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Around Berkeley
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Artist in Residence Mitsuko Uchida, piano and director, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Credit: May Zircus🎹 The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, led by concertmaster José Maria Blumenschein and joined by pianist-director Mitsuko Uchida, will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, J. 453 and Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K. 482. Also on the program is the U.S. premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Chorale Quartet. Sunday, March 24, 3 p.m. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. $52+
📚 American Shtetl authors Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers will give a book talk at The Magnes Collection in downtown Berkeley. Their book, which won the National Jewish Book award and was a New Yorker Best Book of the Year, tells the history of Kiryas Joel, a town in upstate New York mostly populated by Yiddish-speaking Jews. Thursday, March 21, 5 p.m. The Magnes Collection. FREE (RSVP)
🖼️ Kala Art Institute is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a big art auction benefit and exhibition. This year’s honored artists are David Huffman, Emily Payne and Rupy C. Tut. You’ll have the chance to preview the exhibit, which runs through April 27, at a family-friendly kick-off party and artist mixer. Thursday, March 21, 6 p.m. Kala Gallery. FREE
🍽️ The Berkeley Documentary Film Series at the Hillside Club presents the award-winning feature documentary The Art of Eating: The Life of M.F.K. Fisher about the life and lasting influence of California food writer M.F.K. Fisher, a screening followed by a conversation with film director Gregory Bezat, co-producer and Landmark Theaters co-founder Gary Meyer and several others. Thursday, March 21, 7 p.m. The Hillside Club. $15
🍸 The Lorin District is hosting a South Berkeley Business Social Hour. All South Berkeley businesses and “those who love them” are welcome to attend the casual neighborhood social. Friday, March 22, 5 p.m.–7 p.m. Hoi Polloi Brewing Taproom.
🎨 The experimental art gallery 120710, which was founded by an ex-Cal computer science professor in 2023, is hosting a panel discussion on the role of mentorship in the arts in collaboration with the arts nonprofit Root Division. Speakers include dani lopez, Mel Prest and Michelle Mansour. Rebecca Kaufman and Makiko Harris, the co-curators of MATERIAL INSTINCT, 120710’s current exhibit (on view through April 13), will moderate the conversation. Friday, March 22, 6 p.m. 1207 Tenth Street. FREE
🎶 La Peña Cultural Center is presenting the Cubahía Festival, featuring an album release celebration of “They/them” by Krudas Cubensi, the pioneering Cuban queer trans duo of Oli Prendes and Odaymar Cuesta. The event, which is also curated by DJ Leydis, includes activities for children, a panel discussing Cuban music and a visual arts exhibition. Saturday, March 23, 1-7 p.m. La Peña Cultural Center. $15-$30
🎹 Vocalist Rhonda Benin’s 10th Annual Just Like a Woman revue returns to the Freight with the Lillian Armstrong Tribute Band led by piano great Tammy Hall featuring a cast that includes former Train vocalist Nikita Germaine, organist and composer Sundra Manning, boogie woogie pianist Wendy DeWitt, vocalist Tammi Brown from Bobby McFerrin’s Motion and pianist Susan Muscarella. Saturday, March 23, 7 p.m. Freight & Salvage. $30
🎶 A busy weekend at La Peña continues with Xochi Cuicatl: A Concert of Mesoamerican Music, a family event demonstrating the sounds and history of Indigenous instruments from Mesoamérica and México led by experienced practitioners Christopher García and Yolanda Delgado García. Sunday, March 24, 2-4:30 p.m. La Peña Cultural Center. $5-$25
🎹 The exceptional Mahler Chamber Orchestra, led by concertmaster José Maria Blumenschein and joined by pianist-director Mitsuko Uchida, will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, J. 453 and Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major, K. 482. Also on the program is the U.S. premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Chorale Quartet. Sunday, March 24, 3 p.m. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. $52+
🎹 Nathan Clevenger, a composer who swaps out his usual guitar for piano, organ and percussion, presents the maiden voyage of his 11-piece ensemble premiering his new suite “Astrolabe” on a double bill with an opening set by the drum kit and percussion duo of Jon Arkin and Jordan Glenn. Sunday, March 24, 7-10 p.m. Berkeley Finnish Hall. $20
🎤 John Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History at UC Berkeley, will give a lecture on the Yiddish comedy duo Szymon Dzigan and Yisroel Shumacher, who enjoyed “unparalleled popularity” in Poland from the late 1920s to the start of World War II. They were known for their satirical monologues and political skits, and led the way for modernist humor. Tuesday, March 26, 5:30 p.m. The Magnes Collection. FREE (RSVP)
🎶 Presented by the Los Angeles production house Jazz Is Dead, Artdontsleep and the UC Theatre, the Colombian psych-rock trio BALTHVS plays Cornerstone with an opening set by world dub San Francisco multi-instrumentalist Izzy Wise (aka Isaac Weiser). Wednesday, March 27, 8 p.m. Cornerstone. $26
🎨 ACCI Gallery is celebrating the “power of portraiture” with its latest exhibit, Personages, which includes 45 portraits. Through April 5. ACCI Gallery. FREE
🎭 Berkeley Rep is showing Lloyd Suh’s play The Far Country. The Pulitzer Prize finalist sheds light on the cruelty of Angel Island through the lens of a Chinese American family arriving in San Francisco in the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Read our theater critic’s review. Through April 14. $22.50-$134
🔥 See the work of more than 200 student artists from Berkeley, Richmond and Skyline high schools at the David Brower Center’s new exhibit, “Burning Questions,” which explores the connections between fire and the environment. (Read our story.) Through May 16. David Brower Center. FREE (RSVP)
🕺 Disabled, non-disabled and neurodiverse dancers and educators from around the world are invited to Axis Dance Company’s five-day intensive at UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, where participants immerse themselves in the language and embodiment of disability-integrated dance via improvisation, choreography and teaching fundamentals. June 24-28. Apply by March 31
Beyond Berkeley
📚 Oakland journalist William Gee Wong just published his memoir, Sons of Chinatown: A Memoir Rooted in China and America. The book depicts Wong’s father’s migration to Oakland as a teenager in 1912, during the Chinese Exclusion era. Wong grew up in Oakland’s Chinatown while his father tried to start a business and raise a family in a segregated city. Sunday, March 24, 1 p.m. Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 9th St., Suite 90, Oakland. FREE (RSVP)
🎥 Actor Jamal Trulove, best known for his portrayal as Kofi in the 2019 film The Last Black Man in San Francisco, is working alongside actress Priscilla Lam and producer Kealani Kitaura on a short film titled I Thought You’d Never Ask. The film explores the societal pressures on women to get married. This Thursday, the trio will be at Kinfolx, the coffee shop, gallery, and event space on Telegraph Avenue in Uptown, for a mixer to talk about the project and chat about singlehood, looking to get married, and what it is like being married. Thursday, March 21, 6 p.m. 1951 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland. FREE (RSVP)
🎨 This is your final week to see the career-spanning solo show of artist Randy Hussong, who taught at Cal’s department of art practice for nearly 30 years. Included are his majestic Tethered Objects, which were made while he was in grad school in the 1970s, and his current work, which centers on unhoused encampments and the ideas of relocation and reconfiguration. Through Satruday, March 23. Round Weather Art Gallery, 951 Aileen Street, Oakland. FREE
🎭 Oakland Theater Project is launching its 12th season with Cost of Living, the 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony-nominated play by Martyna Majok and directed by Emilie Whelan, who also directed Gary last season. The story follows two adults with disabilities, Ani and John, and their caregivers, Eddie and Jess. Masks are required at every Friday show and are optional for the others. Thursday through Sunday, through March 24. Check the website for times. 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. $10-$60
If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-scene@berkeleyside.org. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.
The Oaklandside’s Arts and Community reporter Azucena Rasilla contributed reporting to this story.
