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Around Berkeley
🎶 The Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Ming Luke, will perform Swiss-born, Jewish-American composer Ernest Bloch’s Avodat Hakodesh and French composer Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem. The featured professional soloists are Sara Couden, contralto, and Simon Barrad, baritone. The BCCO’s concerts at Hertz Hall are always free, though donations are welcome; its first director, Eugene Jones, was known for his belief that “everyone should be able to enjoy great music.” Performances run from Friday, June 7, through Sunday, June 9. See website for times. Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley. FREE
📚 Berkeley cultural historian Sheryl Kaskowit talks about her new book A Chance to Harmonize: How FDR’s Hidden Music Unit Sought to Save America from the Great Depression — One Song at a Time with singer, songwriter and filmmaker Alexis Harte, focusing on the New Deal’s connections to folk music and to Berkeley history. Thursday, June 6, 6:30 North Berkeley Branch Library. FREE
🎻 Berkeley cellist Isaac Pastor-Chermak and pianist Alison Lee, a longtime duo, will be joined by mezzo-soprano Hope Nelson for a program consisting of works by the Romantic-period German composer Johannes Brahms. Friday, June 7, 7:30 p.m. Berkeley Piano Club. $30 (RSVP)
🎷 Berkeley-reared tenor saxophonist and bassoon star Paul Hanson makes a rare hometown appearance at the Back Room with electric bass explorer Michael Manring and Berkeley drum wizard Scott Amendola. It’s the first time the groove maestro and double-reed expert have performed together since the 20th century. Friday, June 7, 8 p.m. The Back Room. $20
🎶 A reflection of the eclectic-minded generation of jazz musicians living in the Bay Area’s tech-dominated, genre-skeptical, multi-cultural mix, the Klaxon Mutant All-stars draw inspiration from 1980s hip-hop, the writings of David Sedaris and local indie rock bands like Deerhoof. Friday, June 7, 7-10 p.m. Jupiter. FREE
🎷 Outsound, the essential Bay Area champion of improvised music, is relaunching its annual benefit dinner, an event that features Bay Area pianist, improviser and storyteller Ric Louchard joined by reed master Matt Ingalls and Berkeley cellist extraordinaire Ben Davis. Saturday, June 8, 6 p.m. Berkeley Finnish Hall on Chestnut. $100
🇨🇺 A mesmerizing vocalist born on the outskirts of Havana, Bobi Céspedes has been the Bay Area’s leading matriarch of Afro-Cuban music for more than four decades, and she returns to Freight & Salvage (with the dance floor open) backed by some of the Bay Area’s finest Latin jazz musicians, including her music director Marco Díaz on piano and trumpet, bassist Ernesto Mazar Kindelán, percussionist Javier Navarrette, José Roberto Hernández on guitar and vocals, trumpeter Bill Ortiz, and Lichi Fuentes on vocals and percussion. Saturday, June 8, 8 p.m. Freight & Salvage. $25
🇧🇷 The long-running Santa Cruz Afro-Brazilian party band SambaDá brings the carnival energy back to Ashkenaz led by Brasilia-raised capoeira master Papiba Godinho and charismatic Bahia-reared vocalist Dandha da Hora. Saturday, June 8, 8:30 p.m. (dance lesson at 7:30 p.m.) Ashkenaz. $20/$25
🎶 The 18th biennial Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, hosted by the San Francisco Early Music Society, is a massive showcase of vocal and instrumental music from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. The field of early music has had a long history of centering works from European cultures; in an effort to change that and more accurately reflect the Bay Area’s diversity, this year’s festival will also feature classical Indian music, historical music from the South American missions and traditional Chinese music. For the first time ever, tickets are pay-what-you-can. Sunday, June 9 through Sunday, June 16. See website for concert times and locations.
☕ Jaffa, a new Palestinian American-owned cafe specializing in small-batch coffee, has opened a flagship location in Berkeley and is celebrating its grand opening. Sunday, June 9, 1-5 p.m. 1701 University Avenue.
🎶 Led by trumpeter Erik Jekabson the CJC’s resident ensemble, the 17-piece Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, returns to Rendon Hall with a program of pieces by ESO composer/arranger emeritus Doug Morton, an accomplished jazz trumpeter who has also performed with the Sacramento, Berkeley, Monterey and California symphonies. Sunday, June 9, 5 p.m. California Jazz Conservatory. $20
🇵🇸 La Peña Cultural Center will be hosting a fundraiser for the Bay Area nonprofit Middle East Children’s Alliance, which is currently providing humanitarian relief in Gaza. Guests include Palestinian violinist Georges Lammam, poets Deema Shehabi and Dina Omar and musician Duamuxa. There will be complimentary food and wine. Sunday, June 9, 6-9 p.m. La Peña Cultural Center. $30-$75 (RSVP)
🇪🇹 The creative force behind the Ethio-jazz movement that flowered in Addis Ababa in the early 1970s, vibraphonist Mulatu Astatke is as influential today as ever before, as musicians around the world embraced his incantatory sound in the 21st century. Still vital at 80, he plays a two-night run at the UC Theatre, presented by the Los Angeles label and production house Jazz Is Dead. Wednesday and Thursday, June 12 and 13, 8 p.m. UC Theatre. $42.50
🎉 Plan ahead: La Peña is throwing a big party and concert featuring Orquesta La Moderna Tracición, a Bay Area group that specializes in Cuban Charanga, to celebrate its 49th anniversary. The event will also feature a presentation on Cuban music history by Roberto Borrell, a celebratory toast and presentation on La Peña’s work serving Berkeley’s BIPOC immigrant communities, plenty of dancing and food from Los Cilantros. Saturday, June 15, 7:30 p.m. La Peña Cultural Center. $20-$30 (RSVP)
🏳️🌈 ACCI Gallery is hosting its first-ever Pride show. Curated by Russel Ryan, the exhibit, titled Breaking Boundaries, aims to showcase the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and showcase artwork that “challenges conventional norms and represents the artists’ unique, queer perspective of the world. More than 20 local artists will be featured. Through June 30.
🪐 Berkeley Rep’s new rock musical, Galileo, follows the maverick scientist Galileo Galilei as he uses his new advanced telescope to observe the stars, realizes Copernicus was right — the earth indeed revolves around the sun and faces the wrath of the Catholic Church, which insisted otherwise. Read our theater critic’s review. Berkeley Rep will be holding a special community Pride Night on June 7, a pre-show that will feature performances by Polly Amber Ross, Qozmo the Clown and Jota Mercury. Light bites and wine are included. Through June 23. $29.50-$139
Beyond Berkeley
🚲 Launched in 2022, the East Oakland Futures Fest celebrates life in deep East Oakland along Scraperbike Way, a nearly mile-long section of road and bike path stretching between MacArthur and International boulevards designed by OakDOT in collaboration with the Scraper Bike Team. The festival includes food, arts, tech, culture, local vendors, and catered zones dedicated to health and healing, building prosperity, arts and culture, and more. Saturday, June 8, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., 90th Avenue from Holly Street to Birch Street, Oakland. FREE (RSVP)
👑 Following the sold-out run of Hat Matter: Thoughts of a Black Mad Hatter in 2022, classically-trained thespian and poet Michael Wayne Turner III is back with another one-man theatrical production run called Ghost of King. In it, Wayne Turner revisits the words from Dr. Martin Luther King’s last speech the night before he died, titled I’ve Been to the Mountaintop, incorporating poetry and spoken word for a captivating performance. As part of the Activate Oakland programming, free tickets are available for the opening weekend between June 6 and June 8. Thursday, June 6 through Sunday, June 23. Oakland Theater Project at FLAX Art and Design, 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. $10-$60
🎶 The weeklong inaugural Oakland Black Music Week takes over different venues all across the Town with events to highlight and uplift Black musicians, creatives, and entrepreneurs. The festivities start with the HiiiWAV FEST featuring The Pharcyde, a concert at Yoshi’s with Kev Choice and friends, and conclude with the Oakland Black Music Legacy Jam at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle. Check out the website for a complete calendar of events. Saturday, June 8, through Sunday, June 16, see website for times and locations
📸 El Tímpano is a publication that “informs, engages, and amplifies the voices of the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities.” The team led by Mayra Sierra, visual photojournalist Hiram Durán, and Katherine Nagasawa worked on a month-long pop-up photo booth at Oakland Coliseum Swap Meet, also called “La Pulga.” The team photographed and interviewed approximately 75 patrons and vendors at the swap meet. The project is now an art installation at the Oakland Lowdown in conjunction with El Tímpano and Catchlight, which Hiram Durán is part of. The exhibit is on display through Friday, Aug. 2. Saturday, June 8, 1-4 p.m. Oakland Lowdown, 300 14th Street, Oakland. FREE (RSVP)
If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us atthe-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 ourevents page.
The Oaklandside’s Arts and Community reporter Azucena Rasilla contributed to this list.
more to do in berkeley
Affordable things to do in Berkeley any day of the week
From farmers markets to trivia nights, we put together a roundup of events and activities held regularly in Berkeley.
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