Tributes to country icon, local rocker both on stage
It’s a week of tributes to strong, creative women.
There are the recently passed reallife icons Naomi Judd, (whose daughter Wynonna is leading “The Judds’ Final Tour”) and Claudia Chapman Bell, whose friends from the old New Haven rock scene are paying tribute at Cafe Nine. There are also the complex female fictional characters in “Wife/ Worker/ Whore.”
This week marks the first shows of the year at many area theaters and rock clubs are roaring, too, with a release party for One Time Weekend’s new album at Arch Street.
Here are some of the top things to do and see this week in Connecticut arts.
A Celebration of the Life of Claudia Chapman Bell
Cafe Nine, 250 State St., New Haven
Claudia Chapman Bell was a key member of the New Haven rock scene when it was making a lot of noise in the 1970s and 1980s. She wrote a local music column; she played bass in the band The Plan and Bell System; she photographed bands; and she married one of the scene’s key movers and shakers, Craig Bell (who had moved East and started a record label after playing in the legendary Ohio band Rocket from the Tombs). Claudia Bell died in September from cancer. A celebration of her life is being held at Cafe Nine (which she mostly knew in its previous incarnation, Blubartz) on Jan. 22 at 2 p.m. Her former bandmates and many others will perform. Admission is free. cafenine.com.
Brentano String Quartet
Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St, New Haven
The Brentano String Quartet, has performed around the world and has been the Quartet in Residence at the Yale School of Music since 2014. Their latest program at Yale’s Morse Recital Hall includes works by Antonin Dvorák, William Grant Still, Charles Ives, George Walker and Robert Pete Williams as well as classical arrangements of American spirituals. Jan. 24 at 7:30 p.m. $33 and $38, $13 for students. music-tickets.yale.edu/events.