MUSIC
Pop & Rock
NINA NASTASIA Earlier this week, this singer-songwriter — who released a string of stunning, spare post-folk albums from 1999 through 2010 — announced her first full-length in a dozen years, “Riderless Horse,” which grapples with the aftermath of grief. She opens for the Scottish space-rock stalwarts Mogwai. April 8, 7 p.m. Paradise Rock Club. 617-562-8800, crossroadspresents.com
LIDO PIMIENTA The Toronto-based musician, performance artist, and Polaris Music Prize winner returns to town in support of 2020′s boundary-melting “Miss Colombia.” April 8, 8 p.m. Brighton Music Hall. 617-779-0140, crossroadspresents.com
SUPERCHUNK North Carolina’s indie-rock titans come to town to celebrate their 12th album, “Wild Loneliness,” which looks at the harsh realities of 2022 with a resolve that’s both steeled and leavened by chiming acoustic guitars, candid lyrics, and potent hooks — as well as unexpectedly delightful touches like the kinetic title track’s soaring brass section. With the explosive singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott, who makes remarkable records (like last year’s “Thirstier”) as TORRES. April 14, 7 p.m. Paradise Rock Club. 617-562-8800, crossroadspresents.com
MAURA JOHNSTON
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Folk, World & Country
THE TOWN AND THE CITY FESTIVAL After a one-year hiatus followed by a several-month delay, the third edition of The Town and the City Festival takes place this weekend in the Mill City. There’s plenty on offer for lovers of roots music, including the Old Rochelle on Friday and Damn Tall Buildings, Jon Langford and Friends, and Massy Ferguson on Saturday. April 8-9. Downtown Lowell, various venues, times, and ticket prices. See festival website for details. www.thetownandthecityfestival.com
IGUANA MUSIC FUND SHOWCASE One of the many ways in which Club Passim invests in the music community is through its Iguana Music Fund, which makes grants annually to New England musicians to aid them in their career growth. Some of the fruits of that funding will be on display Monday evening, when Lisa Bastoni, Chris Walton, and other grant recipients perform. April 11, 7 p.m. No charge. Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Cambridge. 617-492-7679, www.passim.org
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COWBOY JUNKIES On their new, aptly named covers record, “Songs of the Recollection,” Cowboy Junkies’ one-of-a-kind sound ensures that the songs they’ve chosen emerge with a different, if not transformed, character. So, with Gram Parsons’s “Ooh Las Vegas,” the band’s treatment turns a rueful celebration of Sin City into an ominous dream world. April 14, 7:30 p.m. $39-$69. Cary Hall, 1605 Massachusetts Ave., Lexington. 617-531-1257, www.caryhalllexington.com
STUART MUNRO
Jazz & Blues
HCA BLUESFEST Hopkinton Center for the Arts brings three area favorites to its stage for a big blues bash: the Chris Fitz Band with special guest Ken Clark, the Racky Thomas Band, and the duo of Sonya Rae and Ryan Taylor. Beer, wine, and food will be available for purchase. April 9, 7 p.m. $20-$25. Hopkinton Center for the Arts, 98 Hayden Rowe St., Hopkinton. 508-435-9222, www.hopartscenter.org
SARAH SCHOENBECK & WAYNE HORVITZ Mandorla Music presents the improvisational chamber duo of bassoonist Schoenbeck and keyboardist and composer/pianist Horvitz, longtime collaborators who have each successfully straddled the worlds of jazz and classical music. April 9, 8 p.m. $20. Hope Central Church, 85 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain. www.mandorlamusic.net
RANDY BRECKER & MARK WALKER’S WORLD JAZZ ENSEMBLE The 11th annual Arlington Jazz Festival culminates with trumpeter and multiple Grammy recipient Brecker joining drummer Walker and his international band. For information about the rest of the four-day festival, see the web address below. April 10, 7 p.m. $25-$50. Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St., Arlington. 781-646-4849, www.arlingtonjazz.org/2022-festival-schedule
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KEVIN LOWENTHAL
Classical
BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT Back in their customary stomping grounds of Jordan Hall, artistic director Gil Rose leads BMOP in a portrait concert of American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Longtime BMOP members Sarah Brady (flute) and Gabriela Diaz (violin) take center stage in two concertos, and the evening finishes off with Zwilich’s Symphony No. 5, “Concerto for Orchestra.” April 8, 8 p.m. Jordan Hall. www.bmop.org
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA This week at the BSO, assistant conductor Anna Rakitina leads the BSO in a program featuring pianist Alexandre Kantorow in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 alongside Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 and American composer Ellen Reid’s “When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist.” (April 9). Next week, Alan Gilbert conducts music by Bernard Rands and Debussy before welcoming soloist Joshua Bell to the stage for Beethoven’s well-traveled Violin Concerto. (April 14-16) Symphony Hall. 617-266-1200, www.bso.org
FROMM PLAYERS: THE NEXT 100 YEARS Harvard assistant professor of music Yvette Janine Jackson curates a celebration of new experimental music, with the evening’s offerings to include flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell’s quartet “Black Earth SWAY,” composer Raven Chacon’s noise trio “White People Killed Them,” and music for harmonics guitar by Radcliffe fellow The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker. Free and open to the public. Paine Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge. April 9, 8 p.m. http://frommfoundation.fas.harvard.edu/fromm-players-2021
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A.Z. MADONNA
ARTS
Theater
A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE & MURDER Spiro Veloudos returns to the theater he called his professional home for more than two decades to direct this larky musical comedy about impoverished Monty Navarro (Jared Troilo), who decides to dispatch the eight members of the D’Ysquith family (all played by Neil A. Casey) who stand between him and an aristocratic title. Featuring Aimee Doherty as Sibella Hallward and Jennifer Ellis as Phoebe D’Ysquith, both of whom Monty is drawn to. April 15-May 22. Lyric Stage Company of Boston. 617-585-5678, www.lyricstage.com
BURGERZ Described as a “trans reclamation story,” this solo show stars creator Travis Alabanza, and focuses on Alabanza’s obsession with hamburgers after one is hurled at them, along with transphobic slurs. According to press materials, “Burgerz” explores “how trans bodies survive and how, by reclaiming an act of violence, we can address our own complicity.” Directed by Sam Curtis Lindsay. April 13-24. ArtsEmerson. At Jackie Liebergott Black Box, Emerson Paramount Center. 617-824-8400, www.ArtsEmerson.org
BEASTS Secrets rise to the surface with “magical-realistic and surreal intensity” when artist Judy pays a surprise visit to her pregnant sister Fran in this new drama by Cayenne Douglass. Directed by Kelly Galvin, “Beasts” is the final production in a Boston Playwrights’ Theatre season in which all the plays were written by the Boston University MFA Playwriting Program class of 2021. Through April 17. Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. www.bostonplaywrights.org
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DON AUCOIN
Dance
SAME BUT DIFFERENT One Black and raised in the South, the other white growing up in the North — in this promising cultural exploration of race, age, gender, and friendship, performer/educators Christal Brown and Lida Winfield mine their backgrounds and experiences to illuminate their striking similarities and differences. Live performances April 9-10. April 10 performance also available virtually. Registration required. $18-$100. Complex@Canal, Cambridge. www.dancecomplex.org
ALICE IN P31DERLAND This new creation by Boston-based Project31 Dance Company, founded by artistic director Kenzie Finn, uses the troupe’s viscerally athletic choreographic invention to reimagine Lewis Carroll’s beloved “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Set to a score of popular tunes, the work chronicles Alice’s journey down the rabbit hole toward adulthood. April 9-10, $30. Boston University Dance Theater. www.project31dance.org
BALLET COAST TO COAST Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival just released a new digital playlist celebrating the artistic depth of regional ballet companies, highlighting the three companies of last summer’s “Ballet Coast to Coast” program — Boston Ballet, Houston Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. It’s a terrific sampler of some gorgeous dancing and intriguing works. It’s also linked to a new online podcast and essay by Nancy Wozny, “Pointe Spread: The Marvel of Regional Ballet.” https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org
KAREN CAMPBELL
Visual Arts
DOWN TO THE BONE: EDWARD KOREN AND STEPHEN GORMAN Pairing two artists across media with common purpose — Koren is a much-loved cartoonist and illustrator best known for his work in the New Yorker magazine; Gorman is a renowned nature photographer — this exhibition captures the ever-worsening climate crisis from opposite ends. Gorman’s photographs of polar bears struggling to survive in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge feel like the “before,” while Koren’s dystopic drawings of wildlife wandering the ruins of human society appear as what seems like an inevitable “after.” Through Feb. 5, 2023. Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem. 978-745-9500, pem.org
ARTHUR WESLEY DOW: NEAREST TO THE DIVINE Dow, perhaps more famous as a teacher than an artist in his own right — Georgia O’Keeffe, his star student, made quite a name for herself — is nonetheless a cornerstone of American modern painting for his almost fanatical devotion to structural elements such as composition and color. It helps, of course, that the works in this show, most of them small-scale woodblock prints and watercolors, are extravagantly, intensely beautiful. Entranced by the marshes, forests, and seas near his home in Ipswich, Dow defines a moment in American art that helped make much possible beyond it. This show tells you why. Through July 31. Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy, 180 Main St., Andover. 978-749-4015, www.addisongallery.org
NEW ENGLAND TRIENNIAL 2022 In the run-the-gamut world of biennials and triennials, it’s an inevitable challenge to tease something coherent out of the inevitable sprawl such broad surveys invite. Taking a smaller bite helps: Spanning both the de Cordova and Fruitlands musuems, this once-in-three-years project, now administered by the Trustees of Reservations, looks within the borders of just New England with 25 artists touching on the notion of rebuilding and remaking — fitting, given the fractures of the past two pandemic years. Through Sept. 11, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln. 781-259-8355, thetrustees.org/place/decordova; and Fruitlands Museum, 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard. 978-456-3924, https://thetrustees.org/place/fruitlands-museum
MURRAY WHYTE
DANIEL RANALLI: LIGHTLINES Ranalli has been exploring the potential for abstraction with photograms for nearly 50 years. Each is a darkroom experiment, made without a camera. Ranalli places an object on photosensitive paper and uses a handheld light to expose it — literally drawing with light. He achieves a silken, voluptuous tonality, creating crests and shadows, shimmers and soot. Through May 7. LaMontagne Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave. 617-487-3512, www.lamontagnegallery.com
CATE McQUAID
EVENTS
Comedy
NON-ESSENTIAL COMEDY This showcase started as a Zoom show during lockdown and is now an in-person show, hosted by Chris Houghton. Tooky Kavanaugh headlines with Trent Wells, Shea Spillane, and Angela Sawyer. April 8, 7 p.m. $10. 10th District Brewing Company, 748 Brockton Ave., Abington. www.eventbrite.com
THE MENDOZA LINE Kenice Mobley, cohost of the “Love About Town” podcast who records her first album in New York later this month, returns to Boston to headline this showcase at the Dugout Café, hosted by Rob Crean and featuring Danya Trommer, and Xavier Maurice. April 9, 9 p.m. $10. Dugout Café, 722 Commonwealth Ave. www.eventbrite.com
FINDING THE FUNNY Created as a way to get comedians working as they struggled through the pandemic, the “Finding the Funny” sitcom would explore the difficulties of making people laugh. This live show features most of the cast — Christine Hurley, Mike Koutrobis, Kelly MacFarland, Carolyn Plummer, Frank Santorelli, Kayt Tommasino, and Tony V — and will raise money to start shooting later this month. April 10, 6 p.m. $30. DoubleTree by Hilton Andover, 123 Old River Road, Andover. www.findingthefunnypilot.com
NICK A. ZAINO III
Family
CAMBRIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA FAMILY CONCERT Here’s the perfect opportunity to get your child interested in classical music, via a “Star Wars” medley, a performance of Nathaniel Stookey’s “The Composer Is Dead,” and more. April 10, 4-6 p.m. $5 for children under 12, $10 for students and seniors, $20 for adults. Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville. eventbrite.com
DISNEY PRINCESS: THE CONCERT Musical director Benjamin Rauhala (”Fiddler on the Roof”) presents a quartet of performers celebrating Disney princesses through song. April 14, 7 p.m. Tickets start at $40. Chevalier Theatre, 30 Forest St., Medford. chevaliertheatre.com
PAJAMA STORY TIME Geared toward younger children, this event offers your child the rare opportunity to come to Ashland Public Library wearing any pajamas they feel like, and bringing their favorite stuffie along for the fun. Free tickets will be available one hour before the program at the library’s children’s circulation desk. April 12, 6:30-7 p.m. Free. Ashland Public Library, 66 Front St., Ashland. friendsoftheapl.org
SAM TROTTENBERG