Rahsaanathan comes to East Bay
For the past five years, San Jose’s Café Stritch has presented an annual event dedicated to the music of the extraordinary saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1935-1977), a singular visionary whose music sounded both bracingly avant-garde and invitingly rooted in blues and tent shows.
For the first time, the core of that Stritch band, minus trombonist Steve Turre, is bringing Kirk’s music to the East Bay. Led by searing saxophonist Charles McNeal, a former Bay Area resident based in Las Vegas, the all-star combo features pianist Matt Clark, bassist Mark Shelby, Oaklandraised New York drummer Darrell Green, and special guest vocalist Terrie Odabi.
Before the concert the library is screening Adam Kahan’s 2014 award-winning Kirk documentary, “The Case of the Three Sided Dream.”
Details: 6:30 p.m. Sunday; San Ramon Library, San Ramon; free (with registration); 925-973-2850, ccclib.org.
One of Chicano literature’s most revered coming-of-age novels has been transformed into an opera, and will make its West Coast premiere this week in San Jose.
San Jose-based Opera Cultura will present “Bless Me, Ultima,” Friday through Sunday at the Mexican Heritage Plaza Theater in San Jose, with mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzmán in the title role and young soprano Nicholas McKee as Antonio. Members of the San Mateo-based Masterworks Chorale will perform the opera chorus.
The opera, composed by Héctor Armientas, is based on Rudolfo Anaya’s groundbreaking 1972 novel, a mystical folk tale about the boy, Antonio, and his protector, Ultima. “Bless Me, Ultima” played to sold-out audiences at its world premiere in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Armientas is the artistic director of Opera Cultura, the nation’s only Latino-based opera, now in its 10th year.
Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; $15-$40, www.operacultura.org.