We’ve got Halloween as performance art, as a family fest, and as a cult film this weekend! There’s also a free kiddo concert (with kazoos!), chamber music, baroque music, and a jazz infected folk band (hmmm… infected by jazz loving zombies?). Oh, and there’s also a really swank house that’s been all dressed up.
SATURDAY
Halloween Performance Art Workshop
New Art Center*
Saturday, October 27 at noon | $35
Combine visual art with live action! Halloween is the perfect time for Performance Art because people expect and enjoy others in costume. For those who would like to “try on” a different character and become someone, or something, else for a few hours, this is the workshop for you. Participants will spend time getting into character with theatrical warm-ups and exercies. The group will then sneak into Newtonville, trying to be as surreptitious as possible, to perform their chosen personas. Think Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther! No theater experience necessary. For anyone with a desire to play, pretend, and participate with others. We will take our art directly to the public. Families Encouraged.
Halloween Fest
West Suburban YMCA*
Saturday, October 27 at 11am-2pm | $2/person, $5/family
Bring the kids and dress in your Halloween best. We’ll have games, crafts and costume contest. Don’t miss out on the spooky fun.
Halloween Feature: Let the Right One In
Scandinavian Cultural Center*
Saturday, October 27 at 1pm | Donations accepted
Directed by Tomas Alfredson and based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) is a “spectrally beautiful Swedish vampire movie” (Mahnola Dargis in the New York Times review) which won multiple international awards and nominations as well as rave reviews. Come to the Nordic Hall for this blood-chilling cinematic event in anticipation of a delightfully spooky Halloween!
As always, the Kaffestuga will be serving Scandinavian refreshments.
An Evening of Early German Lieder with forte-piano
Newton Baroque
Saturday, October 27 at 8pm | $20
Julia Steinbok, Shiba Nemat-Nasser, Tom Oesterling, and Matthew Stansfield will sing a German Liederabend with Andrus Madsen at the forte-piano. The program will include Lieder from the 1720s through the 1820s, featuring music by Telemann, Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, Mozart, and Schubert. Come hear this music in a parlor the ideal venue, where these pieces can speak with the intimacy that suits them best.
SUNDAY
Zing! An Interactive Children’s Concert
Zamir Chorale of Boston*
Temple Reyim of Newton
Sunday, October 28 at 3pm | FREE
Led by popular Zamir conductor Joshua Jacobson, this one-hour musical experience will entertain the children with popular tunes such as ”Hava Nagila”, and George Gershwin’s “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. There will be demonstrations of voices and musical instruments (including free kazoos for all children) and an opportunity for the children to join Zamir as they learn about call and response singing, rounds, and harmony.
From Finland with Love: Marimekko in America, Past and Present
Scandinavian Cultural Center*
Sunday, October 28 at 3pm | donations accepted
In the summer of 1959, Marimekko designs were introduced to the American market through an exhibition at Design Research (D/R), the innovative Cambridge home furnishings store founded by architect Benjamin Thompson. Marimekko went on to enjoy phenomenal success in the U.S. (especially in the Boston area) over the next 20 years. Now, having recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, Marimekko has opened a new Boston flagship store, and is once again bursting on the American scene. In this informal program Susan Ward will discuss the history of Marimekko, D/R, and the local context, from the 1950s to the present, and will share a few favorite vintage pieces from her collection.
The Laura Grill Band: Benefit Concert for Centre St Food Bank
Sunday, October 28 at 3pm | donations accepted to benefit Centre Street Food Bank
The LAURA GRILL BAND will give a benefit concert on behalf of the Centre Street Food Pantry. A self-described “jazz infected folk band,” the Laura Grill Band’s well-received debut album, Never Before, was recorded live in a cabin in New Hampshire. Oct. 28 is your chance to hear them live in Newton and at the same time help Newton families who shop at The Centre Street Food Pantry.
Chamber Music Concert
Walden Chamber Players*
Andover Newton Theological School, Newton
Sunday, October 28 at 8pm | $5 – $15
The Walden Chamber Players, one of the country’s most innovative and sought-after chamber ensembles, present a concert of music for strings and winds.The concert will feature bassoonist Jake Thonis, the winner of the 2012 Walden Chamber Players Young Artist Competition in the Devienne Basoon Quartet in C Major. Also featured is a World Premiere performance of a Clarinet Quartet by renowned composer Andrew Norman. The program will also include the music of Beethoven, Reger and Villa-lobos.
Outside the Walls
Cappella Clausura*
Parish of the Messiah, Newton
Sunday, October 28 at 8pm | $15-$25
The ancient and baroque music that Cappella Clausura performs was published in its day. Despite the fact that it was written for women’s voices and instruments, and performed that way in the cloisters, it was published for mixed voices, presumably at the behest of the publishers. Quite reasonably, these commercial enterprises would have wanted to sell their product. The question we ask today is: to whom? So, imagine, if you will: a popular host has just procured some music from the local convent – “Aha!” his guests exclaim, “What fun! How shall we play this?” “Who’ll be the nuns?” “And shall we have some monks?” The passionate nature of these pieces no doubt played well to baroque patricians: Think Fledermaus in a church.
