Freebie of the week: As part of Arts4All’s commitment to making a diverse array of concerts by proven performers highly accessible, Berkeley-based pianist Sarah Cahill brings her nature-themed program “The Woods So Wild” to Tateuchi Hall at the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The title is taken directly from the work of famed English Renaissance composer William Byrd, who built a set of 14 variations around a simple rustic theme based on a Tudor song. Also on the program is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s five-movement “Forest Scenes,” with each movement portraying a different chapter in a romantic encounter between a maiden and a phantom. A couple of Cahill’s choices are works she has recorded on her albums, including Leo Ornstein’s “Morning in the Woods,” full of the rustling, scurrying and breeze-born sounds one might hear on a nature walk. Compositions by Amy Beach, Mamoru Fujieda, Erkki Melartin and Leokadiya Kashperova round out the program, which takes place at 230 San Antonio Circle in Mountain view and is free. Find more information about the series at arts4all.org/concerts.
A tune-filled travel through time: Follow our beloved Bay Area-based a cappella ensemble Chanticleer on “Our American Journey” as the dozen guys whose voice blend fabulously tour through the diverse musical heritage we have built here since our founding 250 years ago. A new work by composer Trevor Weston linking traditional American hymnody and African-American spirituals anchors the program, which traverses traditions including shape-note singing, barbershop quartets, jazz, folk and bluegrass. Irving Berlin’s classic “Blue Skies,” the gorgeous paean to the river “Shenandoah” and the song “Home” from “The Wiz” also are on the the program. Tickets range from $40-$71, available through the group’s website at chanticleer.org or cityboxffice.com. The concert tour starts at 2 p.m. Saturday at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church, moving to St. John’s Lutheran in Sacramento at 5 p.m. Sunday, Mount Tamalpais United Methodist in Mill Valley at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Mission Santa Clara at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25 and winding up in Hume Hall at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music at 2 p.m. Sept. 28.
A well-traveled trombonist: Quintet leader and trombonist Bob Roden has an extensive and varied career. He started in music as a 20-year-old rock ‘n’ roller touring Holiday Inns on the way to working his way up to top showrooms on the Las Vegas strip. Along the way, he struck up a long and fruitful working relationship with Vegas icons Sidro’s Armada, which eventually earned him entrance into Vegas Hall of Fame. Then he did what any rock musician might do: He ditched show biz to earn a law degree, eventually working as a legal rep for tech and entertainment giants including Lucasfilm and Pixar. But his love for music never waned. As he puts it, he learned “the best way to be a musician is not to do it for a living.” In 2017, switching from rock to jazz, he founded the Bob Roden Quintet. The band’s been performing around the Bay Area ever since. One of his favorite joints is Riggers Loft in Richmond, where the group will appear from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday ($5, riggersloftwine.com/#). Sadly, it’s expected to be the quintet’s final show at the scenic venue before it closes. Roden and band also perform at the Piedmont Harvest Festival, which runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday in Piedmont Park, 711 Highland Ave. Admission to the event, which includes a farmer’s market, food trucks and an edibles contest, is free. More information is at piedmont.ca.gov/news/events/harvest_festival. Roden’s also a purveyor of kids’ music. His fun recording “Mammals Eat Coconuts” is a popular item on Spotify.
Dance royalty: Alonzo King, among the Bay Area’s top contemporary choreographers, is here to remind us of what is truly important in life – love and spirituality. And part of the greatness in his work is that it is always about something. Even basic elements of choreography are, to King, part of a bigger picture. He refers to his works as “thought structures,” tied to universal forces of motion. This weekend, King and his company, Lines Ballet, return to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to perform his acclaimed 2023 evening-length work “Deep River,” which has drawn rave reviews around the world. King calls it a meditation on love, resilience and inner strength. Set to Black spirituals and Jewish liturgical music, it features vocals by the great singer Lisa Fischer and a score by piano great Jason Moran, artists with whom the collab-happy King has worked with before. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the YBCA’s Blue Shield Theatre. King will be on hand for a post-performance Q&A on Friday. Tickets are $42-$135. Go to linesballet.org or ybca.org.
‘Vengeance’ on stage: With the Trump administration busy suing news outlets and seeking to muzzle its critics and perceived enemies, the subject of censorship has rarely seemed so topical and so concrete. It’s at the center of “Indecent,” a production playing through next weekend at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek. “Indecent” is a play about another play that was penned in 1906 and caused a huge commotion when it opened on Broadway in 1923. That play, “God of Vengeance,” centered on a Jewish brothel owner who seeks to become “respectable” by marrying off his daughter to a yeshiva student. The New York run of “Vengeance” was aborted when the producer and cast were arrested (and eventually convicted) on obscenity charges. The charges stemmed not from the brothel aspect of the play, but because it was considered an attack on the Jewish religion. In 2015, playwright Paula Vogel—known for probing controversial topics in her works—recounted the “God of Vengeance” controversy in her play “Indecent,” which got its Broadway debut in 2017 and won a pair of Tony Awards. The play was produced by San Francisco Playhouse in 2022 and is now being presented by Center Repertory Company through Sept. 28. Tickets are $74 to $85; go to www.centerrep.org.
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