From one of the world’s finest slack-key guitarists to an exhibit about balloons and a jazz/fusion in San Jose, there is a lot to see and hear in the Bay Area this weekend.
Here is a partial rundown.
All-world guitarist comes to Yoshi’s
Patrick Landeza is coming out of (semi) retirement to perform a big Bay Area show.
Having pretty much stayed out of the performance spotlight in recent years — while concentrating on his many other endeavors, including promoting shows — the acclaimed Hawaiian music vocalist-guitarist is set to play a gig on May 1 at Yoshi’s in Oakland.
The East Bay musician ranks among the finest slack-key guitarists in the business, one who has worked with such Hawaiian music masters as Cyril Pahinui, Raymond Kāne, George Kuo and Dennis Kamakahi.
Landeza is also a two-time Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award winner — the first artist born and raised on the mainland United States to achieve this prestigious award, which can be considered Hawaii’s equivalent of the Grammy.
For this Oakland gig, the vocalist-guitarist will be leading his Patrick Landeza & Sons ensemble. The group features Hawaiian steel guitarist/keyboardist Justin Firmeza, who is the director of bands at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, and bassist Danny Landeza, a 10th grader at Moreau Catholic.
Details: Showtime is 8 p.m.; $25-$49; yoshis.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
All about balloons
Balloons are light, fun and airy — until all of a sudden they’re deep.
An art exhibit in San Francisco examines the profound side of these rubbery joy-blobs, from nostalgia to personal reflection to emotional longing. Yes, all from in … balloons.
“EmotionAir: Art You Can Feel” runs until Sept. 7 at the so-called Balloon Museum, which is more of an international touring association of curators working in the medium of air. The setting for the show is the beauteous grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts, which has been tricked out to accommodate all sorts of interactive and balloon-based wonderment.
The arguable centerpiece is a sound-and-light-filled work called “HYPERFEELING” that reimagines a ball pit for adults, ruled over by hundreds of balloons. “Playground Love” is an amusement park-type space that’s home to huge, moving spheres and inflatable tigers. And “Black Hole Horizon” converts sound waves into soap bubbles.
A visit lasts about an hour and a half, and visitors are encouraged to touch the balloons. But remember — no popping allowed.
Details: Open daily at 3601 Lyon St., San Francisco; $41-$51; balloonmuseum.world
— John Metcalfe, Staff
Classical picks: Cal Symph, NCCO, Costanza
This week’s classical music calendar brings three can’t-miss performances, with a concert devoted to dance music by diverse composers, a program of movements from two unfinished masterworks, and one of the Bay Area’s most accomplished cellists.
Unfinished business: In its season-ending concert, the California Symphony under music director Donato Cabrera leads the orchestra in a pair of unfinished masterworks: the two surviving movements of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, and the three completed movements of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday; Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek; $50-$95; californiasymphony.org.
Feel Like Dancing: Under music director Daniel Hope, the New Century Chamber Orchestra presents selections from its new album, “Dance!,” a wide-ranging program of dance music from composers including Bartok, Bizet, Gluck, Handel, Florence Price, and Astor Piazzolla.
Details: 7:30 p.m. today at First Congregational Church, Berkeley; 7:30 p.m. Friday in Tiburon; 2 p.m. Saturday at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco; and 2:30 Sunday May 4 at Bing Concert Hall, presented by Stanford Live; $35-$80; NCCO.org.
Costanza at the Presidio: Cellist Christopher Costanza makes a special solo appearance as part of the new Beischer Family Sunday Strings series at the historic Presidio Theatre. His program features Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, and Britten’s Cello Suite No. 2, Op. 80. Arrive early for a stroll around the Presidio’s gorgeous grounds, admire the view and check out the wide array of food trucks on the scene.
Details: 3 p.m. Sunday; Presidio Theatre, San Francisco; $45-$60; sfperformances.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
3-way jazz fusion
International Jazz Day was technically April 30 but San Jose Jazz is celebrating the day this weekend. And it’s hard to imagine a better headliner to mark the holiday.
Bay Area musician, composer and arranger Noriyuki Ken Okada, who’s performing at the San Jose Jazz Break Room on Saturday, will bring a unique Japanese/fusion sound flavored by his life’s journey — born in New York, with time spent residing in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Yokohama, Japan. Oh, and did we mention he’s really into video games? They influence his sound, too.
Okada jumped into music at an early age — he could play the bass, piano and drums before he was 12 — and since locating in the Bay Area in 2002, he’s collaborated with such local jazz mainstays as John Worley, Destiny Muhammad, Kristen Strom and Akira Tana. He’s performed at Monterey Jazz Festival, San Jose Jazz Summer Fest and the Stanford Jazz Festival as well as such venues at Yoshi’s and Kuumbwa Jazz Center.
He recently formed a band featuring the teenage global percussion sensation Yoyoka Soma — who earned a shout-out from Robert Plant after he watched her cover of a Led Zeppelin tune on YouTube — and has released a new album, “Square One.” The Ken Okada Group will showcase the new recording with a Saturday show at the Break Room.
Details: 8 p.m.; $27; the show will be available for streaming; sanjosejazz.org/events.
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Check out Asawa exhibit for free
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s ongoing Free First Thursdays (as in the first Thursday of the month) creates a great opportunity to check out one of largest exhibits the museum has ever hosted, “Ruth Asawa: Retrospective.” The collection devoted to the famed San Francisco artist (1926-2013), best known for her looped-wire sculptures and abstract creations, features more than 300 works displayed in a dozen gallery rooms. She also had a talent for painting and creating prints of flowers, fruit, vegetables and other objects of nature.
In an essay included in the exhibit, Asawa’s granddaughter Lilli Lanier recalls her grandmother inviting her for artwork and dinner: “Come over tomorrow. We’re going to draw eggplants. And then we’re going to eat them.” Asawa’s philosophy seemed to be that everyday items and people were the were the rightful heroes of the art world – “An artist is an ordinary person who can take ordinary things and make them special,” she once said – although one her most famous works is the mermaid fountain she created at Ghiardelli Square. The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 2, also re-creates a room from Asawa’s longtime Now Valley House. So compelling is the exhibit that it’s a bargain even if you were to be charged admission. But on Thursday, you can see it all for free.
Details: Noon-8 p.m.; 151 Third St., San Francisco; www.sfmoma.org.
Art, art and more art
The San Francisco International Arts Festival, running through May 11 at venues and performance spaces all over the city, is so vast and fascinating that you can just read the schedule of events and feel like you’ve accomplished something monumental. There are 80-odd performances, panel discussions, demonstrations and events that fall somewhere in between touching on dance, music, comedy, theater and more. Some of the events may strike you as hopelessly eclectic or esoteric, but that is kind of the fun – you just may never get the chance to experience anything like it again. Helen Wicks’ “Radio Vision” (8 p.m. Friday, 3:30 p.m. Sunday) is an acrobatics/dance solo performance inspired by the creator’s great-grandfather, a Hollywood music supervisor; Duance Forrest’s “Bob Marley: How Reggae Changed the World” (8:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 3 p.m. Saturday) is part concert, part history lesson; “The Last Supper Party” (6 p.m. Saturday) is the latest installment of a music/spoken word performance inspired by the iconic painting of the same name; the vocal group Conspiracy of Venus’ latest performance (2 p.m. Sunday) will deliver unique a capella performances of songs by PJ Harvey, David Bowie, Chris Cornell, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison and more. Of course, we are just scratching the surface here; the International Arts Festival is a welcome reminder that San Francisco’s evolution in recent years has not robbed the city of the bold artistic energy at its heart.
Details: Most events cost $20-$30, some are free; festival passes run $40-$150; see the full schedule and get more information at www.sfiaf.org
— Bay City News Foundation
It’s more than Riverdance
The folks behind the fun interactive Great Dickens Christmas Fair and the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire are serving up the Marin Irish Festival this weekend in San Rafael. The celebration of Irish music, dance, and heritage offers storytelling, music and dance performances on six stages, as well as children’s activities, vendors selling handmade and rare goods, and food trucks and tents serving corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, and authentic Guinness, ales and local hard ciders. New this year is a feis (pronounced “fesh”) a sanctioned Irish dance competition (in partnership with the Jackie Flynn Irish Dance Academy) featuring performers of all ages vying for the “Champion of Champions” title. Mainstage performers include the Black Brothers and The Black Irish Band; there also will be seisiúin (Irish music participation session) inside the Bearded Goose Pub, where musicians of all skill levels can play in a communal setting. If that’s not enough, there’s also sheep-herding demonstrations presented by the Redwood Empire Sheep Dog Association.
Details: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 3-4; Lagoon Park on the Marin County Fairgrounds; $30 for adults, $15 for children ages 5–11 at marinirishfestival.com.
— Bay City News Foundation
Can’t take your eyes off the show
Palo Alto Players have a hit on their hands with the modern musical classic “Jersey Boys.” And due to popular demand, the troupe is adding performance to the show’s run, which must end on May 4. The Tony Award winner, with a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice; music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe, of course, tells the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. It cleverly goes behind the scenes, exposing the secrets of the singers’ 40-year friendship and how they worked their way from the streets of New Jersey to pop music stardom. All the hit tunes, from “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Dawn” and “My Eyes Adored You” to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” are there, too! The cast features James M. Jones as Valli, Andrew Cope as Gaudio, Tyler Savin as Tommy DeVito, Justin Kerekes as Nick Massi, and Danny Martin as Crewe. Director Doug Santana calls it “Shakespeare meets the Sopranos…at a live rock concert.”
Details: Performances at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto; $20-$63; paplayers.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
A closing act
San Francisco Performances and the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts join forces on Saturday night to bring the very first guitarist-in-residence that SFP had many years ago back to the Herbst Theatre stage to close out the organization’s current season. Cuban-American star Manuel Barrueco, an artist whose inimitable style the New York Times said “would undoubtedly have made Segovia smile,” emigrated to the United States from his native Cuba in 1967 as a political refugee and has gone on to win countless accolades and performance gigs with major orchestras all over the world. His recital program will incorporate Bach’s Suite in D Major, with his own transcription; Ponce’s Sonata Clásica, “Homage á Fernando Sor; two “Tango Etudes” by Piazzolla, the Number 2 in C Major and the Number 3 in A minor; Villa-Lobos’ Chôros No. 1 and the Prelude No.1 ; and Turina’s Sonata for Guitar.
Details: 7:30 p.m.; $55-$75; sfperformances.org
— Bay City News Foundation
A Bach season opener:
Johann Sebastian Bach’s mighty Mass in B minor requires a massive assemblage of powerful forces to pull off successfully, and the San Francisco Choral Society, now opening its 36th season, is up to the task. Under the baton of artistic director Robert Geary, who has been at the helm for 30 years, the ensemble collaborates with the Orchestra of Cantata Collective and vocal soloists Michele Kennedy soprano; Heidi Waterman, mezzo-soprano; Shauna Fallihie, mezzo-soprano; Michael Jankosky, tenor; and Wilford Kelly bass-baritone, to perform Bach’s late-in-life masterpiece, considered to be one of his finest works, at 7 p.m. Saturday and 4p.m. Sunday at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.
Details: Tickets, $40-$60, are available through sfchoral.org or through cityboxoffice.com, and there is an option for a livestream performance for the Sunday concert for $40 through the same contacts.
— Bay City News Foundation
