Thursday 15
STRINGS OF THE SYMPHONY. Concertmaster William Preucil and principal cellist Eric Kim have been tuning up for a visit to the Old Pueblo.
Preucil, a violinist with the Cleveland Orchestra, and Kim, of the Cincinnati Symphony, blend their talents for Johannes Brahms' Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor.
They join conductor George Hanson and his Tucson Symphony Orchestra for three performances in the seventh Classic Concert of the season. This one's called Passionate Expressions.
Preucil last performed in Tucson in 1997, playing Stephen Paulus' Violin Concerto, which was written for and dedicated to Preucil. Prior to joining the Cleveland Orchestra, Preucil spent seven years as first violinist for the Grammy Award-winning Cleveland Quartet.
Kim has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South American and the Middle East and Far East. His is a long career in music, having solo debuted at age 15 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has held his principal position in Cincinnati since 1989.
Concerts begin at 8 tonight and Friday, 2 p.m. Sunday, at the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall. Tickets are $13 to $33 and available by calling 882-8585, or by visiting the box office at 2175 N. Sixth Ave., south of Grant Road. Tickets also available through Ticketmaster, 321-1000, Robinson-May stores and Wherehouse Music.
Friday 16
GREED AND GIGGLES. Greedy stepkids commit stepmom to a sanitarium to "bring her to her senses," and turn over some of the millions she inherited when Dad died.
But Mrs. Savage (Marian Wald) is determined to set up a fund to help others realize their hopes and dreams in the Catalina Players' curious comedy, The Curious Savage.
The kids' plan to bring Mrs. Savage around backfires when the widow gets to know the sanitarium's residents, meeting a variety of social misfits who just can't seem to adjust in the "real" world.
But they can help their new friend chase off her wicked stepchildren ...
The play marks the 18th year for Catalina Players, a community theater group that has withstood the tests of time. Now under the direction of Priscilla P. Marquez, the company has expanded its talent reach, drawing from the city's best actors, technicians and supporting players.
Now considered one of Tucson's best amateur theater groups, Catalina Players have staged The Diary of Anne Frank, Our Town, Rainmaker, You Can't Take it With You and dozens of other plays.
The Curious Savage opens at 7:30 p.m. at 400 E. University Blvd. (at Fourth Avenue) in Trinity Presbyterian Church's Grand Hall. Hungry playgoers should show up at 6 p.m. for dinner. The play will be performed at the same times on March 17, 23, 24, 30 and 31. A noon lunch matinee is March 18. Tickets are $20 for dinner and the show, $12 for just the play. Students can get in for $6. For reservations or more information, please call 721-9640, or email catplayers@aol.com.
LEARNING TO LIVE BETTER. A weekend of AIDS information should be a real PLUS for anyone affected by the disease.
PLUS, or Positive Living for Us Seminar, sponsored by the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, is three days of informational workshops nurturing healing, celebration and empowerment.
Throughout the weekend, participants will have the opportunity to learn about themselves and available resources through experimental exercises, presentations, complimentary therapies and movement.
Workshop topics include HIV status disclosure and dating, nutrition, guided imagery meditation, medical issues, yoga, dance and drumming. Several workshops will be conducted in Spanish. The event also features acupuncture, massage, and food and entertainment.
PLUS began in Los Angeles in 1987, growing into life-enhancing seminars now staged across the country.
The weekend's activities begin at 6 tonight. The event continues 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free, but participants must register in advance. Call Melissa at 628-7223 to register and for location, or visit the foundation website, www.saaf.org.
HEAL THYSELF. If you had a messed-up childhood and can't seem to get your head right, put a little light on the subject using luminous energy medicine.
Healing from childhood emotional trauma is among the topics that will be covered tonight in a talk and slide show by shamantic healer Liana Carbon, whose work has been based on the teachings of her mentor, Dr. Alberto Villoldo.
Villoldo is the author of a new book called, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas. For the past 20 years, he has studied shamantic healing techniques among Inca descendants. Currently, Villoldo teaches energy medicine to medical professionals and lay people.
Carbon will show slides of Peru, share stories of her work with Villoldo and provide an introduction to energy healing covering how something called luminous energy field informs the way we heal, age and die; how we can enhance the auto-immune system; how we can heal from childhood trauma; and how we can take responsibility for our own healing.
The talk, which will be followed by a question and answer session, begins at 7 p.m. at Antigone Books, 411 N. Fourth Ave. For more information, please call 792-3715, or visit www.antigonebooks.com.
Saturday 17
LUSH DESERT. Did you know there are rainforests in California and Alaska? Have you ever been to the one in Tucson?
OK, so ours is man-made, but still it's definitely worth checking out.
Explore the nooks and crannies of the Tucson Botanical Gardens' lush Tropical Rainforest Exhibit in an event today for kids 5 to 12 years old and their parents.
Rainforest in our Backyard includes a lesson on the importance of rainforests to the environment, including the Sonoran Desert, and a look at some of the rainforest products.
The morning winds up with a tour of the gardens, where visitors may be surprised to find many desert cousins of rainforest plants.
The event is 9 a.m. to noon today at the gardens, 2150 N. Alvernon Way, at Grant Road. Cost is $20 per person. To register, call the Extended University at 621-7724.
FLATPICKING PSYCHEDELIC COUNTRY. His roots in the Bay Area music scene go deep enough to reach the Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage.
David Nelson, one of the country's top contemporary flatpickers, was a founding member of NRPS and The Wildwood Boys. Nelson performed with the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band, appearing on their Almost Acoustic release, and made important contributions to the classic Grateful Dead albums American Beauty, Workingman's Dead and Aoxomoxoa.
The David Nelson band has been making its own kind of musical magic since 1994, combining a healthy dose of psychedelic country, roots music and bluegrass with an improvisational style.
Hear some of the band's infectious grooves tonight at Nimbus Brewery, 3850 E. 44th St. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. Tickets at the door are $10. For more information, please call 745-9175. For more about DNB, check out the group's website, www.nelsonband.com.
Sunday 18
TERRIFIC TROMBONE. The Tucson Concert Band audience today will get a special treat--a pair of trombone solos from a UA Music professor.
It should be an evening of music nostalgia, at least as far as Tom Ervin will be concerned.
Ervin will perform Andante et Allegro, originally composed by J. Ed. Barat for Ervin's final teacher at the University of Southern California, Robert L. Marsteller. Then he'll play Beautiful Colorado, a solo written by Joseph de Luca, once UA's director of bands.
Tucson Concert Band, under the direction of Herschel Kreloff, will open the concert with a grouping of three English pieces, Flourish of Wind Band, The Padstow Lifeboat and Doyen. Other pieces include selections from Les Miserables. The show closes with a major work, the Finale from Shostakovich' Symphony No. 5.
The concert and reception that follows at Crowder Hall, UA School of Music, is free. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. For more information, please call Imogene Helm at 324-0384.
Monday 19
THE POWER OF LOVE AND SEX. With a title like Kissing the Virgin's Mouth, you just know it's a book that's going to be published.
As a matter of fact, author Donna Gershten got a guarantee that the book will be published--from none other than Barbara Kingsolver.
Gershten is the winner of the first Bellweather Award, established by Kingsolver to support literature of social change. The prize is awarded in even-numbered years to an unpublished manuscript by an unpublished author. The winner gets money and a promise of publication.
Kissing the Virgin's Mouth fits the bill. It's a fictional memoir about Guadalupe Magdelena Molina Vasquez, wife, scoundrel, courtesan, mother and ultimate survivor. Set in Mexico, the novel traces the history of the fallible yet invincible Magda from her beginnings in the poor barrio of a coastal Mexican town to affluence in the Golden Zone of Teatlan, Sinaloa. It is a remarkable story about the struggles of women, the power of love and sex.
Gershten's book is a "beautifully written, lyrical novel that carries exactly the kind of political boldness and subtlety we're hoping to promote with this prize," said Kingsolver.
The author will read from and sign her book tonight at Reader's Oasis, 3400 E. Speedway Blvd., suite 114. The event is free. For more information, please call Charlene Taylor at 319-7887.
Tuesday 20
MIRRORING THE METAPHORICAL. Keith Carter's photographs range like the riders in Ezekiel's Horse.
Carter's essay of horses and their riders fill the frame like spirits in a dream. The acclaimed shooter has been called "one of the most poetic and lyrical of photographers" for his work in Ezekiel's Horse and Holding Venus, a stunning collection of shots from Italy, France, Scotland, Ireland, Mexico and elsewhere.
Carter's strength lies in "ordinary people living out the greatest dramas on small stages," from the East Texas landscape to the Irish West Country.
See Carter's work, along with the paintings and sculptures of Mayme Kratz and the paintings of David Andres, in an exhibit that opens today at Etherton Gallery downtown.
Kratz's work always has referenced the transience of things, the passages in life. Using polyester casting as a medium, Kratz enshrines fragments of nature in various configurations of resin. In her paintings, beeswax, resin and cactus oil seal in hollyhock and sunflower seeds, a foxglove flower, leaves and hair.
Andres, inspired by his experiences sailing and diving, paints abstracted aquatic forms that reference the diversity of marine life and the clarity of light in the underwater landscape of the Sea of Cortez, and the waters of the Dominican Republic.
The exhibition, Mirrors of Recollection, runs through May 31 at Etherton, 135 S. Sixth Ave. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. An opening reception is planned for 7 to 10 p.m. March 24. For more information, please call 624-7370.
Wednesday 21
EVENING OF HISTORIC PROPORTION. Have you ever wondered what the heck was going on in England about the time it was born?
Professor Patrick Collinson, an internationally known historian of 16th-century England and foremost authority in Tudor-Stuart religion, will examine how the Protestant Reformation "invented" an England which, as a fully sovereign state and church, no longer was subject to the Roman papacy.
Hey, this is a place Shakespeare would proudly call "this England ... this happy breed, this little world, this blessed plot."
Collinson presents The Reformation and the Birth of England as guest speaker for the annual Town and Gown Lecture at the UA College of Law, Charles E. Ares Auditorium, room 146. The talk begins at 7:30 p.m. today and is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 626-5448.
