Bay Area arts: 8 great shows to see this weekend and beyond

There are a lot of great shows and events to catch this weekend and beyond; from amazing singers and pianists to Josh Kornbluth and a San Jose blues bash. Here’s a partial rundown.

The Temptation of Paula West

Last December, the New Yorker published a glowing paean to San Francisco jazz vocalist Paula West celebrating the upcoming 25th anniversary of her 1997 debut album “Temptation.”

While shining a spotlight on her manifold creative gifts, the article applied a retrospective lens to West’s work, rather than spotlighting her ongoing creative growth as an artist. West, to cite the title of her second album, 1999’s “Restless,” is a subtle musical seeker who has put her stamp on a century of popular American songs.

For Friday’s 40th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival performance at Herbst Theatre and Sunday’s Bach Dancing & Dynamite show, she’ll be delving into the “Temptation” material, but filtered through the lifetime of music she’s made since then. She’ll be joined by a superlative band of veteran New York players, including pianist Bruce Barth, guitarist Ed Cherry, bassist Sean Conly, and drummer Jerome Jennings.

Details: 8 p.m. Friday at Herbst Theatre, San Francisco; $35-$85; www.sfjazz.org;4:30 Sunday at Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay; $55 ($10 livestream); bachddsoc.org.

— Andrew Gilbert, Correspondent

Fountain Fest flowing with Blues

The nonprofit Fountain Blues Foundation is dedicated to preserving blues music  in the South Bay. And one good way to serve that cause is present kick-butt live blues music, which the foundation each year with its Fountain Blues and Brews Festival.

The event returns for its 40th year on Saturday, running 11 a.m.-8 p.m. at Plaza de Cesar Chaves, 1 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose. The packed lineup includes “accordion soul” master Andre Thierry; singer Diunna Greenleaf, the Chris Cain Band and the Devon Allman Project, a band led by rock legend Gregg Allman’s son. The event also features more than 40 varieties of craft beer, lots of barbecue and other treats.

Following the fest, catch an after-party featuring Chris Cain and the Terry Hiatt Band at the Tabard Theatre, 29 N. San Pedro St., ($15-$35; tabardtheatre.org).

Details: Festival tickets are $25-$85; fountainblues.com.

— Randy McMullen, Staff

Unique take on South Bay refugee story

The history of the Vietnamese people in San Jose usually features two seismic world events: the fall of Saigon in 1975, which brought thousands of refugees to the United States, and Silicon Valley’s booming tech industry. But it’s rarely told through the kind of lens offered by Lan Duong.

Duong is a USC associate professor of cinema and media studies and a writer whose new book, “Nothing Follows” (Texas Tech University Press, 2023), uses the genre of memoir and the language of poetry to depict scenes of growing up in San Jose’s burgeoning Vietnamese community in the 1980s. Duong will talk about her debut collection of poetry at “a fireside chat” tonight, hosted by the Vietnamese American Professional Women of Silicon Valley and Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez.

Her collection tells a refugee’s story from a unique perspective: The daughter of a former lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army who tries to give his seven children a decent life in a strange new place, while coping with poverty, loss of status and a wife who stayed behind. As Duong enters her teen years, she must fend off racism, objectification and sexual violence — common experiences for young Asian women at the time. She also has to navigate competing expectations — staying loyal to friends who are getting the Vietnamese girl gang label and being a refugee success story by going to college and striving for upward mobility. Duong describes her poems as as both a “homage and takedown” of her hometown.

Details: 5:30-7:30 p.m.; Vietnamese American Service Center, 2410 Senter Road, San Jose; vasc.sccgov.org/home

— Martha Ross, Staff

Classical picks: Igor Levit, SF Opera centennial

Here are two programs classical music fans should know about.

Piano mastery with Igor Levit: In what promises one of the most significant arrivals of the summer season, Igor Levit arrives this week for a much-anticipated San Francisco Symphony residency. Joining music director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the orchestra for two weeks of programs, the celebrated Russian-German pianist begins with an all-Beethoven program featuring the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and the Symphony No. 3, “Eroica” (June 15-17), and returns for a performance of Ferruccio Busoni’s heroic Piano Concerto (June 22 and 24-25).Two additional programs round out his residency: Levit joins members of the S.F. Symphony Orchestra in a Chamber Music program featuring the Shostakovich Piano Quintet in G minor, along with works by Frank Bridge and Mark O’Connor (Sunday), and a Great Performers Series solo recital including music by Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, and Fred Hersch (June 27).

Details: Today through June 27; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $20-$175; 415-864-6000; sfsymphony.org.

Starry Showcase at SF Opera: This year’s San Francisco Opera summer season has brought audiences opera at the highest level, and with its acclaimed productions of “Madame Butterfly,” “Die Frau ohne Schatten,” and “El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego” still up and running, the company is celebrating with a special one-night-only event in honor of a landmark anniversary. “The 100th Anniversary Concert” features a starry list of artists, with appearances by conductors Eun Sun Kim, Sir Donald Runnicles, and Patrick Summers; sopranos Karita Mattila, Ailyn Pérez, and Nina Stemme; mezzo-soprano Susan Graham; tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Fabiano; and baritones Lucas Meachem and Brian Mulligan, among others. It’ll be a night to remember.

Details: 6 p.m. Friday, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco; ticket packages (concert only or with post-show dinner) $30-$350; sfopera.com.

— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent

Shakespeare season is back

Forsooth, yon fans of outdoor thespian entertainment! The Summer Shakespeare season is upon us. We call it that even though: 1. It actually starts in spring and rolls straight through the fall, and, 2. There’s more going on than just Shakespeare’s works. But what we’re talking about here is that beloved time of the year during which more than a dozen companies kick off their outdoor theater seasons featuring productions on stages and amphitheaters found in such lovely locales as parks, wineries, even on top of a mountain. One of those companies is Silicon Valley Shakespeare, which has launched its season with Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” a comedy that has it all – love (of the shared and unrequited variety), pranks, mistaken identities, a shipwreck and of course all that glorious dialogue. And this particular adaptation will be produced as a Telemundo-style TV melodrama. Performances of “Twelfth Night” are offered at 7 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays through June 25 at Willow Street Bramhall Park, 1320 Willow St., San Jose. On Thursday, the youth dance troupe Grupo Folklorico Los Laureles of San José will give a pre-show performance. Saturday’s performance will be offered with American Sign Language interpretation. The company this year is also presenting “King Lear” July 28-Sept. 1 and “Shakespeare in Love” (which Shakespeare did NOT write) Aug. 4-Sept. 3. All shows are free. For more information go to www.svshakespeare.org.

— Bay Area News Foundation

Josh Kornbluth is all about the brain, now

Gray matters: The Bay Area is blessed with a goodly number of divine monologists, and one of the best of the bunch is the humorous and insightful storyteller Josh Kornbluth. He’s been plying his trade for more than three decades, with such autobiographical shows as “Red Diaper Baby,” “Haiku Tunnel” and “Love and Taxes” (the latter two of which have each been turned into movies), as well as “Ben Franklin: Unplugged,” which was a slam-dunk because the guy kind of looks like Ben Franklin. Now Kornbluth is at The Marsh Berkeley, performing his new work “Citizen Brain.” The show came about after Kornbluth was persuaded by the Global Brain Health Institute to immerse himself in a study of brain disease and whether the hopelessly and helplessly divided state of the U.S. political system could be cured by something known as the brain’s “empathy circuit.” Where did all this study take Kornbluth? You’ll have to go see his show to find out. You might not come away ready to think kind thoughts about Marjorie Taylor Greene or anything, but you’ll almost assuredly giggle your way through the performance. Shows at the venue, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley, are 5 p.m. Saturdays through July 29. Tickets are $25-$100; go to www.themarsh.org.

— Bay Area News Foundation