Celebrated clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson returns to the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, N.Y., tonight at 7pm, with his program Fleeting Inventions. With music written for Benny Goodman, a new work by American composer Marc Mellits, and the seldom-heard original version of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, the program traces fortuitous relationships between composers and clarinetists throughout history. Pianist Sophia Zhou joins the quintet for Prokofiev’s rousing klezmer-influenced sextet for clarinet, strings and piano. (Fri, Jun 6)
New York City-based dancer-choreographer Olga Rabetskaya -- originally from Belarus -- brings her latest work, La Playa, to Adams Theater in Adams, Mass., on Saturday at 7:30pm. La Playa introduces four central characters working in a beachside café, each representing an elemental force: fire (a cook), water (a cleaning lady), air (a smoking waiter), and earth (a gardener). After a transformative event, the work shifts into an abstract, movement-driven celebration of the body, spirituality, and resilience, underscored by a shift from recorded to live music. (Sat, Jun 7)
Mother and daughter Suzzy Roche and Lucy Wainwright Roche join forces for an evening of intimate original folk-pop and harmonies at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Mass., on Saturday at 8pm. The duo will showcase Suzzy Roche’s quirky, whimsical indie-pop – originally cultivated in her trio with her singing sisters Maggie and Terre Roche -- and Lucy Wainwright Roche’s dreamy, contemporary folk, equally influenced by her mother’s music as well as that of her father, Loudon Wainwright III. (Sat, Jun 7)
Folk-rock singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Namoli Brennet brings her rootsy, dreamy, one-woman soundscape to the Foundry in West Stockbridge, Mass., on Saturday at 7:30pm. Brennet’s live performances incorporate loops, delays, keyboards, foot percussion and vocal effects, while she sings and plays guitar, harmonica, piano, mandolin, banjo, bass, and drums. (Sat, Jun 7)
British singer-songwriter James Maddock brings his gritty, original folk-rock to the newly reopened Egremont Barn in South Egremont, Mass., for a two-night stand on Saturday at 7:30pm. Maddock boasts a raw, soulful voice; a storyteller’s sense of narrative; and the ability to blur the lines between folk, classic pop, and rock. (Sat, Jun 7)
Alison Larkin will entertain and read excerpts from her brand-new book, Grief … A Comedy, at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, Mass., on Sunday at 6pm, in a program to benefit the Stockbridge Library, where the Berkshire-based comedian and author wrote some of the book. Larkin is the bestselling author of The English American, an autobiographical novel about an adopted English woman who finds her birth parents in the USA. (Sun, Jun 8)
Also of note:
Guitarist and singer-songwriter June Millington, co-founder of Fanny, the first all-female rock group signed to a major label, performs at the Stationery Factory in Dalton, Mass., tonight at 8pm.
Folk-pop singer-songwriter Cliff Eberhardt – whom I once described as “The missing link between Paul McCartney and Cole Porter” -- brings his finely honed song-portraits and witty repartee to Studio 9 at Porches Inn in North Adams, Mass., tonight at 7:30pm.
Rootsy singer-songwriter Dusty Wright and friends will perform a blend of rock, folk, and blues at Ten Barn Farm in Ghent, N.Y., tonight at 7:30pm.
Guitarist David Leisner will perform works by Bach and Schubert plus original compositions in the Tannery Pond Concert Series at the Darrow School in New Lebanon, N.Y., on Saturday at 7:30pm, in a presentation by Capital Region Classical.
Bandleader and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane will be joined by harpist Brandee Younger at the Egg in Albany, N.Y., on Saturday at 8pm, for a special program called Transitional Light: The Music of Alice Coltrane. Both Ravi Coltrane and Brandee Younger are Grammy Award nominees.
In a program called L’Amour Toujours, a Close Encounters with Music ensemble will perform love-themed works by Schubert and Brahms, a new work for clarinet trio by composer Seth Grosshandler, plus love arias from favorite operas and Broadway, at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., on Sunday at 4pm.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.substack.com.
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