From a Latin singer’s take on ’60s-’70s pop standards, to a trio of compelling classical performances and Rosie the Riveter Day, there are a lot of cool shows and concerts to catch in the Bay Area.
Here is a partial rundown.
SoCal singer spotlights classic pop, soul
Born into an Ecuadorian-Guatemalan family, Southern California’s Trish Toledo first began signing cumbias and ballads before falling head-over-heels for the timeless pop, R&B and soul recordings of the ’60s and ’70s.
“The lyrics were so simple and the performances so raw and clean,” Toledo is quoted as saying on her website, trishtoledomusic.com.
Toldeo’s appreciation for the artists who voiced those soulful songs — Aretha Franklin, Barbara Mason, Mavis Staples, The Ronettes, Brenton Wood, The Supremes, etc. — would never leave her. And now she’s passing her love for ’60s/’70s-style soul, pop and R&B on to others via her own recordings, which mine a rich catalog of classic material in equally authentic and awe-inspiring ways.
Out of the treasure trove of worthy options out there, Toledo picks the songs she wants to record and perform based on how well the themes mirror her own live experiences — ”what I have gone through, or am going through,” she says.
“People are so happy that I’m reviving this music,” she adds. “Bringing it back – so that a new generation gets to hear this.”
Details: Toledo performs March 19 at The Chapel in San Francisco; Los Tranquilos open; showtime is 8 p.m.; $39.59; thechapelsf.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
Celebrating the beloved sloth
Shark Week? In 2026, that’s kind of played out.
Sloth Month? Now there’s something we can (very slowly) get behind.
This winter, the Children’s Natural History Museum in Fremont acquired a new sculpture of a giant ground sloth. Fabricated by artist Brian Engh, and weighing 1,000 pounds, it’s a scale model of the 3,000-pound herbivores that shambled across the Bay Area during the Ice Age.
Paramylodon harlani was not like today’s cutesy tree sloths, drooping in the jungle canopy. “They had natural body armor made up of small bony plates that developed on their skin called ‘osteoderms,’” the museum writes. “Their hands and feet were armed with claws. Their front feet rested on their knuckles, while the hind legs bore down on the outer edge of the broad feet. It is theorized that they walked similarly to the modern anteater but sat on their tails to eat.”
To celebrate the public debut of the artwork, the museum is holding special sloth-themed Saturdays in March. These feature “sloth activities for children” as well as self-guided tours, a scavenger hunt and cool info on fossils. Amaze your kids by showing them what giants used to call Fremont home, long before boring-by-comparison coyotes and raccoons.
Details: Sloth Saturdays take place 11 a.m.-4 p.m. on March 21 and 28 at 4074 Eggers Drive, Fremont; $10 admission (under 3 free), cnhm.msnucleus.org.
— John Metcalfe, Staff
Classical picks: Cal Symph, Silkroad Ensemble, WindSync
This week’s classical music calendar stretches to wide corners of the music world with performances by the California Symphony, the Silkroad Ensemble, and the contemporary quintet WindSync, offering audiences beloved works and new sounds to expand horizons.
California Symphony concertmaster Jennifer Cho will be a featured performer when the orchestra performs Arvo Pärt’s 1977 “Tabula Rasa.” (Courtesy of Jennifer Cho)
“Northern Lights”: California Symphony Music Director Donato Cabrera is set to conduct the meditative music of “Stille Musik” (Quiet Music) by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, in a program that also includes Arvo Pärt’s 1977 “Tabula Rasa,” a work for two violinists featuring concertmaster Jennifer Cho and Sam Weiser. The orchestra closes the program with Sibelius’ moving Symphony No. 2.
Details: 7:30 p.m. March 21, 4 p.m. March 22; Lesher Center, Walnut Creek; $25-$110; californiasymphony.org.
“Sanctuary”: Rhiannon Giddens and her Silkroad Ensemble returns to Berkeley with 11 powerhouse players in “Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual.” It’s a program with music highlighting American, Asian, West African and Southern European influences, and Giddens is sure to mix it up in thrilling ways.
Details: 7:30 p.m. March 19 and 8 p.m. March 20; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley; $48-$110; calperformances.org.
Music for Five: Kohl Mansion welcomes WindSync, the wide-ranging wind quintet whose recent seasons include events at Ravinia, Shelter Island Friends of Music and more. Their program at Kohl Mansion this weekend spans works from Mozart and Nadia Boulanger to Elliott Carter and Philip Glass. Arrive at 6 p.m. for a pre-show talk by cellist Christopher Costanza.
Details: 7 p.m. March 22 at Kohl Mansion, Burlingame; $30-$62; musicatkohl.org.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Rosie the Riveter Day on March 21 will be celebrated at the Richmond Museum that bears her name. (Bay Area News Group file)
Here’s your freebie of the week
March 21 is Rosie the Riveter Day, a nationwide holiday commemorating the millions of women who took jobs in munitions factories and Naval shipyards to replace the men who’d gone to fight in World War II. The idea of gender-specific jobs is now largely outdated, of course, and the Rosie the Riveter campaign helped launch the economic/labor evolution that has made it so. But an oft-cited symbol – the “We Can Do It” poster created by J. Howard Miller, depicting a muscle-clinching woman – has little to do with that. The image had a relatively un-observed presence during World War II; it was circulated more widely during the 1980s, not as a reference to patriotism but as a symbol of feminism. The caricature of Rosie the Riveter was born not in an illustration but a song by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb, which debuted in 1942. Regardless of the poster, Rosie the Riveter Day is a reminder of the women who answered the call for their country in a time of great need, at a time when the U.S. was a much more unified country than it is today.
The holiday is also a big deal for the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, which will host a ceremony March 21. There will be a variety of music, films and historical displays, and a chance to reflect on an icon that says an awful about America. “Rosie the Riveter represents more than a moment in history, she represents the power of ordinary people to rise to extraordinary challenges,” said Sarah Pritchard, executive director of Rosie the Riveter Trust. “National Rosie the Riveter Day is a chance to honor the legacy of our home front heroes and celebrate the profound social change sparked right here in Richmond.”
Details: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 21; 1414 Harbor Way South, Richmond; free; www.nps.gov/rori/index.htm.
— Bay City News Foundation
Of head-bangers and mariachi magic
We profess that we cannot immediately verify this claim, but there is apparently one – and only one – band in existence that marries the musical styles of metal and mariachi. And that band – creatively named Metalachi – will be barnstorming the Bay Area this weekend. The five-member Los Angeles-based band of metal-loving, classically trained mariachi musicians have been plying their craft for more than a decade, performing at events and venues ranging from county fairs and intimate clubs to festivals and rock/metal cruises.
Their set list touches on mainstream metal favorites – from Metallica, Slayer, Guns N’ Roses and Ozzy Osbourne, to GWAR and Rob Zombie – and they reportedly do a killer cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Fronted by vocalist Vega De La Rockha and featuring violinist Queen Kyla, Metalachi swoops into the Bay Area for a trio of gigs this weekend.
Details: 8 p.m. March 19 at the Cornerstone in Berkeley ($30, cornerstoneberkeley.com); 7:30 p.m. March 20 at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz ($28.82, catalystclub.com); and 7 p.m. March 21 at The Ritz in San Jose ($19, theritzsanjose.com).
— Bay City News Foundation
A hauntingly good idea
You still have some chances this weekend to catch “Paranormal Activity,” a production at American Conservatory Theater that may help usher in a new genre of live theater. It has long been assumed that stage plays meant to scare the bejesus out of you were problematic, since much of the art of horror, at least on the big or small screen, relies on manipulated images and sounds or selective camera angles meant to fool or shock viewers. On an open stage, there are limited opportunities to pull that off. Plus, everything on stage has to be big enough and obvious enough to be seen and understood by a large room full of some 1,000 people.
But “Paranormal Activity” has found a way to work through those obstacles to tell a truly scary story about a young, married couple dealing with ghost issues (we’d say it’s a haunted house, except the show makes it clear that it’s the couple that’s haunted, not the house). Going too much into this would ruin the fun, but suffice to say the production succeeds on a combination of extraordinary so-called “jump scares” and a creepy set that essentially puts an entire home on the stage. It doesn’t hurt that Levi Holloway’s play, inspired by the popular film series, employs technical effects guru Chris Fisher, who also worked on the memorable production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”
Details: Tickets remain for the two performances each on March 21 and March 22; $25-$130; www.act-sf.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
A welcome reappearance at SFS
Augustin Hadelich, a supremely gifted, Grammy-winning violinist of German-Italian heritage now on the Yale School of Music faculty, has made indelible impressions in the Bay Area several times before, beginning with his debut performance with the San Francisco Symphony in 2013 with the Beethoven Violin Concerto and including a memorable return in June of 2021 to play the orchestra’s first post-pandemic public concert under Esa-Pekka Salonen. But he makes his long overdue recital debut with San Francisco Performances at 7:30 p.m. March 20 at the Herbst Theatre, partnering with Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi. Their program opens with the “Recit du Chant” by De Grigny, as arranged by Piemontesi, and includes the pianist’s arrangement of Rameau’s “La Boucon,” the violin sonatas by Debussy, Poulenc and César Franck and Kurtág’s “Tre Pezzi.
Details: $65-$100; sfperformances.org.
— Bay City News Foundation