The annual “Spring Oratoria,” with the Smith College Choirs, Jonathan Hirsh and Amanda Huntleigh, directors, this year welcomes the Virginia Glee Club, Frank Albinder, director, for a performance of Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solennelle,” a 19th-century work that has likely never been performed in the Valley, according the concert’s organizers.
The groups will perform Saturday at 8 p.m. in John M. Greene Hall at Smith College, 60 Elm St. in Northampton.
Soloists will be Inna Dukach, soprano; Chrystal Williams, mezzo-soprano; Alan Schneider, tenor; and Joshua Jeremiah, bass.
The Mass, composed in 1863, is one of just a few pieces Rossini created in his later years; he referred to it as “the last mortal sin of my old age.” (He died in 1868.)
The Smith College Choirs are open to all students of all class years, and includes the First-Year Chorus, the Glee Club, the Chamber Singers and Groove A Cappella. The Virginia Glee Club is a men’s chorus at the University of Virginia.
Free and open to the public. For information, visit www.smith.edu/smitharts.
Composer and pianist Maria Schneider and her 18-member jazz collective will perform Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The concert is part of the 18th annual “High Jazz Fest,” where aspiring high school jazz bands from throughout New England, converge on the UMass campus for a day of clinics, adjudication and competition. The winning high school band will open for Schneider and her orchestra.
Among the works on Schneider’s program will be selections from her most recent album, “The Thompson Fields,” which won 2016’s Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
Tickets cost $40, $35 and $20 (Five College and GCC students and those 17 and under cost $10). To reserve, call the Fine Arts Center box office at 545-2511 or visit fineartscenter.com.
Schneider will discuss her career, creative process and involvement in digital rights and fan-funding in a pre-show talk at 5:15 p.m in the Concert Hall.
“STOMP” will be performed Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the UMass Fine Arts Center Concert Hall.
The unique stage show, which blends percussion, movement and visual comedy, features an eight-member troupe which uses everything BUT conventional percussion instruments — matchboxes, wooden poles, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, hubcaps — to fill the auditorium with fantastic rhythms.
The show, which debuted in 1994 at the Orpheum Theater in New York City, won an Obie and a Drama Desk Award that year for Most Unique Theater Experience.
Tickets cost $50, $45 and $15 (Five College and GCC students and those under 17 cost $30, $20 and $15). To reserve, call the Fine Arts Center box office at 545-2511 or visit fineartscenter.com.
“Wayang Kulit,”a form of traditional shadow-puppetry from Bali, Indonesia, will be performed Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Earle Recital Hall in Sage Hall at Smith College in Northampton.
The show combines elements of the island’s cultural traditions in narrative, theater, ritual, design, music, movement and comedy.
Balinese puppeteer Putu Rekayasa, theater artist Sam Jay Gold and ethnomusicologist Ian Cross will provide an introduction to this interdisciplinary art form.
The show will begin with a musical overture, played on a pair of bronze gamelan instruments. A series of rapid passages leads to the introduction of the kayonanthe tree of life puppet that opens the show. From there, Rekayasa brings in more characters who relate episodes from one of the Hindu epics: the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
During the performance, which will last one to two hours, the audience is invited to watch from behind the screen, to see the performers at work, or to view the shadows and sounds from the front.
Free and open to the public. For information, visit www.smith.edu/smitharts.
“Violent Cop” a Japanese film directed by Takeshi Kitano, will be presented Friday at 9:30 p.m. at Amherst Cinema, 28 Amity St, Amherst.
The movie is about a cop, Detective Azuma, who resorts to violence to save his kidnapped sister. The unrated film, which is in Japanese with English subtitles, is part of the cinema’s “Japanese Film” series, which screens a different Japanese movie every Friday night in April.
“Cameraperson,” a film directed by Kirsten Johnson, will be shown April 14 at 7 p.m. at the cinema. Johnson will be in attendance to talk about her work.
The movie explores documentary cinema’s attempt to showcase truth by looking at the relationship between a filmmaker and her subject. This screening is part of the Amherst Cinema’s “Bellwether Film” series, which is a collaboration with Hampshire College to bring filmmakers to the theater to present their works.
Johnson is an independent documentary cinematographer and director. She collaborated with filmmaker Laura Poitras on the Oscar-winning movie “Citizenfour,” and focuses her work on questions of human rights.
Admission for both films costs $9.75; $8.75 seniors and students. To reserve, visit www.amherstcinema.org.
The UMass Amherst Department of Music and Dance presents a String Chamber Concert Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in Bezanson Recital Hall at the UMass Fine Arts Center in Amherst.
Organized by violin professor Elizabeth Chang, the concert will feature advanced string players from the music department performing works from composers Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, John Harbison, Felix Mendelssohn and Gabriel Fauré, in quartets, trios, and more.
The concert is free and open to the public. For information, visit www.umass.edu/music.
The UMass Amherst Jazz Lab Ensemble will perform Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Bezanson Recital Hall.
Graduate students Michael Caudill and Christian Tremblay will direct the ensemble as they perform jazz classics and contemporary jazz arrangements.
The concert is free and open to the public. For information, visit www.umass.edu/music.
The UMass Amherst Chapel Jazz Ensemble will perform April 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Bezanson Recital Hall.
Director Thomas Giampietro will lead members of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble as they perform arrangements of Beatles songs from Nashville composers Christopher Walters and Ryan Middagh, Giampietro and Professor Jeffrey Holmes, and graduate student Michael Caudill, and arrangements as performed by jazz pianist Count Basie and others. Five of the arrangements have been written specifically for the concert and will receive their premieres.
Tickets cost $10; $3 for UMass students; $5 for other students, children and seniors. To purchase, call the Fine Arts Center box office at 545-2511 or visit www.fineartscenter.com/musicanddance.