Freebie of the week: When Bay Area musician and composer Cheryl E. Leonard performs, she’s more likely to be tapping on bones, crab shells or driftwood than tickling piano keys. Her specialty is creating and playing compositions on objects in the natural world, from bones and shells to feathers, stones, ice and sand. She also specializes in “found sounds,” or recordings taken from natural landscapes and phenomena. She performs a free concert at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in an event that’s part of a Forms and Frequencies series pairing performances with exhibitions at the museum. In this case, it’s “Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene,” a collection of images chronicling humankind’s impact on the natural world and its climate and environs. Anthropocene is defined as the age in which humans’ impact on the Earth is profound enough to qualify as its own geological period. The exhibit runs through Aug. 3. Hours at the Cantor are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays (closed Mondays and Tuesdays). Admission is free. More on the concert and the exhibition are at museum.stanford.edu.
Cher is back: If Cher fans could turn back time, some might opt to spin the dial to June 2024, when the touring musical “The Cher Show” stopped in San Francisco for an all-too-brief run. Happily, the hit-drenched musical has come back, onstage for a brief run at the Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose through Sunday. The two Bay Area runs are maybe the only abbreviated things about the show, which crams 35 hits into its two-hour, 40-minute run time and features not one, but three, Chers. One represents the 1950s-60s (nicknamed “Babe” and played by Ella Perez); one is for the 1970s (“Lady,” Catherine Ariale), and one for the 1980s and ’90s (“Star,” Morgan Scott). Even though there is a chronological arc to the show, all three actors occasionally appear onstage together to discuss, even argue about, aspects of her life. The brilliant conceit reinforces the endearing fact that while Cher knows she has a boatload of talent, she’s not one to take herself too seriously. “The Cher Show” got its Broadway premiere in 2018 and won two Tony Awards, including a best actress nod for Stephanie J. Block and a best costume trophy for Bob Mackie, whose eye-popping designs, as organizers jokingly put it, “caused a sequin shortage in New York City.” Performances are nightly through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $47-$120 (subject to change) at broadwaysanjose.com.
In with the New (Ballet): San Jose’s New Ballet, founded in 2016 by Bay Area dancer, choreographer and teacher Dalia Rawson, has proved over its fairly short history to be versatile indeed. It routinely tackles the classics; its annual San Jose-set take on “Nutcracker” is a highlight of the holiday season, and it’s staging “Swan Lake” in May. But it performs new works as well. For example, in the Fast Forward program featuring seven world premieres at the Hammer Theatre Center in San Jose this weekend. “It’s a time to engage new choreographers who are interested in pushing the boundaries,” says Rawson. Of particular interest is “DDDD,” a work by Julio Hong set to music by Latin jazz great Arturo Sandoval. The piece is said to be an emotional tribute to the choreographer’s native Cuba and rooted in classical ballet with Latin flourishes. Rawson is contributing a new piece as well; it’s set to a contemporary solo cello work titled “Lamentations” with live accompaniment by New Ballet music conductor Thomas Shoebotham. Audiences always can expect a surprise or two during Fast Forward, which is back for its eighth year. Performances are at 7 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday at the Hammer Theatre. Tickets are $17-$50; $136 for premium seats. Go to newballet.com.
Visitors from abroad: Davies Hall in San Francisco plays host Sunday night to the Israel Philharmonic, the 88-year-old orchestra based in Tel Aviv now on a five-city tour of the United States. Its young music director Lahav Shani, a conducting protege of Daniel Barenboim, leads the orchestra in a concert including three works specifically composed for the Jewish community, in addition to the lineup’s major piece, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor. Contemporary Israeli composer Tzvi Avni’s “Prayer,” a mournful, mellifluous work for strings written in honor of his father, who was killed in 1938 during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman empire is featured, as well as Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei,” based on the most powerful Yom Kippur prayer (though written by a Protestant) with a solo cello deployed in imitation of the synagogue cantor. Israel Philharmonic principal cellist Haran Meltzer is featured. The program also includes Leonard Bernstein’s “Halil” (Hebrew for flute), with the orchestra’s principal flute player, Guy Eshed, who has played it many times since its 1981 premiere, filling the honors. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, and tickets, $99-$25, are available at sfsymphony.org.
A plethora of preludes: Peripatetic young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki—who this season is appearing with the major symphonies of Boston, London, Munich, Pittsburgh and Seattle; going on a 19-concert tour leading the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; and continuing his regular gig as artist-in-residence at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, where he will play a complete cycle of Beethoven’s 36 sonatas—is stepping into San Francisco Performances’ lineup on Thursday night. He brings his recent Carnegie Hall program (which is also destined for Paris, Milan and Brussels), playing multiple preludes by Bach, Rachmaninoff, Górecki, Szymanowski and Chopin’s complete Opus 28 cycle. The recital begins at 7:30 p.m. in San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and tickets, $65-$85, are available at sfperformances.org. Check him out tackling the Rachmaninoff in C-Sharp minor here.
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