From a legendary Mexican band to an Oakland Symphony world premiere and the return of the Antiquarian Book Fair, there is a lot of cool shows and events to catch this weekend and beyond.

Here’s a partial rundown.

Los Tigres head Norte to Bay Area

Los Tigres del Norte are ready to greet their loyal Bay Area fans.

The famed Mexican norteño act — which kickstarted its career in San Jose way back in the mid-1960s — brings its La Lotería Tour to San Francisco on Feb. 20.

It’s your chance to see one of the most important Bay Area bands of all time, one that has attracted fans around the globe with its brand of thoughtful corridos that speak to the Latinx and immigrant experience.

Los Tigres del Norte — which still features Jorge Hernández on lead vocals — has amassed some truly incredible stats over the decades. Notably, the band has sold more than 30 million albums during its nearly 60-year recording career. It has also won seven Grammys and a dozen Latin Grammys.

The group’s best-known songs include “La Jaula de Oro,” “La Puerta Negra,” “La Reina del Sur” and — the number that launched Los Tigres del Norte to superstardom — “Contrabando y Traición.” After all these years, Los Tigres del Norte continues to live up to its nickname as “Jefe de Jefes” (“Boss of Bosses”).

Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 20; the Chase Center, San Francisco; tickets start at $85; ticketmaster.com.

— Jim Harrington, Staff

Classical picks: Oakland Symphony, West Edge, Beethoven

This week’s classical music events include the new, the cherished, and a peek at what’s still to come; here are three events music lovers won’t want to miss.

“To These Shores”: That’s the name of this week’s Oakland Symphony program, which presents a world premiere commission titled “America, To Us” by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Music Director Kedrick Armstrong conducts, Zach-Salsburg Frank leads the Oakland Symphony Chorus, and Tracy Silverman is the violin soloist. The program also includes Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, “Adagio,” and new and recent works by composers Chen Yi and Reena Esmail.

Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 20; Paramount Theatre, Oakland; $25-$92; oaklandsymphony.org.

“Case Closed”: With this peek at a work in progress, West Edge Opera lets the audience see what’s coming; as part of the company’s latest Snapshot 2026 program, it’s offering two looks at “Case Closed,” a new opera still in the works by composer Martin Rokeach and librettist Steve Blum.

Details: 3 p.m. Feb. 28 at First Congregational Church, Berkeley, and 3 p.m. March 1 at the Taube Atrium Theater, San Francisco; $42.50 online, $40 at the door; westedgeopera.org.

All Beethoven: This week at the San Francisco Symphony, guest conductor Jaap van Zweden returns to Davies Symphony Hall with an all-Beethoven program that includes the composer’s beloved symphonies No. 2 and No. 7.

Details: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 20-21; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $55-$149; sfsymphony.org.

— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent

Famed Book Fair is back

After wildfires canceled its 2025 event in Pasadena, the California International Antiquarian Book Fair is back this year in San Francisco.

One of the world’s largest exhibitions of olden literature is gathering more than a hundred booksellers from across the globe to share their choicest wares — rare tomes, illustrations, maps, historical documents and random ephemera guaranteed to level-up your bookshelf and walls.

The fair features several manuscripts from local star Jack London, including the original signed draft of his 1905 novel “The Game” and a proof copy of “The People of the Abyss,” his first-hand reporting on London’s impoverished.

There will also be memorabilia from the Black Panther Party, the Oakland-born revolutionary group. Expect items like a 1971 newspaper announcing the dismissal of murder and criminal-conspiracy charges against party members Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins — the latter who is actually planning on attending the fair.

Organizers say revolution will be a theme. “On the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” they write, “the 2026 fair will explore the theme ‘Revolutionary Moments in America,’ examining not only the American Revolution of 1776, but the many scientific, artistic, industrial, political and cultural revolutions that have shaped the nation.”

Details: Fair runs 4-8 p.m. Feb. 27, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Feb. 28 and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. March 1 at
Pier 27, The Embarcadero, San Francisco; $10-$25; abaa.org/events

— John Metcalfe, Staff

Theater picks: ‘Lehman Trilogy,’ ‘Notebook,’ ‘M. Butterfly’

Here are three shows Bay Area theater fans should know about.

“Lehman Trilogy”: What can you say about a play that follows the 158-year history of a financial lending firm and got shut down just a couple of months after its Broadway debut by the COVID pandemic? It clearly has something going for it; the show by Stefano Massini rebounded to become a Broadway hit and winner of five Tony Awards, including best play. Now the superbly stylized story about the rise and fall of an immigrant family and Wall Street powerhouse is playing at San Jose Stage, directed by Kenneth Kelleher, through March 1.

Details: Tickets are $38-$84; www.thestage.org

“The Notebook”: Nicholas Sparks is one of those authors whose name alone will inspire sighs or winces, depending how you feel about his vastly popular romance novels, all of which have been adapted for the big screen. And arguably his most popular work, “The Notebook,” was also turned into a musical that debuted on Broadway in 2024 and is now playing  at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco through March 1.

Details: $62.01-$262.25; ATGTickets.com.

“M. Butterfly”: David Henry Hwang’s Tony Award-winning 1988 play recycles Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly” through the lens of a real-life, 20-year affair between a French diplomat and a Beijing opera singer. The captivating story makes “M. Butterfly” a popular and frequently produced stage show, and it’s being presented now by San Francisco Playhouse.

Details: Through March 14; San Francisco Playhouse; $35-$135; sfplayhouse.org.

— Randy McMullen, Staff

Here’s your freebie of the week

This week marks the arrival of Tet Nguyen Dan, better known as Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. It’s considered the most important holiday in Vietnamese culture, and is celebrated in a variety of events and functions around the Bay Area, often falling in the same general timeframe as other cultures’ Lunar New Year events. One of the biggest and best-known Tet celebrations in the Bay Area takes place Feb. 20-22 in San Jose’s Eastridge Center. Presented by UStar Productions, the large and festive annual celebration serves up an eye-popping array of entertainment and activities, including lucky money and gift exchanges, lion dancing, a student singing contest, a Miss Vietnam California pageant, a fashion show, performances by K-pop dance groups with their otherworldly choreography, carnival rides, 3-D theme parks for photo ops, and much more. There will also be a wide variety of food and drink on hand.

Details: 3 to 10 p.m. Feb. 20 and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Feb. 21-22; Eastridge Center, San Jose; free admission; more information at facebook.com/UStarProductions

— Bay City News Foundation

There are strings attached

In a world full of strife, violence, suffering and natural and human-born calamities, we feel better just knowing that there’s a show out there titled “The Sex Lives of Puppets.” And it doesn’t change our minds a bit knowing that neither the title nor this show, which runs through Feb. 21 at Stanford University, is being played strictly for laughs. Like sex itself, the stage show created and performed by London-based troupe Blind Summit is about a lot of things. And, as organizers put it, “Sex Lives of Puppets” ranges from funny to insightful to poignant. After all, it gets pretty complicated when you are in an amorous way yet your immediate future is literally in someone else’s hands. The show also offers an intriguing look at how puppetry is used to showcase and explore such emotions as angst, desire, fear, joy and more. As for the storyline, it is inspired by the U.K.’s National Survey of Sexual Attitude and Lifestyles, which sounds about as sexy as a Three Stooges marathon. But you can’t fault Blind Summit for its overall goal – to deliver an entertaining show that creates a safe forum for a look at sex and all its fantastic and frightening manifestations.

Details: Performances are 7 p.m. Feb. 19 and 20, and 2 and 7 p.m. Feb. 21; Stanford University’s The Studio venue; $75.60, with student and Stanford employee discounts available; live.stanford.edu.

— Bay City News Foundation

The Abraham effect

It’s almost surprising to learn that choreographer Kyle Abraham and his company, A.I.M., will be making their first Cal Performances appearance this weekend. It seems, after all, that the revered dancemaker and the UC Berkeley-based arts presenter are made for each other. Cal Performances is often drawn to performers with big ideas, and Abraham is nothing if not full of big ideas. Abraham and A.I.M. will be in Berkeley to perform a trio of works backed by a seven-piece band that includes two vocalists. A piece titled “2X4,” set to what’s described as an experimental classical score by Shelley Washington, invokes a conversational, at times confrontational, scenario. “The Gettin’” is set to a score by Robert Glasper, who in turn was inspired by “We Insist! Freedom Now Suit” by the pioneering bebop pioneer Max Roach. And “If We Were a Love Song” is a collection of dance vignettes set to what are said to be Nina Simone’s most passionate songs. In all, it seems like a promising night of dance, worthy of Abraham’s first visit to Cal Performances.

Details: Shows are 8 p.m. Feb. 21 and 3 p.m. Feb. 22; UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall; $33-$91; calperformances.org.

— Bay City News Foundation

An up and comer at Steinway

A young British-Indonesian keyboard artist named George Harliono, the second prizewinner at the 2023 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, makes his Steinway Society debut at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Visual and Performing Arts Center at De Anza College in Cupertino. His program, a challenging one, will also be taped and made available for streaming anywhere for 48 hours. He begins with the Bach-Busoni Chaconne from the Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, followed by Liszt’s “Un sospiro” Etude No. 3, his “Liebestraum” No. 3 and the “Mephisto Waltz” No. 3. Beethoven’s beloved “Moonlight” Sonata comes next, and the recital finishes up with Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor, Glinka-Balakirev’s “The Lark” and Balakirev’s “Islamey: An Oriental Fantasy.”

Details: Ticket prices for the live performance range from $53-$78, available at steinwaysociety.com; the online streaming admission is $26.75 per household.

— Bay City News Foundation