human, Faust, lets his desire for knowledge and power lead him into a deal with the devil himself! A darkly comedic, bilingual take on the 17th-century classic.”

A scene from The Heron’s Flight. Photo: Double Edge Theatre

The Heron’s Flight, written and performed by Double Edge Theatre. Directed by Jennifer Johnson and Travis Coe. At 948 Conway Rd, Ashfield, MA, July 11 through August 3.

This is a “performance which travels through the gardens, barns, and waterways of Double Edge’s Farm Center. A great blue heron perches silently in a tree, then breaks the surface of the cool green water. Familiar and mythological creatures gather for a Midsummer Feast — an explosive celebration of love, dance, and flight. Walk with us toward transformation in an impossible world as we embrace the knowledge of the land — that each season of life is beloved.”

The Victim by Lawrence Goodman. Directed by Daniel Gidron. Staged by Shakespeare & Company at 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, MA, through July 20.

A description of the play according to the Shakes & Co website: “A successful New York doctor whose racial diversity training has gone horribly wrong. A health aide grappling with racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Holocaust survivor facing her own horror, and finding her way back to love and healing. Three women, three interconnected monologues. Who gets to call herself a victim? Who is the perpetrator?”

The Garbologists by Lindsay Joelle. Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw. Staged by Gloucester Stage Company at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, through July 26.

The plot of this comedy, according to the GSC website: “When Marlowe joins Danny’s route, the two get off to a rocky start with constant sparring and squabbling over everything from trash hunting to 19th century printmaking. Danny, a white, blue-collar, NYC sanitation worker, values seniority and ‘house rules.’ While Marlowe, a Black, Ivy-league educated sanitation rookie, is determined to prove a point and make amends. These two worlds collide and improbable bonds form.”

A young Tennessee Williams. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Camino Real by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Dustin Will. Staged by Williamstown Theatre Festival at its MainStage Theatre, 1000 Main Street, Williamstown, July 17 through August 3.

Be forewarned: the WTF website is about as hard to navigate as Williams’s fantasy land. According to the WTF publicity, the play was “written in the lead up to the McCarthy trials. Camino Real, Williams said, is ‘…a play that is less written than painted. A play that is painted? Why not! At least I could try. I did. And here it is.’ The Camino Real is a dead end, a police state in an imagined Latin-Mediterranean-American country, and an inescapable condition. Characters from history and literature such as Don Quixote, Casanova, and Camille inhabit this phantasmagoric plaza where corruption and alienation have nearly destroyed the human spirit. Enter Kilroy, a prize-winning boxer and all-American fella with ‘a heart as big as the head of a baby.'”

Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Robert O’Hara. Staged by Williamstown Theatre Festival at its MainStage Theatre, 1000 Main Street, Williamstown, July 17 through August 3.

WTF bills this early Williams script as “a homoerotic Prison Drama.” “A front row seat to America’s prison industrial complex whose atrocities are too often avoided and denied.”

 Kufre n’ Quay by Mfoniso Udofia. Directed by John Oluwole ADEkkoje at the Boston Arts Academy’s Main Stage Theatre, 174 Ipswich St., Boston, July 10 through 26.

“In her fifth installment of the Ufot Family Cycle, Kufre n’ Quay, playwright Mfoniso Udofia tells the coming of age story of a 12-year-old African boy who arrives in New York’s Little Senegal and joins a youth center. Set in Harlem in 2019, Kufre, son of Iniabiasi and grandson of Abasiama, forms a friendship with an African American girl. The play explores the ways in which we navigate the contrast between African and Black American culture. ”

The Understudy by Theresa Rebeck. Directed by Paula Plum. Staged by Hub Theatre Company at Club Café, 209 Columbus Ave. Boston, July 19 through August 2.

A satiric look at life in the theater that “explores what happens when the drama isn’t just on the stage.” “Crammed with craziness and calamities,” according to the Hub Theatre Company’s publicity, this is “a laugh-filled love letter to the unsung heroes of the stage.”

A Hundred Words for Snow by Tatty Hennessy. Directed by Michelle Ong-Hendrick. Staged by Chester Theatre at Town Hall Theatre, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, through July 13.

The plot: “after her father’s unexpected death, 15-year-old Rory discovers that he was planning a trip for the two of them to the North Pole. So, she picks up his ashes, her passport, and her mother’s credit card, and sets out to make good on his plans.”

— Bill Marx

Visual Art

Liz Collins, Rainbow Mountain Weather, 2024. Photograph by Patty van den Elshout. Image courtesy of The Artist and CANDICE MADEY, New York. © Liz Collins.

Liz Collins, cutting edge fashion designer, installation and performance artist, and New York-based Queer feminist, will open the first US survey of her work at the RISD Museum in Providence on July 19. Liz Collins: Motherlode features large-scale three-dimensional work, fashion, needlework, performance documentation, and ephemera produced since the 1980s, all centering back into color, pattern, and textiles. Although it is almost a cliché in these multimedia days, the museum praises her “eye-dazzling creations that disrupt the boundaries between art, design, and craft.”

Gertrude Abercrombie was one of those 20th-century American artists who managed their entire careers outside of New York and Paris. Working away from the mainstream tends to make for distinctive and individualistic work and lives. Abercrombie had both. Her parents were peripatetic opera singers and her friends included jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughn. Described in Chicago, where she lived from childhood, as “the queen of the bohemian artists,” she painted what she called “simple things that are a little strange.”

Gertrude Abercrombie: The Whole World Is a Mystery opens at the Colby College Museum of Art, which co-organized the show, on July 12. The retrospective is the first nationally touring presentation of the artist’s work and its title is one of her observations on life and art. It celebrates, the museum says, “an artist who has been historically marginalized due to who she was and how she lived and worked. She created a universe that broadens our understanding of American art and identity.”

The career of longtime Newport, Rhode Island, resident Howard Gardner Cushing has been noted as a bridge between 19th-century realism and the modernist innovations of the early 20th. The prolific artist was influenced by James McNeill Whistler, Impressionism, and Symbolism, and he exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. At the Newport Art Museum, the Cushing Memorial Building, founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who also founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, honors his name.

Howard Gardner Cushing, Fantasy Landscape (Study for the Whitney Studio Mural), c. 1911. Oil on canvas, 21 x 26 in. Private Collection. Photo Credit: Alexander Nesbitt

Howard Gardner Cushing: A Harmony of Line and Color opens at the Newport Art Museum on July 12. Aspiring to celebrate Cushing’s contributions to American Art, the show features many works not seen for decades, some not since his death in 1916.

The invention of printmaking, especially intaglio and woodcut, created an explosion of artistic production as artists developed new skills and found new markets. The 16th century was a high water mark for dramatic, virtuoso displays of draftsmanship, technique, and imagination in prints. The 70 examples in the Museum of Fine Art’s The Bold and the Beautiful: 16th-Century Prints from the Myron Miller Collection feature etchings, engravings, woodcuts, and drawings from one of the most sophisticated and impressive periods of Italian and Netherlandish printmaking. The works are selected from the collection assembled by Myron Miller of works on paper from the Renaissance to the present. Miller’s gift to the MFA is one of the largest donations of early European prints in decades.

A later innovation in the visual arts, the early 19th-century invention of the daguerreotype by the Frenchman Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre set off another major technological fad. Daguerreotype studios quickly popped up all over the world and they turned out so many pocket-sized portraits — millions a year in the United States alone — that they put the miniature painters out of business almost overnight. Much less common, thanks to technical complications like long exposure times, were the scenic outdoor images that developed before 1860.

St. Anthony Falls, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Attributed to Alexander Hesler (1823-1895) and Joel Whitney (1822-1886). Sixth plate daguerreotype. Greg French Collection.

Featuring 83 landscape and urban images selected from the few thousand examples that survive, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art’s The Scenic Daguerreotype in America 1840-1860 looks at the beginnings of American landscape photography with some of the earliest scenic daguerreotypes ever made. “These forgotten but pioneering daguerreotypes,” the museum says, created as the Hudson River School developed in landscape painting, “laid the foundation for the scenic and urban landscape tradition that would dominate American photography in the twentieth century.” The show opens in Hartford on July 10.

Opening a week later on July 17, the Wadsworth’s Having a Ball: Fancy Dress spotlights “fancy dress” costumes of the 19th and early 20th century — an old school version of cosplay. Often created to order and worn only once for thematic balls, pageants, and parades, these fantasy creations were, according to the museum, “akin to today’s Halloween costumes” in allowing their wearers to be, albeit briefly, somebody else. The exhibition is the latest in a series drawn from the museum’s long-hidden textile collections.

— Peter Walsh

Roots and World Music

Outrageous Fortune Jug Band with Paul Rishell & Annie Raines
July 9 at 7 p.m.
Allen Center, Newton

Two of New England’s most esteemed early blues ensembles are joining forces for this outdoor concert. The billing doesn’t explicitly state whether this is a double bill or a supergroup that combines the Outrageous Fortune trio and the Rishell & Raines duo, but either way there will be no shortage of rags, blues, and hollers.

Louisiana singer/guitarist Kenny Neal. Photo: Facebook

Kenny Neal Band
July 10 at 7 p.m.
Fallout Shelter, Norwood

Louisiana singer/guitarist Kenny Neal is perhaps the most prominent member of the first family of Baton Rouge swamp blues. He leads a crack band with a horn section that almost never makes it to New England. But a Maine festival date has allowed him to make this run, which also includes shows at the Payomet in Truro on July 9, Chan’s in Woonsocket on July 11, and Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club in Portsmouth on July 13.

Reggae on the Wharf featuring Papa Michigan and Dub Apocalypse
July 12, Doors at 8 p.m.
Electric Haze, Worcester
July 13, Noon to 6 p.m.
Tavern on the Wharf, Plymouth

One of the few live music highlights from the dark days of 2021 was a socially distanced show by Papa Michigan, the trailblazing rub-a-dub reggae artist who has been making his mark since he was half of the Studio One duo Michigan & Smiley. A phenomenal live performer, Michigan is finally returning to the area for this pair of shows presented by Reggae Takeova. This is a rare chance to hear top-notch reggae in Worcester on Saturday, followed by an outdoor Sunday afternoon in Plymouth that starts with the sound systems Top Notch Hi Power and DJ Bobby Steelz. Michigan will be backed by the crucial Dub Apocalypse at both shows.

The Cash Box Kings. Photo: Janet Mami Takayama

Cash Box Kings
July 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Bull Run Restaurant, Shirley

Do they still play the blues in Chicago? Maybe not as often as they used to, but the traditional Chicago shuffle isn’t going anywhere as long as this all-star unit is around. The band is co-led by singer/harpist Joe Nosek and the outstanding singer and songwriter Oscar Wilson.

Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival
Walsh Farm, Oak Hill, NY
July 16-20

Although it’s always worth the haul, the region’s biggest annual bluegrass bash has a few extra special events this year. Alice Gerrard, who will be 91 the week before the fest, will perform with Laurie Lewis as well take part in a celebration — in a set that also features Della Mae — of the centennial of her late duo partner Hazel Dickens. Sam Bush will play with his band, fiddle great Darol Anger will be along with his adventurous crew Mr. Sun, and both Bush and Anger will be part of an all-star tribute to upstate roots music stalwart Happy Traum. Other headliners including the Del McCoury Band, Sierra Hull, Steep Canyon Rangers, and the Rangers’ former member Woody Platt, who will play with his Bluegrass Gentlemen and also serve as the festival’s artist-in-residence.

Milton Wright presents “Jobe: The Concert Series”
July 20 at 3 p.m.
Tower Auditorium, MassArt, Boston

Milton Wright is one of Boston’s great musical treasures. The retired Boston judge began his career at the famed TK Records in Miami and has been a longtime part of Black Nativity. In recent years he’s focused on his musical adaptation of the Book of Job, will be fully staged again next year. In the meantime, this event will offer a concert version of the timely musical.

— Noah Schaffer

Popular Music

Ducks Ltd. with Trace Mountains
July 17 (doors at 6/show at 7:30)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ducks Ltd.’s 2024 tour opening for Ratboys did not include a stop in the Boston area. Therefore, I felt that it was worth the 1.5-hour drive to see them in Portland. After all, their debut LP (2021’s Modern Fiction) made me an instant fan and its follow-up, 2024’s Harm’s Way (my review is on this page), was an immediate shoe-in for my year-end favorites list (which is on this page). I am especially happy that I made the trip last year, as I will be out of town when they play the MFA on July 17.

Kristen Ford with Rachael Sage and Jocelyn Mackenzie
July 18 (doors at 6/show at 6:30)
The Burren, Somerville

“Queer, biracial, L.A. songwriter” — per her website (she is also one of my fellow Ohio natives) — Kristen Ford’s discography has come to include numerous original recordings, a Christmas album, an LP of instrumentals, and two Spooky Season Songcast records (Season 1 and Season 2) over the course of the past 17 years. According to Ani DiFranco, whose label Righteous Babe has released her most recent recordings, “I love this grrl [sic] so much [for] her take-no-prisoners approach to singing, playing, living, and performing.” Ford will showcase her soon-to-be-released album Pinto at The Burren on July 18. Musician, visual artist, and MPress Records founder Rachael Sage will preview material from her forthcoming LP Canopy and Ford’s labelmate Jocelyn Mackenzie will start off the evening.

Samantha Crain
July 18 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Warehouse XI, Somerville

Singer-songwriter, musician, and producer Samantha Crain returned in May with her first LP since 2020, Gumshoe. In the intervening five years, the Choctaw artist has issued an EP (I Guess We Live Here Now), covered Cyndi Lauper’s immortal “Time After Time” for an episode of Reservation Dogs (click here for the scene), and scored the highly praised film Fancy Dance, which is set on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation in Crain’s home state of Oklahoma. Gumshoe adds to the local, national, and international praise that Crain has garnered over her nearly 20-year recording career. And thanks to his having played, sung along to, and commented on her song “Dragonfly” on his BBC show, she can now count Iggy Pop as a fan (click here for the relevant portion).

Eddie Japan with Happy Little Clouds
July 19 (doors at 6/show at 7)
The Burren, Somerville

Eddie Japan’s five Boston Music Awards nominations won them the Best Live Act honor in 2013, the same year that they were the victors of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble. Since then, they have been contenders for four further BMAs and an equal number of New England Music Awards, at which they took home the prize for Video of the Year (“Time Machine”) in 2024. The septet’s profile has been heightened by their collaboration with The Cars’ keyboardist Greg Hawkes, who produced 2017’s Golden Age, played on two songs on last year’s Pop Fiction, and frequently toured with them. The band that this Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has deemed worthy of so much of his attention will be at The Burren on July 19. (This boston.com piece includes excerpts from my interviews with Hawkes and EJ co-lead singer David Santos.) Fellow Bostonians Happy Little Clouds will open with songs from the July 18 release Embers in tow.

— Blake Maddux

Lamb of God. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Lamb of God with Hatebreed and Shadows Fall
Presented by MGM Springfield at Mass Mutual Center
July 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Black Sabbath and its singer Ozzy Osbourne, who enjoyed a long solo career outside the band he helped launch in 1968, presumably retired on July 5 when they capped the massive “Back to the Beginning” fest in Birmingham, England. Lamb of God, which has been a driving force of modern heavy music since its arrival in 1994, was among those honoring the godfathers of heavy metal that day, incorporating a raging cover of the Black Sabbath tune “Children of the Grave” into its set. Let’s hope that juicy cut — which the band recorded as a single and released on streaming services — is part of the performance with the band plays the MassMutual Center in Springfield. Locally bred metal titans Shadows Fall, touting its first new songs since 2012, is also on the bill, along with long-running metal-meets-hardcore group Hatebreed for what is stacking up to be the metal show of the summer in these parts.

— Scott McLennan

Jazz

Accordionist Ted Reichman. Photo: Roulette

Point01 Percent
July 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

A very special opening act in this edition of the Point01 Percent residency: accordionist Ted Reichman, who has had long tenures in the bands of Anthony Braxton (a former teacher) and John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, and the Bogotá-born guitarist Lautaro Mantilla, who augments his playing with extended vocal techniques and electronics. They’re followed by Point01 (and Driff Records) regulars Blink, with saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra, guitarists Eric Hofbauer and Gabe Boyarin, bassist Nathan McBride, and drummer Eric Rosenthal.

Rafi Muriel y Grupo Gozarsa
July 10 a 6 p.m.
Long Live Roxbury Brewery & Taproom, Boston
FREE

The Long Live Roxbury folks continue to mine Boston’s rich vein of Afro-Cuban jazz. Tonight, it’s trumpeter Rafi Muriel leading a band in the traditional conjunto format, with fellow trumpeter Yibran Aponte, Cuban tres guitar player Andres Lope, bassist Lilibeth Espinosa, pianist Ariana Irizarry, conguero Vicente Lebron, bongo player Eries Vargas, and singer José Calderon. Bring your dancing shoes. (This is part of the Taproom’s free Thursday night series.)

Pianist Camila Cortina Bello. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Camila Cortina Bello Trio
July 10 at 6:30 p.m.
Eustis Estate, Milton, MA

The distinguished Cuban-born pianist and composer Camila Cortina Bello’s awards include selection as a Next Jazz Legacy Fellow from New Music USA for its initiative supporting emerging women in jazz. Schooled as a musicologist as well as a performer, the music she’s shared online shows a broad reach, clearly rooted in Cuban traditions but extending well beyond the montuno vamps of the dancehall — playful, exploratory, lyrical, with all manner of tickly changeups on the meter. For this Mandorla Music series show at the Eustis Estate, she leads a trio with Gerson Lazo Quiroga on electric bass and Ivanna Cuesta on drums.

Seth Meicht Quartet
July 11 at 7:30 p.m.
The Substation, Roslindale, MA

Saxophonist Seth Meicht, familiar to Boston audiences from Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club and the Makanda Project (see July 12), fronts a terrific band of his own — guitarist Eric Hofbauer, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Curt Newton — in a program of originals and pieces by William Parker, Eddie Harris, David Murray, and Carla Bley.

Makanda Project
July 12, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
First Church, Roxbury, MA
10 Putnam Street
FREE

The long-running Makanda Project usually dedicates its concerts to the music of Makanda Ken McIntyre (1931-2001). For this show they will perform a set of compositions by the South African trumpeter and composer Feya Faku, who died last month, at 63. (Faku had performed with the Makanda Project during its 2017-18 season.) Featured between sets will be a reading by Regie Gibson, recently named the first Poet Laureate of Massachusetts. The 13-piece ensemble features reed players Kurtis Rivers, Seth Meicht, Temidayo Balogun, Brian Price, and Charlie Kohlhase; trumpeters Jerry Sabatini and Woody Pierre; trombonists Alfred Patterson, Richard Harper, and Sarah Politz; pianist (and Makanda musical director) John Kordalewski; bassist Avery Sharpe, and drummer Jocelyn Pleasant. It’s outdoors, and it’s free.

Jazz composer Ayn Inserto. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Ayn Inserto and Jeff Clausen Jazz Orchestra
July 16 at 7:30 p.m.
David Friend Recital Hall, Berklee College of Music, Boston
FREE

In March of last year, the jazz composer Ayn Inserto (assistant chair of Berklee’s affiliated departments of harmony and jazz composition) levitated the Regattabar with her fiery arrangements and original compositions for jazz orchestra. Now she and her Berklee colleague, trumpeter and composer Jeff Claassen are collaborating on a program of new new pieces, including Inserto’s Jazzhers commission “Trailblazer,” dedicated to the musician and educator Lisa Linde, founder of the nonprofit organization. As usual, Inserto has gathered some of the best players in town for the 17-piece band, including saxophonists Allan Chase, Rick Stone, Jon Bean, Mark Zaleski, and Kathy Olson; trumpeters Claassen, Bijon Watson, Dan Rosenthal, and Mathew Small; trombonists Randy Pingrey, Chris Gagne, Garo Saraydarian, and Jim Connolly; and a rhythm section of guitarist Eric Hofbauer, pianist Rebecca Cline, bassist Sam Lee, and drummer Austin McMahon. And it’s free.

Dave Bryant’s “Third Thursdays”
July 17 at 8 p.m.
Harvard-Epworth Church, Cambridge

The former Ornette Coleman keyboardist Dave Bryant continues his “harmolodic jazz series project,” joined by saxophonist Tom Hall, bassist Rick McLaughlin, and drummer James Kamal Jones for a program of original compositions and spontaneous explorations.”

Jake Rosenkalt Trio
July 18 at 10 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

Drummer and bandleader Jake Rosenkalt, a Berklee grad now relocated to Chicago, reunites with a couple of his mentors from the school, pianist/composer Kenny Werner and bassist John Lockwood. Werner and Lockwood are worth hearing in any context, and Rosenkalt’s 2023 album, Reset, with Lockwood, trumpeter Phil Grenadier, and guitarist Jack Kuelling, was choice — a mix of crafty originals, plus Ornette (“Humpty Dumpty”) and Miles & Gil (“Boplicity”).

— Jon Garelick

Classical

Soprano Karen Slack will perform at Shalin Liu Performance Center this week. Photo: courtesy of the artist

African Queens
Presented by Rockport Music
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, MA
July 10, 7:30 p.m.

Soprano Karen Slack brings her celebrated program of vocal music by Black composers to Rockport for a one-night-only event.

Cho plays Ravel
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
July 12, 8 p.m.

Pianist Seong-Jin Cho joins Andris Nelsons and the BSO for performances of both of Maurice Ravel’s piano concertos. Framing them are Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and La mer.

Thomas Adès conducts the BSO in his Inferno Suite Photo: Robert Torres

Thomas Adès conducts Sibelius
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
July 13, 2:30 p.m.

Thomas Adès steps in for an indisposed Esa-Pekka Salonen to lead the BSO in Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 and Violin Concerto. Pekka Kuusisto is the soloist in the latter. Also on the program is Gabriella Smith’s Tumblebird Contrails.

Longwood Symphony Orchestra
Presented by Boston Landmarks Orchestra
DCR Hatch Shell, Boston
July 16, 7 p.m.

The LSO, made up of players from Boston’s medical community, opens Landmarks’ summer season at the Hatch Shell with a program of music by Tchaikovsky, David Popper, Georges Enescu, and Dvorak.

Tosca
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
July 19, 8 p.m.

Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in a concert performance of Puccini’s popular tragedy. Kristine Opolais sings the title role and Bryn Terfel is Scarpia.

Pianist Yuja Wang performing at Jordan Hall in 2013. Photo: Robert Torres

Wang plays Prokofiev
Presented by Tanglewood Music Center
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
July 20, 2:30 p.m.

Pianist Yuja Wang joins the TMC Orchestra for a performance of Prokofiev’s knuckle-busting Piano Concerto No. 2. Berlioz’s hallucinogenic Symphonie fantastique rounds out the afternoon.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Author Events

Christopher Shaw Myers at Harvard Book Store
Robert Shaw: An Actor’s Life on the Set of JAWS and Beyond
July 7 at 7 p.m.
Free

“I have seen very few movies more captivating than Jaws, and very few actors more captivating than Robert Shaw. This book provides fascinating insight into a legend and his most legendary work.” —Mike Greenberg, ESPN anchor, author of Why My Wife Thinks I’m An Idiot and the novels My Father’s Wives and All You Could Ask For.

Aymann Ismail with Mafaz Al-Suwaidan – Brookline Booksmith
Becoming Baba
July 9 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In lucid, confident prose, Aymann Ismail questions the sturdy frameworks of religion and family, the legacies of his childhood, and what will become his children’s ethical and intellectual inheritance. To reckon unflinchingly with these questions offers him a road map for his young Muslim children on how to navigate the singular journey into adulthood.”

Mary Jo Bang in conversation with Stephanie Burt – Porter Square Books
“Paradiso”
July 10 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Mary Jo Bang’s translation of ‘Paradiso’ completes her groundbreaking new version of Dante’s masterpiece, begun with ‘Inferno’ and continued with ‘Purgatorio.’ In ‘Paradiso,’ Dante has been purified by his climb up the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory, and now, led by the luminous Beatrice, he begins his ascent through the nine celestial spheres of heaven toward the Empyrean, the mind of God. Along the way, we meet the souls of the blessed — those at various proximities to God, but all existing within the bliss of heaven’s perfect order. Philosophically rich, spiritually resonant, “Paradiso” is a reckoning with justice and morality from a time of ethical questioning and political division much like our own.

“Bang’s translation is a revelation in its artistry, readability, and faithfulness to Dante’s ambition for an epic poem that dares to employ language and references recognizable to its readers. In her lyric style and her illuminating and generous notes, Bang has made The Divine Comedy for the twenty-first century.”

Alan Weisman – Porter Square Books
Hope Dies Last
July 10 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In this profoundly human and moving narrative, the bestselling author of The World Without Us returns with a book 10 years in the making: a study of what it means to be a human on the front lines of our planet’s existential crisis. His new book, Hope Dies Last, is a literary evocation of our current predicament and the core resolve of our species against the most precarious odds we have ever faced.”

David Thesmar at Harvard Book Store
The Price of Our Values: The Economic Limits of Moral Life
July 14 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The Price of Our Values is a hugely interesting and important book which draws from a wide range of disciplines beyond economics — including philosophy, sociology, and psychology. The authors highlight the deep flaws inherent in consequentialism and utilitarianism that are fundamental to most neoclassical economics, and they offer ideas as to how and why a broader sense of morality must become fundamental to economics analysis.” —Rebecca M. Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University

Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur – Brookline Booksmith
Will Eisner: A Comics Biography
July 15 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Explore the life of Will Eisner, one of the most influential artists in the history of comics through the most appropriate medium: a graphic novel! From his immigrant roots and childhood in New York, starting his own comics studio and business, and the creation and publication of his beloved comic, The Spirit, through inventing the term “ graphic novel” to convince a general trade publisher to publish the groundbreaking A Contract with God, you’ll follow along in Eisner’ s life journey.

“With the most prestigious comics awards named after him, Will Eisner is forever celebrated not only in what he created but his unerring belief in comics’ capacity to be better, to reach higher, to be a full art form in its own right. This is the life of this man of vision who helped to put comics on the map.”

County Highway Reading Tour: Lee Clay Johnson, David Gates, Gary Fisketjon – Brookline Booksmith
Bloodline
July 16 at 7 p.m.
Free

The authors will discuss Lee Clay Johnson’s new novel from Panamerica Books. Mesmerizing and darkly comic, Bloodline is an exploration of masculinity run amuck, of femininity’s strength and resolve, of the burdens of heritage and history. This novel is Lee Clay Johnson working at the height of his lyrical powers — a bravura performance.”

Lawrence Millman – Porter Square Books
Drinks with God
July 17 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Within the pages of Drinks With God, the reader is treated to an unconventional take on familiar biblical figures. From his ‘weirdo’ son Jesus, the amorous Holy Ghost, and the entrepreneurial Noah, to the not-so-virginal Virgin Mary, a sassy Judas Iscariot, and a chef Satan who has a flair for spicy cuisine — these characters are reimagined in a way you’ve never seen before. And where does God divulge these surprising insights? Not in a heavenly realm, but in the more earthly locales of New York City’s bars, coffee houses, and parks, revealing a deity who enjoys a good drink.

“Reading Drinks With God might not sway your religious beliefs, but it’s guaranteed to leave you in stitches. Prepare for a hilarious, blasphemous, and utterly unique exploration of divinity like no other.”

Jessa Crispin at Harvard Book Store
What Is Wrong with Men: Patriarchy, the Crisis of Masculinity, and How (Of Course) Michael Douglas Films Explain Everything 
July 22 at 7 p.m.
Free

“How to be a Man? That question — and all the anxiety, anger, and resentment it stirs up — is the starting point for a crisis in masculinity that today manifests as misogyny, nativism, and corporate greed; gives rise to incels and mass shooters; and leads to panic over the rights of women and minorities. According to Jessa Crispin, it is the most important question of our time, and the answer to it might be found in an unlikely place: the films of Michael Douglas.

“In the 1980s, the rules for masculinity began to change. The goal was no longer to be a good, respectable family man, carrying on the patriarchal traditions of generations past. Not only was it becoming unfashionable, but increasingly difficult: the economic and political shifts — a slashed social safety net, globalization — made it harder to find a breadwinning income, a stable home life, and a secure place in the public sphere.

“So, then, how to be a man? From the early eighties to the late nineties, Michael Douglas showed us how: he was our president, our Wall Street overlord, our mass shooter, our failed husband, our midlife crisis, our cop, and our canary in the patriarchal coal mine. His characters were a mirror of our cultural shift, serving as the foundation for everything from the 1994 Crime Bill to Trump’s ultimate rise. With wry wit and wisdom, Crispin examines the phenomenon of the Michael Douglas character as a silver-screen seismograph registering the tectonic movements within our society that have fractured it in shocking ways.”

Gary Shteyngart at The Brattle Theatre – Harvard Book Store
Vera, or Faith: A Novel
July 24 at 6 p.m. (doors open at 5:30)
Tickets are $35, including copy of book

“Both biting and deeply moving, Vera, or Faith is a boldly imagined story of family and country told through the clear and tender eyes of a child. With a nod to What Maisie Knew, Henry James’s classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Vera, or Faith demonstrates why Gary Shteyngart is, in the words of The New York Times, ‘one of his generation’s most original and exhilarating writers.'”

— Matt Hanson