New Jersey Symphony will open its 2024-25 season with a concert by Renée Fleming, Oct. 6 at NJPAC in Newark.
Here is a roundup of arts events taking place around New Jersey, through Oct. 10.
MUSIC
• Soprano Renée Fleming won her fifth Grammy last year, in the Classical Vocal Solo category, for her Voice of Nature — The Anthropocene album, featuring new and old songs about nature, with accompaniment by pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin. “The music on the album begins in a time almost two centuries ago, when people had a profound connection to the beauty of nature,” Fleming has said. “Now we have reached a moment when we see all too clearly the effects of our own activity, and the fragility of our environment.”
To kick off New Jersey Symphony‘s 2024-25 season, Fleming will perform songs from the album, and more, with a visual component in the form of a National Geographic Society film, at a gala at Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Oct. 6 at 3 p.m. The symphony’s music director, Xian Zhang will conduct.
Fleming also will take part in a panel discussion, titled “Music and Mind” and exploring “the transformative power of music and how it can play a role in the impact of people’s health,” Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine in Nutley. Other participants will include singer-songwriter and behavioral scientist Tasha Golden, and Senior Director of Arts and Well-being at NJPAC Aly Maier Lokuta. Also, Fleming will sign copies of “Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness,” an anthology that she edited, and that was published in April of this year.
STEVE PARKE
VICTOR WOOTEN
• The virtuosic Wooten Brothers — bassist-singer Victor Wooten, keyboardist-singer Joseph Wooten, percussionist-singer Roy “Futureman” Wooten and guitarist-singer Regi Wooten — will perform at The Shea Center for Performing Arts at William Paterson University, Wayne, Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. Victor and Roy Wooten are co-founders of the progressive bluegrass/jazz group Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, and Joseph is a member of The Steve Miller Band.
The brothers have been playing together, on and off, since the ’70s. They were originally a quintet but became a quartet when saxophonist Rudy Wooten died in 2010. They released a single, “Sweat,” last year (watch below), which will be on an upcoming album that will combine new and old recordings. The new songs, they say, will show “a blend of influences from the past and present; Jazz, Funk, Soul, R&B, and more.”
• Guitarists Adrian Belew and Steve Vai, bassist Tony Levin and drummer Danny Carey are currently touring under the name BEAT, and performing what they are calling a “creative reinterpretation” of music from King Crimson’s albums Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984). They will perform at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m. (There also will be a show, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. at The Tropicana Showroom in Atlantic City.)
On all three albums, Belew played guitar, sang lead vocals and co-wrote songs, and Levon played bass and co-wrote songs. In addition to performing as a solo artist, Vai has played with Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth and many others. Carey is best known as a member of Tool.
MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO
• Meshell Ndegeocello will present a show titled “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin,” Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. at The Victoria Theater at NJPAC in Newark. “No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin” is also the title of Ndegeocello’s most recent album, featuring songs inspired by Baldwin’s writings, and spoken word segments by poet Staceyann Chin and writer Hilton Als.
“When I was commissioned by the arts organization Harlem Stage to create a musical tribute to Harlem’s favorite son, James Baldwin’s prophetic literature ‘The Fire Next Time’ was at the forefront of my mind,” Ndegeocello has said. “I’d been reading it a lot, carrying it around in my pocket. It became like my religious text. Baldwin speaks about things that are very familiar within the human condition, and the most revolutionary music to me — the music that changed my life — is the songs about the inner struggle, the commonality of being human.”
• The groundbreaking Americana group, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, is bringing what it is billing as its farewell tour to The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m., with Brit Taylor opening.
The band’s current lineup includes two co-founders (guitarist Jeff Hanna and drummer Jimmie Fadden) as well as keyboardist Bob Carpenter, who joined in the 1970s, plus guitarist Jaime Hanne (Jeff’s son), bassist Jim Photoglo and fiddler/mandolinist Ross Holmes. Jeff Hanna does most of the lead singing, though other group members contribute lead or backing vocals as well.
• Willie Nile will be joined by Emily Grove, Joe D’Urso and Joe Rapolla and George Wurzbach at a “Songwriters by the Sea” concert, featuring acoustic performances and conversation, at The Lauren K. Woods Theatre at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. Amani Lillian and George Wurzbach will also perform, in an opening set.
D’Urso and Rapolla have been co-hosting “Songwriters by the Sea” concerts for many years.
LEE WILKINSON
RICK WAKEMAN
• Keyboard master Rick Wakeman — best known as a member of Yes during its period of greatest popularity, in the ’70s — will perform at The Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway, Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. The tour is being billed as his “Final One Man Solo Tour” as well as “An Evening of YES Music and Other Favorites,” and will include Wakeman’s “Yessonata,” which is described as “a 30-minute instrumental work featuring YES themes and melodies, woven into sonata form.”
MUSIC/FILM
• The New Jersey Jazz Society will show “Jimmy Van Heusen: Swingin’ with Frank & Bing” — the 2014 documentary about the songwriter who co-wrote material like “All the Way,” “Swinging on a Star,” “High Hopes” and “My Kind of Town” — at The Madison Community Arts Center, Oct. 6 at 3 p.m. Following the screening, Jim Burns — the film’s writer, director and co-producer — and Frank Sinatra expert Chuck Granata will discuss the relationship between Van Heusen and Sinatra, and Van Heusen’s songs will be performed by singer Anaïs Reno, pianist Jon Weber and guitarist Lance Conrad.
THEATER
• The Curtain will present Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy “Macbeth” in “an intimate and haunting candlelight environment,” Oct. 10 to Nov. 3 at The Nimbus Arts Center in Jersey City. British actor Jamie Ballard will make his American stage debut as the title character.
EDDIE IZZARD
COMEDY
• The eccentric British comedian and storyteller Eddie Izzard will perform at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m.; and Prudential Hall at NJPAC in Newark, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. The show is part of a tour titled “Eddie Izzard — The Remix: The First 35 Years,” and Izzard says of it: “In the first 35 years of my standup career I came up with many weird and crazy comedy stories. The ones I like the best will be in my 2024 live Remix Tour.”
Izzard, who also has done lots of acting in films and onstage over those 35 years, has spent much of this year performing a solo version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” in New York and London.
(For a chance to win two tickets for the NJPAC show, send an email to njartscontest@gmail.com by 11 a.m. Oct. 7 with the word “Izzard” in the subject line.)
FAMILY
• The Montreal-based 7 Fingers troupe will present “Duel Reality” — a family-friendly take on Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” that features acrobatics and illusions, as well as music and dance — at The McCarter Theatre in Princeton, Oct. 9-13. The “Duel” in the title refers to the duel in the production: The feuding families of the star-crossed lovers don’t fight physically, but engage in a “battle” in which they try to top each other with physical stunts. (see video below)
“Encanto” will be presented as a sing-along film concert in Princeton, Montclair and Morristown.
FILM
• “Encanto: The Sing-Along Film Concert,” featuring the 2021 animated film with live music by Banda de la Casita, will come to The McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.; The Montclair State University Amphitheatre, Oct. 12 at 7:30 p.m. (as part of the Peak Performances series); and The Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, Oct. 13 at 3 p.m.
• The Williams Center in Rutherford will screen the all-time classic “The Wizard Oz,” Oct. 4 at 8:30 p.m., with no sound, and simultaneously play Pink Floyd’s landmark 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. I don’t know how this was initially discovered, but for decades, it has been known that if you do that, some of the music seems strangely fitting for the movie. (see video below)
WORDS
• Deryck Whibley, frontman of the band Sum 41 and a survivor of health and addiction ordeals, has written a memoir, “Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell,” and will talk about it, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City.
• Ryan Seacrest and his sister Meredith Seacrest Leach have co-written a children’s book, “The Make-Believers,” and will sign copies of it at Books & Greetings in Northvale, Oct. 8 at 6 p.m.
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REVIEWS
“Empire Records: The Musical” at Berlind Theater at McCarter Theatre Center, Princeton. (Through Oct. 6)
“What the Constitution Means to Me,” presented by George Street Playhouse at New Brunswick Performing Arts Center (Through Oct. 13)
“Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography,” presented by Princeton University Art Museum at Art on Hulfish. (Through Jan. 5)
“New Sculpture/New Jersey” at Morris Museum, Morris Township. (Through Feb. 2)
“Morven Revealed: Untold Stories From New Jersey’s Most Historic Home” at Morven Museum & Garden, Princeton. (Through March 2)
“Bony Ramirez: Cattleya” at Newark Museum of Art. (Through March 9)
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