MUSIC
Pop & Rock
GEORGE CLINTON AND PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC The funk mothership’s final journey makes its way to the pavilion, where the proverbial roof will be torn off with a parade of fellow travelers like punk-fusioners Fishbone and New Orleans jammers Galactic. June 5, 5:30 p.m. $25 and up. Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion. 800-745-3000, www.livenation.com
FRANK IERO AND THE FUTURE VIOLENTS The guitarist for emo-pompsters My Chemical Romance is celebrating his introspective — but riff-heavy — third album, the just-released “Barriers.” June 2, 6 p.m. $20. Brighton Music Hall. 617-779-0140, www.crossroadspresents.com
IBEYI Paris-born sisters Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Díaz (daughters of the late Cuban percussionist Anga Díaz) craft beat-heavy, genre-skipping music that shows off their otherworldly harmonies and inner-strength-born politics. June 7, 7 p.m. $28, $25 advance. Royale. 617-338-7699, www.royaleboston.com
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MAURA JOHNSTON
Folk & World
LISSA SCHNECKENBURGER Schneckenburger’s new album is a real changeup from the trad-based music she’s been making (with the group Low Lily and elsewhere); “Thunder in My Arms” puts some rock and some pop in her folk as she sings songs that arose from her experiences as a foster parent. Sunday’s show celebrates the release of the album. June 2, 7 p.m. $15. ONCE Lounge, Somerville. 877-987-6487, www.ticketfly.com
JOAN SHELLEY She hasn’t released an album of her own music since 2017 (last year’s “Rivers and Vessels” was a digital EP of covers), so along with a sampling of her catalog, perhaps this extraordinary Kentucky singer-songwriter will include a new song or two in Tuesday’s performance. June 4, 8 p.m. $20. Club Passim, Cambridge. 617-492-7679, www.passim.org
HAYES CARLL After the solemnity of 2016’s “Lovers and Leavers,” Hayes Carll dials things back up on this spring’s “What It Is,” which finds him addressing contemporary matters both personal and political with his vintage wordplay and understated humor (and then knocking you over with the gorgeous steel-and-strings ache of “Be There”). June 7, 8 p.m. $23-$30. 3S Artspace, Portsmouth, N.H. 603-766-3330, www.3sarts.org
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STUART MUNRO
Jazz & Blues
THE YOKO MIWA TRIO The Kobe, Japan-born pianist and composer, internationally-acclaimed for her poetically swinging pianism, celebrates “Keep Talkin’,” her new album of originals and tunes by Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, the Beatles, and Joni Mitchell. June 7, 7:30 p.m. $25. Regattabar, Cambridge. 617-395-7757, www.regattabarjazz.com
DANE VANNATTER The award-winning, soaring-voiced Northeast favorite blends cabaret’s attention to lyrics with jazz-influenced phrasing to make each song his own. June 8, 7:30 p.m. $20-$25. Regattabar, Cambridge. 617-395-7757, www.regattabarjazz.com
DRIFF FEST 2019 Boston’s own artist-run improvised music label, founded in 2012 by instrumentalist-composers Jorrit Dijkstra (alto saxophone, lyricon) and Pandelis Karayorgis (piano), celebrates its critically acclaimed roster of recordings in a multi-hour concert featuring vibraphonist Andria Nicodemou; Cliff Trio (Karayorgis, bassist Damon Smith, and drummer Eric Rosenthal); Steve Lantner’s trio with alto saxophonist Allan Chase and drummer Luther Gray; Cutout, featuring Dijkstra, Karayorgis, Gray, trombonist Jeb Bishop, and bassist Nate McBride; Bishop’s 10-piece band Every Opportunity; and a closing Jazz Party Sextet. June 8, 7:30 p.m. $15-$20. Lily Pad, 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge. www.lilypadinman.com, www.driffrecords.com
KEVIN LOWENTHAL
Classical
WINSOR MUSIC Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, an idiosyncratic Bach devotee, joins Winsor Music for its final season concert, presenting an evening of Bach (and various homages to him), Schumann, and Philip Glass. June 2, 7:30 p.m. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brookline. 781-863-2861, www.winsormusic.org
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BERKLEE SILENT FILM ORCHESTRA Carl Theodor Dreyer’s cinematic classic “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1929) is screened with live accompaniment from this student orchestra, performing its own original score for the film. June 6, 7 p.m. 617–734-2500, www.coolidge.org
CASTLE OF OUR SKINS This locally grown series, which celebrates black artistry through music, resides at Roxbury’s Hibernian Hall all week for “I AM A MAN 2019,” a weeklong festival of community gatherings and concerts. Of particular interest to classical music lovers: Seth Parker Woods performs a recital of contemporary cello works by black composers (June 6), and the grand finale concert includes a world premiere by Castle of our Skins composer-in-residence Brian Raphael Nabors. Ju ne 2-8. Hibernian Hall, Roxbury. www.castleskins.org
ARTS
Theater
THE THREE MUSKETEERS Actors of color make up most of the cast in this production, directed by Dawn M. Simmons, of Catherine Bush’s stage adaptation of Alexander Dumas’s adventure novel about those all-for-one, one-for-all swashbuckling French swordsmen. Featuring Marc Pierre as D’Artagnan, Lyndsay Allyn Cox as Athos, James Milord as Porthos, Paige Clark as Aramis, and Maurice Emmanuel Parent as Richelieu. June 6-30. Coproduction by Greater Boston Stage Company and The Front Porch Arts Collective. At Greater Boston Stage Company, Stoneham. 781-279-2200, www.greaterbostonstage.org
PACIFIC OVERTURES You have to tip your cap to producing artistic director Spiro Veloudos for ending Lyric Stage’s season with this austere historical musical about the impact of Western cultural imperialism on insular, tradition-bound 19th century Japan. It’s not exactly a surefire crowd-pleaser. But his elegant production of “Pacific Overtures’’ — which features intricate choreography by Micheline Wu — proves to be a worthy addition to the cycle of 10 Sondheim musicals Veloudos has directed in the past two decades. Through June 16. Lyric Stage Company of Boston. 617-585-5678, www.lyricstage.com
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THE NATURE PLAYS Local playwright Patrick Gabridge, the author of “Blood on the Snow’’ and the artist-in-residence at Mount Auburn Cemetery, has written five short, site-specific plays inspired by the landscape and history of the storied cemetery. One play envisions debates among naturalists who are buried at the cemetery, while others focus on the “secret world’’ of mushroom hunting and the spotted salamanders in a corner of the cemetery known as Consecration Dell. Directed by Courtney O’Connor, with a cast that includes Jacob Athyal, Lisa Tucker, Ed Hoopman, and Theresa Nguyen. Through June 9. At Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. 617-607-1980, www.mountauburn.org/the-nature-plays
CLOUD 9 Untangling the complexities of Caryl Churchill’s work was a challenge met pretty successfully last year by Huntington Theatre Company (“Top Girls’’) and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (“Universe Rushing Apart: Blue Kettle and Here We Go.’’) Now Nora Theatre Company artistic director Lee Mikeska Gardner prepares to tackle the British playwright’s “Cloud 9.’’ A gender-bending study of sexual identity and sexual politics, “Cloud 9’’ is divided into two parts: the first involves a British family in colonial Africa in 1880, and the second focuses on the same family a century later, in London, when the characters have somehow aged only 25 years. Featuring Ailinn Brophy, Joshua Wolf Coleman, Sophorl Ngin, Stephanie Clayman, Marge Dunn, Kody Grassett, and Alexander Platt. June 6-30. Nora Theatre Company. At Central Square Theater, Cambridge. 617-576-9278 ext. 1, www.centralsquaretheater.org
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DON AUCOIN
Dance
DANCE FOR WORLD COMMUNITY FESTIVAL Now in its 11th year, this free multiday event in Harvard Square sponsored by José Mateo Ballet Theatre features performances, classes, panel presentations, and public discussions geared toward promoting dance as a positive force in the world. (This year’s special focus is climate change.) It culminates in a one-day family-friendly extravaganza June 8 topped off by a block party. Activities indoors and out involve more than 90 dance troupes representing styles from ballet to hip-hop. June 8. Free. Massachusetts Avenue between Bow and Remington, Cambridge. 617-354-7467, www.danceforworldcommunity.org
RHAPSODY It’s the last week for this outstanding program, as Boston Ballet showcases its neoclassical and contemporary chops. It features a world premiere for 15 performers choreographed by principal dancer Paulo Arrais and set to Gershwin’s jazzy “Rhapsody in Blue.” Three works by Balanchine contemporary Leonid Yakobson illustrate the rebellious Soviet choreographer’s impressive artistic range, and the rich icing on the cake is Balanchine’s glorious “Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2.” Through June 9. $37-$169. Citizens Bank Opera House. 617-695-6955, www.bostonballet.org
FOR THE CHILDREN Dance Currents Inc. presents this premiere when it joins Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston for the next of its Salon Series. The six-part piece, set to Edvard Grieg’s “Lyric Pieces,” is based on the separation of families as immigrants try to enter the United States. The program also features the dance company’s “Limon Etude,” danced by Li-Ann Lim to Schubert’s “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel.” June 9 (repeats June 14, 15, and 23 at other locations). $10-$30. Scandinavian Cultural Center’s Nordic Hall, West Newton. 617-779-0900, www.pro arte.org
KAREN CAMPBELL
Galleries
AMERICA TRANSFORMED: MAPPING THE 19th CENTURY The first part of this two-part exhibition traces westward expansion into the 1860s. Maps and other ephemera document how European Americans co-opted Native American land, built a transportation infrastructure, and tapped natural resources to build a capitalist economy. Through Nov. 3. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St. 617-859-2387, www.leventhalmap.org/exhibitions
LAUREN MABRY: FUSED Mabry’s radiantly abstract ceramics, covered with effusive gestures and protuberances dripping with colorful goop, look like pure play. In fact, they’re the product of scientific research and experiments concerning the fusion points between clay and glaze and the threshold between liquid and solid. Through June 30. Ferrin Contemporary, 1315 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams. 413-346-4004, www.ferrincontemporary.com
WILLIAM FLYNN: RELEVANT ONCE, NOW RAW MATERIAL The artist was sorting through old paintings and drawings on his studio floor, deciding what to discard, when random juxtapositions caught his eye. He cut stencils out of old canvases and started layering. The results pin hard edges against atmospheric streaks and toy with space and form. Through June 22. HallSpace, 950 Dorchester Ave., Dorchester. 617-280-2255, www.hallspace.org
CATE McQUAID
Museums
PRINCE SHOTOKU: THE SECRETS WITHIN In the year 576 A.D., legend has it, Japan’s 2-year-old Prince Shotoku faced east, clasped his hands together, and praised Buddha. What appeared in his hand at that moment was a blessing and the beginning of Japanese Buddhism: the sacred eye of the Buddha, a holy relic. The 13th-century wooden sculpture of the toddler prince in that moment sits at the center of this show, which also includes “The Legendary Biography of Prince Shotoku,” a 14th-century painting on loan from the Museum of Fine Art that records the prince’s miracle-laden life in greater detail. At Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge. Through Aug. 11. 617-495-9400. www.harvardartmuseums.org
ART IN FOCUS: BLUE The Yale Center for British Art looks at the particular hue through the lens of “British exploration, trade, and colonialism,” beginning with UK artists’ use of the color in the depiction of an exotic Orient in the 18th century, and ending with the work of Anish Kapoor, whose concerns, as ever, are the ongoing fallout of the colonial period. Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Through Aug. 11. 203-432-2800, britishart.yale.edu
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC AND THE STARS OF PARIS It’s fair to be wary of the same old crowd-pleasing Lautrec show warmed over and served up dozens of times, but this Museum of Fine Arts show is not one of those. Brought to life by digitally-remastered fin-de-siecle films by the Lumiere brothers, the show is a lively and surprising look at the much-hyped artist’s gift as a proto-brand builder, as well as his resonance with artists much more exalted — if not as well-loved — like Edgar Degas and Pierre Bonnard. Through Aug. 4. Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave. 617-267-9300, www.mfa.org
EVENTS
Comedy
ALI SIDDIQ Two decades after serving six years in prison on a drug offense, the Houston native performed in front of prisoners for his 2018 special, “It’s Bigger Than These Bars.” In his opening, he thanked the audience for being there, noting, “It’s not like ya’ll had a choice or nothing.” June 6 at 8 p.m., June 7-8 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. $20. Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St. 617-725-2844, www.laughboston.com
OLD SCHOOL GAME SHOW Your favorite trivia-comedy-music-burlesque mash-up is back with a fantasy-themed edition for the dragon and wizard crowd, with musical guest Hawthorn and featuring cast members Will Smalley, Ethan Marsh, Shaun Connolly, Kaitlin Buckley, and Sumeet Sarin, plus the Swinging OSGS House Band and the Cubic Zirconia Dancers. Hosted, as always, by Michael D’Angelo and Ginny Nightshade. June 7, 8 p.m. $20-$25. Oberon, 2 Arrow St., Cambridge. 617-547-8300, www.americanrepertorytheater.org/venue/oberon
JOE YANNETTY The Boston comic fought throat cancer in 2014, but he doesn’t call himself a “cancer survivor.” He believes “treatment survivor” is more accurate. “The cancer wasn’t bothering me at all,” he jokes. “The treatment is, ‘We’re going to poison you, and hopefully the cancer dies before you do.’ ” He plays Giggles with Jody Sloane and Johnny Pizzi. June 7-8, 8:30 p.m. Giggles Comedy Club, 517 Broadway (Route 1), Saugus. 978-395-9060, www.gigglescomedy.com
NICK A. ZAINO III
Family
SCOOPER BOWL Get ready to scream for this all-you-can-eat ice cream festival. Proceeds support cancer research and care. June 4-6. $3-$30. Boston City Hall Plaza, 1 City Hall Square. facebook.com
BEE DAY Buzz over to the zoo to learn about bees! Festivities will include zookeeper chats, activities, and performances from Bee Parks and the Hornets. June 8, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Free with admission. Franklin Park Zoo, 1 Franklin Park Road. facebook.com
BOSTON PRIDE Mark the upcoming 50th anniversary of Stonewall with the city’s annual parade and festival. June 8, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. See website for parade route. Festival located at Boston City Hall Plaza, 1 City Hall Square. bostonpride.org
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
June 12 Wu Tang Clan at House of Blues Boston livenation.com
June 14 Billie Eilish at Rockland Trust Bank Pavilion songkick.com
June 17 Dido at House of Blues Boston livenation.com
June 18 X Ambassadors at Royale royaleboston.com
June 18 Kim Petras at the Sinclair songkick.com
June 19 Catfish and the Bottlemen at House of Blues Boston songkick.com
June 26 We the Kings at Brighton Music Hall ticketmaster.com
June 28 New Kids on the Block at TD Garden tdgarden.com
JENNI TODD