Freebie of the week: Fans of Indian classical music, or those who want to see and hear what it’s all about (for free), should check out the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival in San Francisco on Saturday. From noon to 5 p.m., the concert series hosts the Color Your Mind Festival, featuring acclaimed musicians bent on taking the genre in new and contemporary directions.
The festival is curated and spearheaded by renowned Oakland-based percussionist, bandleader and composer Sameer Gupta, known for his intense musicianship and for melding Indian classical music with improvisational jazz. The two genres fit together in sublime ways. Gupta, a San Francisco native who’s back in the Bay Area after spending a decade or more in New York, might be best known as the co-founder of the influential Brooklyn Raga Massive, a collective furthering the development and evolution of Indian classical music.
Also performing Saturday are Alam Khan, a master of the sarode, a stringed instrument elemental to Hindustani music (he’s the son of legendary sarode player Ali Akbar Khan); versatile Carnatic singer Roopa Mahadevan, who incorporates jazz, R&B and soul into her otherworldly delivery. In addition to the musicians’ solo sets, the Leela Dance Collective, an outfit specializing in kathak dance, also appears. A variety of arts and crafts displays will also be on hand. In all, Color Your Mind promises to be a fun, melodic, family-friendly affair.
The festival is at Yerba Buena Gardens Great Lawn, on Mission Street between Third and Fourth streets. More information is at ybgfestival.org and coloryourmindfestival.com.
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Good Medicine in Orinda: The Good Medicine comedy tour, onstage Saturday at Bruns Amphitheatre in the lovely Orinda hills, features several leading Native American comedians. The lineup includes Tatanka Means, an actor and comedian whose following likely has grown in the wake of his performances in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed “Killers of the Flower Moon” alongside Lily Gladstone and Leonardo Di Caprio and in Kevin Costner’s epic Western “Horizon: An American Saga.” After those heavy projects, we can’t help but think that Means is pleased as punch to be on the stand-up comedy circuit.
Also in the Good Medicine lineup are Brian Bahe, an up-and-coming writer and comedian; and Dakota Ray Hebert, a Canadian native who dropped her debut comedy recording, “I’ll Give You an Indian Act,” in 2022. Author, actor and comedian Jackie Keliiaa, a longtime fixture in the Bay Area stage and comedy scene, is the MC and producer.
The show starts at 8 p.m.; doors open at 6 p.m. Live music, food and arts and crafts will be available pre-showtime, and after, there will be dancing to a DJ. Tickets are $33.38-$49.18. Do yourself a favor and wear layers at the Bruns, because it can get a bit frosty as the night progresses. More information and tickets are at calshakes.org
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A musical partnership: Longtime collaborators, cellist Sarah Hong and pianist Makiko Ooka, together form Le Due Muse, and they will be making a return appearance on the Old First Concerts lineup to perform “Le Due Muse–NEOCLASSICAL” at 4 p.m. Sunday in Old First Church at 1751 Sacramento St. in San Francisco. On their program are Maurice Ravel’s “Sonata posthume” and “Piéce en forme de Habanera,” Frank Bridge’s Cello Sonata in D minor and selected songs by Benjamin Britten as well as his five-movement Sonata in C for cello and piano. Tickets are available for both the in-person performance or for livestream only; they are free for those 12 and under, $25-$30 for adults, and a suggested $20 for the virtual recital. Register for them at oldfirstconcerts.org.
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Rockin’ cello: Led by vivacious crossover cellist Rebecca Roudman, Dirty Cello is a unique Bay Area band with a repertoire from blues and rock to Americana. At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, it’s playing a seated pop-up concert in Mendocino at Valerie, a downtown multi-use space at 10546 Lansing St. Founder Roudman promises an evening of “wild rock and roll, soulful blues and irreverent originals performed with high energy abandon” and says the Los Angeles Times reports that “the group seamlessly careens from blues to bluegrass and rock in a way that really shouldn’t make sense but somehow does.” Tickets, $20, are available at the door and at dirtycello.com.
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