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Around Berkeley
🎨 BAMPFA’s new art exhibition, A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, highlights the work of twelve contemporary artists, who were each commissioned to make works reflecting on the history and impacts of the Great Migration. Gallery admission is free on opening day, Saturday, April 13, and the first Thursday of each month through Sept. 22.
🌸 Did you know UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning owns a 10.5-acre garden roughly 4 miles north of the Cal campus? Once a month, the department leads a public tour of Blake Garden, which contains new and historic garden designs and structures designed by Cal landscape architecture and environmental planning professors and students. Thursday, April 11, 2 p.m. 70 Rincon Road, Kensington. FREE
🎤 Author, translator and critic Cristina Rivera Garza will deliver the 2024 lecture in UC Berkeley’s Bedri Distinguished Writers Series. The lecture is titled “The Affective Archives: Writing, Bodies and Collective Memory.” Rivera Garza was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship and founded the Ph.D. program in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Houston’s Department of Hispanic Studies — the first of its kind in the U.S. Thursday, April 11, 5 p.m. Maude Fife Room (315), Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley. FREE
🇦🇷 Minneapolis-based composer and bandoneonist Charles Gorczynski plays two sets of tango with his quartet featuring Egyptian violinist Basma Edrees, Redwood Tango Ensemble pianist Elyse Weakley, and bass maestro Sascha Jacobsen, a concert preceded by a tango dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 11, 9:15 p.m. Ashkenez. $20/$25
🇯🇵 A Japanese percussion ensemble steeped in the art of taiko while incorporating elements of Korean, Maori and Indonesian drum traditions, the 40-member Drum Tao celebrates its 30th anniversary with a production featuring intricate costumes and dramatic lighting. Thursday, April 11, 7:30 p.m., and Friday, April 12, 8 p.m. Zellerbach Hall. $38-$106.
🚲 The student organization Telegraph For People is holding a rally for a “car-free, walkable Telegraph Avenue” on Cal Day. The event will feature live music from Juniper. Bring bikes, games and dancing shoes. Saturday, April 13, 11 a.m. Telegraph and Bancroft. FREE
🎺 At the center of the New York jazz scene for the past two decades, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt is a prodigious improviser who’s equally commanding, caressing a ballad or hurtling over a maze of chord changes. He’ll have no shortage of worthy interlocutors at the California Jazz Conservatory with an all-star faculty band featuring Venezuelan pianist Edward Simon, bassist Jeff Denson and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Friday-Saturday, April 12-13, 8 p.m. California Jazz Conservatory. $45
🎸A regular member of the Oakland surf/soul Helltones band making his Jupiter debut under his name, Nathan X. Moody is a versatile guitarist and keyboardist who’s performed around the country, investigating an array of idioms from blues, hip hop and R&B to rock, jazz and bluegrass. Saturday, April 13, 7-10 p.m. Jupiter. FREE
🌞 With spring warming up, the time seems ripe for the return of Sunstock: Solar Powered Music Festival and Sustainability Fair, which turns Cal’s West Crescent Lawn into a craft, music and conservation zone. The all-day shindig sponsored by the ASUC includes free activities like tote bag painting, plant potting and decorating reusable cups. There’s also a bevy of bands with solar-powered amplification, including the Grateful Dead cover act Bear Necessities, Far Reaches, Volunteer Park, Fire Trail, and the Los Angeles collective Trapdoor Social. There’s one hitch. With weather forecasts indicating a good chance of rain over the weekend, Sunstock might be missing one vital ingredient. Sunday, April 14, 12-7 p.m. West Crescent Lawn. FREE
🌷 Learn how to make floral arrangements at an event led by The Plant Queen, a Black and Asian-owned plant nursery in Berkeley, and the Konson Collective. A ticket grants access to flowers, a vase and complimentary wine. Sunday, April 14, 12 p.m. 2634 San Pablo Avenue. $63
🎻 The Berkeley Symphony presents a literature-themed chamber music concert that sets works by Emily Dickinson, John Keats and William Shakespeare to music. Featured musicians include soprano Lisa Delan, violinist Rene Mandel, cellist Evan Khan and pianist Kevin Korth. Program highlights include Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s suite from Much Ado About Nothing for violin and piano, Jake Heggies’s Shed No Tear for soprano and piano, and Franz Schubert’s spectacular Trio in E-flat Major. Also, the composer Gordon Getty’s Four Dickinson Songs are for soprano and piano. (Does that name sound familiar? Yes, he’s indeed the son of the oil tycoon J. Paul Getty.) Sunday, April 14, 4 p.m. Piedmont Center for the Arts. $40
🎻 Cellist Natalie Haas and Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser have been touring and recording together as a duo for nearly two decades, honing a lush, orchestral body of tunes from the traditional Scottish songbook and kindred cultures, creating an enthralling sound that would seem to require at least two more players. Sunday, April 14, 7 p.m. Freight & Salvage. $30/$35
🎭 Berkeley Rep is showing Lloyd Suh’s play The Far Country. The Pulitzer Prize finalist sheds light on the cruelty of Angel Island through the lens of a Chinese American family arriving in San Francisco at the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Read our theater critic’s review. Through April 14. $22.50-$134
🦋 Plan ahead: Butterfly docent specialist Sally Levinson will lead a guided walk in search of butterflies. Bring a pair of binoculars if you have them. The event fee includes same-day admission to the rest of the UC Botanical Garden. Monday, April 15, 1:30 p.m. UC Botanical Garden. $14-$18
🏠 The Terner Center is holding a panel discussion all about housing, from pending ballot measures to housing platforms of candidates running for office in 2024. The panelists are Sarah Brundage, the president of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders; Graciela Gastillo-Krings, a partner at Sacramento Advocates; Matt Schwartz, the president of California Housing Partnership; Chris Elmendorf, a professor at the UC Davis School of Law. Monday, April 15, 5 p.m. Bauer Wurster Hall Auditorium, UC Berkeley. FREE
📚Prolific music journalist, guitarist and cultural historian Elijah Wald reads from his new book (and plays tunes from) Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories, a deep dive into the earthy environment that gave birth to blues and jazz at the turn of the 19th century. Monday, April 15, 7 p.m. Pegasus Shattuck. FREE
📚Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor discuss their new book, Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea, examining solidarity as a political movement with the potential to create lasting change. They will be joined in conversation by author Ian Haney López. Tuesday, April 16, 6 p.m. Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore. FREE (with registration)
☀️ The Australian pop-rock band Lime Cordiale is visiting Berkeley on its North American tour. The band’s music “reflects the relaxed, sunny outlook of the surfing and beach-going culture” loved by brothers Oliver and Louis Leimbach and bandmates James Jennings, Tim Fitz, Feliz Bornholdt and Nicholas Polovineo. Wednesday, April 17, 8 p.m. Cornerstone. $31-$36
🪴Here’s your periodic reminder that many flowers are in bloom at the 34-acre UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley. Established in 1890, the garden features more than 10,000 types of plants, including many rare and endangered species. (There’s also a garden shop where you can buy plants and other garden-related gifts.) Garden open daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Shop open daily, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Closed on Tuesdays. $18
🔥 See the work of more than 200 student artists from Berkeley, Richmond and Skyline high schools at the David Brower Center’s new exhibit, “Burning Questions,” which explores the connections between fire and the environment. (Read our story.) Through May 16. David Brower Center. FREE (RSVP)
Beyond Berkeley
🏞️ Fairyland is letting grownups roam the children’s park. This year, the magical park will host five events for grownups. The first is a Mad Tea Party theme where attendees can choose to dress up as their favorite Alice in Wonderland characters, other costumes or none. Expect DJ Styles spinning in the Merry Meadow, savory bites from food trucks, a March Hare’s Madness specialty cocktail and other drinks. Admission tickets include two drinks. Live actors will be dressed as the Mad Hatter and March Hare characters to bring the storybook to life. Go and chase the white rabbit. Saturday, April 13, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., 699 Bellevue Ave., $35
🎶 New York-based pianist, accordionist, and composer Ben Rosenblum is coming to Oakland for a special show with Nebula Project, a six-piece ensemble featuring a diverse cast of New York City’s jazz musicians. The show is taking place at The Sound Room. Thursday, April 11, 7:30 p.m., 3022 Broadway, $25
📚 Oakland Kids First, the nonprofit that works with Oakland youth leaders to improve the education system and civic engagement, is hosting a fundraiser happy hour at Amber Lounge (formerly The Layover), where 20% of the bar proceeds will benefit the work the organization does to ensure Oakland youth have a voice in decisions that impact their future. DJ Sake One will be behind the turntables, providing the tunes while you sip on one of the bar’s specialty cocktails like the agave jalapeño margarita, the Oakland mule (cognac and ginger beer), or a drink of your choice. Friday, April 12, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., 1517 Franklin St., RSVP online
🗄️ A once-lost archive of photographs of Oakland in the 1970s and 80s by Black photographer Raymond Cooper has been on display at the Oakland Photo Workshop Gallery (East Bay Photo Collective) since mid-February. This is a unique opportunity to step back in time and witness an Oakland that once was and the last chance to check out the exhibit. Saturday, April 13, 3-6 p.m., Oakland Photo Workshop Gallery, 312 8th St. FREE
🎼 Since 1999, the Oakland Gay Men’s Chorus has strived to build a more inclusive and understanding world through the power of music. This season, the community has two opportunities to see the choir belt out classics like Seasons of Love and True Colors. The choir will also perform the world premiere of Earth Song, composed and conducted by Dr. Marques L. A. Garrett. The song is based on Langston Hughes’s 1925 poem, An Earth Song. Saturday, April 13, 7;30 p.m., Montclair Presbyterian Church, 5701 Thornhill Drive, $15-$60
If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at the-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 our events page.
The Oaklandside’s Arts and Community reporter Azucena Rasilla contributed reporting to this story.
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.
