Freebie of the week: The “Movement” part of Movement Immigrant Orchestra can be taken several ways. It can refer to the constant movement of people around the globe that influences history in ways that vary from simple to profound. It can refer to the movement inspired by listening to the orchestra’s rich, rhythmic jazz as filtered through music from India, Mexico, Ethiopia, Cuba, Italy, Taiwan, Spain, Iran, China and Lebanon. And it calls attention to the band’s global drive through podcasts, broadcasts and live performances to spread the stories and songs of immigrants, partly through involvement in PRX, a nonprofit public media company. The ambitious band/musical project was founded in 2020 by Ethiopian-born, San Francisco-based singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero, a former refugee, and Italian-born percussionist Marco Peris Coppola. True to its wide-ranging foundation, Movement Immigrant Orchestra’s performances can vary, depending on who’s leading the band during a particular song. Movement Immigrant Orchestra was said to have turned in an incendiary performance during last year’s Yerba Buena Gardens Festival; the band will be back at the event this weekend from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday for a free performance. The concert is at Yerba Buena Gardens Great Lawn, on Mission Street, between Third and Fourth streets. More information is at ybgfestival.org.
The barricades are back: Audiences simply can’t get enough of “Les Miz.” The tour of the blockbuster musical (opera, really!) based on Victor Hugo’s epic 19th century French novel “Les Misérables” — encompassing law, grace, history, morality, justice, architecture, religion, and, of course, love in all its facets — is in San Francisco for a limited run. The familiar score by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg boasts the soaring tunes “I Dreamed a Dream,” “On My Own,” “Bring Him Home,” “Do You Hear the People Sing?” “One Day More,” “Master of the House” and more. The show onstage at the Orpheum Theatre is creator Cameron Mackintosh’s 2009 production conceived to celebrate the multi-Tony-Award-winning phenomenon’s 25th anniversary. It runs through Oct. 5, and tickets are $60-$270 at broadwaysf.com.
A French connection: Conductor Donato Cabrera and the Walnut Creek-based California Symphony begin their 2025-26 season Saturday night in the Lesher Center for the Arts’ Hofmann Theatre with “Pictures from Paris.” The evening opens with that most persistent of classical music earworms, Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro, in which two sinuous melodies wrap around each other over a repetitive rhythmic bass until the whole orchestra brings it to a clamorous close. Should you need any reminder of what it sounds like, the Symphony’s website has posted a hilarious YouTube video with four of the six members of Germany’s Wiener Cello Ensemble 5+1 playing it on a single cello, with a lot of elbowing and shoving going on. The evening continues with George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” from 1928 and concludes with Ravel’s orchestration of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” The program, which begins at 7:30 p.m., is repeated at a Sunday matinee at 4 p.m. Find tickets, $25-$110, at californiasymphony.org.
A famous voice: Cal Performances has landed one of the most talented countertenors in the world, the superb American opera star Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, to launch its 2025-26 recital series. The Grammy-winning singer will be joined by pianist John Churchwell, head of music for San Francisco Opera, in an adventurous program inspired by their recent recording, “Uncharted.” Their musical selections stretch beyond the usual repertoire for countertenor to embrace lieder in the Austro-Germanic canon, including songs by Brahms, both Clara and Robert Schumann and Erich Korngold. Works by Black American composers H. Leslie Adams and Florence Price are also on the program, as is a co-commissioned piece by San Francisco composer Jake Heggie called “Oh Children/Three Poems by Margaret Atwood.” The performance takes place in Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets, priced at $78, are available at calperformances.org.
A jazzy tribute: Marin Jazz offers an exciting evening on Saturday featuring pianist-bandleader Mariah Parker and her ensemble: Matthew Montfort (scalloped fretboard guitar), Jim Hurley (violin), Sascha Jacobsen (bass), Michaelle Goerlitz (percussion) and special guest, Grammy-winning drummer Mark Walker. The Indo Latin Jazz Extravaganza promises a thrilling blend of Latin jazz, Eastern music and flamenco. The concert also will pay tribute to local treasure, double reed player Paul McCandless, a longtime collaborator with Parker. Tickets are $57-$67; the show is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lark theater in Larkspur. Visit larktheater.net.
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