Now for something completely different
As part of its 25th anniversary celebration, the Rockport Chamber Music Festival is reaching out to a broader audience with programs venturing outside of traditional chamber music.
The festival hosts two world music concerts next weekend featuring Gamelan Galak Tika and northern Indian classical music and dance.
A gamelan is a large percussion orchestra that is the source of most religious and concert music in Bali and Java. The primary instruments are gongs, metallophones, and hand drums, along with cymbals, bamboo flutes, and spiked fiddles.
Gamelan Galak Tika, directed by Evan Ziporyn, has 30 members, all affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The concert is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Rockport High School, Jerdan's Lane.
Next Sunday, George Ruckert, senior lecturer in music at MIT and student of the Indian sarodist Ali Akbar Khan, plays the sarod, a wooden stringed instrument resembling the lute. Nitin Mitta performs on the tabla, a pair of drums.
Gretchen Hayden-Ruckert performs kathak, a classical dance style from northern India known for its subtle movements and complex rhythmic patterns.
The concert begins at 3 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Rockport, 4 Cleaves St.
Tickets for each concert are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Ages 18 and younger are free. Tickets for both concerts are $25 in advance. Call 978-546-7391 or visit the festival box office, 3 Main St., Rockport.
PIANO PASSION: Concerts on the Hill presents a solo piano recital by Frederick Moyer at St. John's Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, N.H., today at 4 p.m.
A concert pianist for more than 20 years, Moyer has performed with orchestras around the world. His 19 recordings include works by more than 30 composers and reflect his enjoyment of a variety of musical styles.
The program today features solo piano works by Mozart, Liszt, Beethoven, American composer Donal Fox, and others.
The concert is sponsored by St. John's, at 101 Chapel St., and the Portsmouth Athenaeum. Suggested donation is $10, $7 for students and senior citizens. Call 603-436-8283.
NEW KID ON THE BLOCK: At just 22, Lauren Hallworth of Boxford is the new owner of the River Gallery in Ipswich.
A recent graduate of Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire, where she earned a bachelor's degree in printmaking, Hallworth had been manager of the gallery since June. She became owner March 1, and has continued working on her art while learning the business side of the operation.
The next show at the River Gallery, opening Thursday and running through April 11, features the work of Mary Pollack of Ipswich. It includes a collection of works created by printing, direct transfer, drawing and painting. Mediums include oil, graphite, colored pencil, pastel, and wax.
The opening reception for the show is March 24, 5-8 p.m., at 4 Market St. Call 978-356-1559.
AUTHOR'S CORNER: Adrian McKinty reads from his new thriller, ''The Dead Yard," Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Book Rack in Newburyport. In the sequel to ''Dead I Well May Be," mercenary Michael Forsythe is forced by the FBI to infiltrate an Irish terrorist cell. McKinty grew up in Northern Ireland and lives in Colorado. . . . Afaa Michael Weaver of Somerville and Richard Wollman of Newburyport are featured at the monthly reading of the Powow River Poets on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Newburyport Art Association. Both published poets, they also teach at Simmons College and are codirectors of the college's Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center. The evening includes an open microphone for poets. . . . Jabberwocky Bookshop in Newburyport hosts a launch party for Anne Easter Smith's debut work of historical fiction, ''A Rose for the Crown." The book addresses the question of who was the mother of King Richard III's illegitimate children. Smith, a native of the United Kingdom, lives in Newburyport and is also a folk singer and musician.
IN LOCAL GALLERIES: An exhibition of paintings by Janis Sanders of West Peabody opens with a reception today at 2:30 p.m. at the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Joppa Flats Education Center in Newburyport. Sanders paints with a palette knife, creating blocks of bright color that are interpretations of the grassy dunes, marshes, and cliffs of New England. . . . ''Giclee on Campus," an exhibition of computer-enhanced student art, opens with a reception Wednesday, 5-7 p.m., at Endicott College in Beverly. Select students participated in a yearlong program to learn the digital printmaking technology called giclee. The project was a collaboration of the college and Ditto Editions of Marblehead. The show runs through April 27 . . . All the galleries in the 18th-century King Hooper Mansion, home of the Marblehead Arts Association, feature contemporary and abstract art through March 26. To enhance the exhibits, J. David Broudo, previously director of the art program at Endicott College in Beverly for 48 years, presents a lecture, ''Understanding Modern Art," today at 1 p.m. Broudo's work is included in the show. . . . Works by Portsmouth, N.H., public school students are on display this month at the Children's Museum of Portsmouth. A reception with the young artists and their teachers is Thursday, 3:30-5 p.m.
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