Freebie of the week: Meklit, the Ethiopian-born East Bay singer, embarks on ambitious projects that are about much more than music. Or maybe it’s that the music itself transports listeners to a landscape of global themes and issues. The Nile Project she co-founded with Egyptian musicologist Mina Girgis gathered musicians from nearly a dozen East African nations for a multi-pronged campaign devoted to water conservation. Her latest project, dubbed Movement, centers on the force and impact of global migration, and includes a podcast, radio show and concert series. The latest chapter unfolds on Saturday in a free concert at which she’ll debut Meklit’s Movement Immigrant Orchestra, a collective of 13 musicians from 11 countries including India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Cuba, Italy, Taiwan, Spain, Iran, Mali, Haiti and Palestine. It includes Mexican singer-songwriter Diana Gameros; Mamadou Sidibé, a master of several Malian string instruments; Spanish guitarist Javi Jimenez, Cuban trombonist Obrayan Calderon, Taiwanese cellist Roziht Edwards, and Haitian singer Lalin St. Juste. The band takes the stage at 1 p.m. Saturday on the Great Lawn at Yerba Buena Gardens near Misson between Third and Fourth streets in San Francisco as part of the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. The 90-minute concert is free. More information is at ybgfestival.org.
Ice is nice: You knew that when Disney’s animated musical “Frozen” emerged as a monster hit in movie theaters in 2013 that it would eventually become a stage musical. That’s just the way the world works. The stage show arrived about five years later, and, despite enduring COVID shutdowns early in its life, has become a global stage phenomenon with productions on Broadway as well as in Denver, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Germany and the U.K. There’s also a North American touring version playing through this weekend at San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts. Created by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez and Jennifer Lee, the stage show is faithful to the film and includes its original songs (including the ubiquitous “Let It Go” as well as our favorite, “Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People”) as well as some 15 additional tunes. With a touching, engaging story about princess sisters thrust into a frigid and perilous predicament, “Frozen” (at two hours,15 minutes) is perfect for a family outing. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 7 p.m. Friday, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $39-$137. Go to broadwaysanjose.com.
Happy birthday to an icon: Singer, songwriter, musician and producer Linda Tillery has been a rich part of the Bay Area music scene for some five decades, so you better believe her birthday gig this weekend in Berkeley is a big deal. Tillery got her start as the singer for the late-’60s soul/psychedelic-rock band The Loading Zone and has gone on to a storied and varied career as a solo rock/Americana artist, a producer for artists recording with the famed Olivia Records label that catered to female artists, and as a collaborator with A-List artists including Kenny Loggins, Holly Near, Bobby McFerrin, Barbara Higbie, Huey Lewis, Carlos Santana and the Turtle Island String Quartet. She also founded the Cultural Heritage Choir, a group committed to performing and preserving African American roots music. She is considered an influential figure in women’s popular music partly because she does it all and she does it on her terms. On Saturday, she’ll be celebrating her 76th birthday and her storied career at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage with esteemed musicians in a band called the East Bay Allstars, including guitarist Ray Obiedo, pianist Tammy Hall, percussionist John Santos, singer-percussionist Vicki Randle, and many, many more. The music starts at 7 p.m. (masks are recommended), and tickets are $54 ($31.50 for ages 21 and younger). Go to thefreight.org.
Mood music for the merriment: This Labor Day weekend brings the 158th rollout of the annual Scottish Highland Gathering and Games Saturday and Sunday at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, but a kickoff event takes place at 7:30 p.m. the night before at the Friday Night Concert at the San Ramon Marriott. The lineup this year presents Scottish folk singer and acoustic guitarist Peter Daldry, fiddler Michael Mullen, Celtic folk musicians the Katie Jane Band, some Highland Dance performances and the Vancouver Irish Pipes and Drum Society—plus a special surprise band. Doors to the Marriott ballroom open up at 7:10 p.m. Tickets are $28 at thescottishgames.com.
It’s all about telling the tale: “Story Is the Thing” is the title Kepler’s Literary Foundation has given an event on Thursday at the Menlo Park bookstore featuring four acclaimed authors at a 6 p.m. reception followed by a 7 p.m. reading and Q&A session. The lineup includes San Francisco-based attorney and author Katherine Lin, whose debut novel, “You Can’t Stay Here Forever,” published in June 2023, has won praise from the New York Times, NPR, the Boston Globe and many others. Claire Oshetsky, a former science writer for Wired and the New York Times, is a four-time winner of the “Article of the Year Award” from the American Society of Journalists and author of the novel “Chouette,” which won the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize. She will read from her new novel, “Poor Deer,” which came out in January. Journalist and novelist Susanne Pari’s first novel, “The Fortune Catcher,” came out in 2002 and is now published in six languages. She will be discussing her latest novel, “In the Time of Our History,” from 2023. The final author is former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford Zach Williams, an accomplished short story writer who will read from his new collection “Beautiful Days,” which came out in June and has been named one of the New Yorker’s best books of 2024. Masks are encouraged but not required at the store at 1010 El Camino Real. Tickets are $21.99 for the in-store event, or $16.74 for a Zoomcast. Find them at keplers.com.
The post Best Bets: Meklit’s Movement Immigrant Orchestra, ‘Frozen’ onstage, Linda Tillery birthday bash, Scottish Games concert, fiction writers at Kepler’s appeared first on Local News Matters.