$7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com
1:30pm to 5:30pm, Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center, 1317 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA, United States
Exhibit Opening and Annual Meeting
George Berkeley (1685-1753)
Berkeley!
How We Got Our Name
In 1866, the private College of California, predecessor to the University of the California, was getting ready to subdivide and sell some of the land it owned north of Oakland and south of the University site to pay for building. They knew a name was needed if they were to sell home sites. The Trustees had turned to Frederick Law Olmsted for guidance. Would we have been better off living in "Shelterdue," " Havensholme" or even "Billingsgate" as Olmsted suggested? How did we end up with Berkeley?
This new exhibit at the Berkeley Historical Society commemorates the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the official selection of the name "Berkeley" on May 24, 1866. Curators Steven Finacom and Phyllis Gale, using documents, manuscripts, diaries, maps, images and other sources, follow a committee of Trustees as they gathered on "Founders Rock," an outcropping now found at Hearst and Gayley Road, to name the hamlet. It will re-tell the story of George Berkeley, how his name came to be attached to our campus and town, and who was involved in the naming.
There will be a brief annual meeting and an introduction to the exhibit in the Veterans Building auditorium before the exhibit opening. Refreshments will be served in the lobby.
Exhibit runs April 17 through September 24, 2016 during the Center's regular hours Thursday-Saturday from 1 to 4 pm
Admission free, donations welcome; wheelchair accessible
Telephone: 510-848-0181; E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.BerkeleyHistoricalSociety.org
2pm to 4pm, Veterans Building 1931 Center Street
Program includes Charles Ives' String Quartet No. 1; Osvaldo Golijov's Tenebrae; Marcus Goddard's Allaqi; Bedrich Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 in E minor ("From My Life"), and the quartet's original arrangements of popular American folk songs of the 1960s-70s.
Audiences are invited to meet the artists at a free reception following the concert.
$25 general admission, $20 students/seniors, FREE for children under 18.
Website: http://catalystsqatcrowden.bpt.me/
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 510-559-6910
http://www.crowden.org
4pm to 5:30pm, Crowden Music Center 1475 Rose Street
$5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com
6:30pm, Ashkenaz Music & Dance Community Center, 1317 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA, United States
Presented by the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir, under the direction of Anthony Pasqua,
We will sing, hum, whisper, speak, and exclaim works by renowned modern and contemporary composers. On the program: an excerpt from Meredith Monk's opera, Atlas; an early work by Arvo Pärt, Solfeggio; and works by Robert Ashley, Ernst Toch, John Cage, and others.
The centerpiece of the program will be Nereocystis III, a new piece for mixed voices, kelp horn, and electronics that the choir has commissioned from Bay Area composer, sound artist, and professor Krystyna Bobrowski.
$15 general, $10 seniors/students Available at the door or online at Brown Paper Tickets: tinyurl.com/sfbacc-tix
7pm to 9pm, St Mark’s Episcopal Church 2300 Bancroft Way
$20 adv / $22 door. 644-2020. www.thefreight.org
7pm, Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA, United States
Muyassar Kurdi w/ David Samas: new works for mouth and movement;
Brothers' Quarrel (David Samas & Ian Saxton);
As I Lie Naked feat. burlesque legend Isis Starr;
& Philandering Moon feat. poet Tom Clark
Muyassar Kurdi is a musician, performance artist, dancer, filmmaker and educator from Chicago, Illinois, and currently living, traveling, and performing in Europe.
In performance, she explores the relationship between abstract sound and metaÂprimordial movement, obliquely confronting ideas of masculine subjugation by reÂappropriating and then distorting hegemonically sexualised figurative motion and juxtaposing it with random, abrasive and jarring acoustic and electronic sound components along with wordless vocalizations.
A joyfully selfÂ-exorcizing ritualist, Kurdi studied voice and dance with legendary vocalist, dancer and ECM recording artist Meredith Monk via The House Foundation for the Arts as well as learning Japanese dance tradition Butoh with Tadashi Endo, director of the Butoh Center MAMU and Butoh Festivals in Germany, and Mexican master of the form Diego Piñon.
David Samas is a composer, cosmologist, poet, painter, performer, philosopher, farmer and father of 4. He has a BFA from the SF Art Institute in conceptual art and studied poetics at the New College of California. As a young man he performed with the SF Boys Chorus, the SF Opera and the SF Symphony with which he won a GRAMMY for the "best classical recording" of 1994. He also makes sacred geometry amulets and talismans, is an excellent cook, and self publishes small editions of hand bound art books.
Brother's Quarrel is the avant improvising duo of David Samas, invented instruments and Ian Saxton, extended percussion and original touch apps. We will be joined by the disembodied voice of poet and mentor Tom Clark, performing Philandering Moon and burlesque legend Isis Starr dancing and performing As I Lie Naked.
Isis Starr is an accomplished Tantrika and Sacred Dancer. She has studied the Temple Arts for many years, is a Priestess of Isis and a published poet. Her performances are an outpouring of feminine power and sensuality.
Isis began studying Ballet at 7 and at the tender age of 12 decided to be a Burlesque Queen after seeing the movie Gypsy. She perfected her bumps and grinds and took them to Ballet class where they were not appreciated. Nine years later she was working at the Condor Club in North Beach, San Francisco. Realizing she was born too late to be a true Burlesque Queen, she started stripping from a Burlesque perspective. Since then she has been around the world twice on a g-string and is now a Living legend and the Goddess of Burlesque.
Isis has performed at the Crazy Horse in Paris, Beirut and Australia. She also did 3 months at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. She has worked the Windmill Theater in London and Paul Raymond Revue Bar, as well as the Olde Latin Quarter.
Tom Clark has combined the diverse roles of poet, biographer, novelist, dramatist, reviewer, and sportswriter during his writing career. In addition to dozens of books of poetry, a play, two novels, two story collections, and numerous biographies of literary figures, Clark's works include a book co-written with star baseball pitcher Mark Fidrych, poems about such sports legends as Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Bert Campaneris, and a history of the Oakland A's baseball team.
He was Poetry editor of the Paris Review from 1963-73; an instructor in American poetry at the University of Essex from 1966-67; a senior writer at the Boulder Monthly from 1978-79; and an Instructor in Poetics at New College of California from1988 until its demise in 2008.
You can find him daily at his poetry blog, tomclarkblog.blogspot.com
Ian Saxton is an experimental percussionist and theatrical activist with a background in computer music and a deep passion for complex polyrhythms. He completed a music BA at UC Santa Cruz with David Cope, a Computer Music MA at UC San Diego with Miller Puckette, and worked closely with David Wessel while in the Music Composition PhD program at UC Berkley before leaving in "protest" over the corporatization and militarization of public education and arts research. He was the founding drummer for Cash Pony and long time percussionist for Sun Hop Fat, both Bay Area bands who traverse the ethno/prog/jazz/white-boy-funk/rock fusion space.
$10/sliding
8pm to 10pm, 2133 University Ave.