{"id":7080,"date":"2025-10-16T01:40:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/7080\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T01:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:40:25","slug":"best-bets-berkeley-harvest-festival-diwali-in-walnut-creek-oakland-symphony-philharmonia-baroque-vienna-teng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/7080\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Bets:\u00a0Berkeley Harvest Festival, Diwali in Walnut Creek, Oakland Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque, Vienna Teng\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Freebie of the week: Fall is such a terrific time for festivals in the Bay Area. Perhaps the best-known of this weekend\u2019s festivals is the Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on Main Street between Mill and Spruce streets; hmbpumpkinfest.com<\/a>) which is highlighted by the annual collection of ginormous gourds (a byproduct of the Grand Champion Pumpkin contest), at least one of which we guarantee will look a lot like Bill Clinton. But another, lesser-known favorite is the annual Harvest Festival in Berkeley. The event features a large Kids Zone and Tot Zone (always a must) and an impressive array of food contests (best pickle, best cookies, best homegrown fruits and vegetables, best salsa and many more) as well as a full live-music lineup that includes the terrific Richmond-born \u201caccordion soul\u201d Creole musician Andre Thierry, the 10-member Latin rock\/soul band Soucano and the soulful Baycoin Beats. The event put on by the city of Berkeley runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday at Cedar Rose Park in Berkeley. Admission is free. Go to berkeleyca.gov.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Comedian Hari Kondabolu performs Friday night as part of the Lesher Center\u2019s Diwali Festival on Oct. 17-18. (Hari Kondabolu via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

Celebrating Festival of Lights: Diwali, one of the world\u2019s oldest and most significant religious holidays, emerged in India in what is believed to be between the seventh and 10th centuries. In its most elemental forms, it celebrates the victory of good over evil, or light over dark, and thus it is known as the Festival of Lights. Annually observed in October or November, it\u2019s being celebrated in large and small, public and private events throughout the Bay Area. The Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, at 1601 Civic Drive, hosts a variety of\u00a0events on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, there\u2019s a performance by popular comedian Hari Kondabolu, who discovered his taste for standup as a college student and got his big break after appearing in the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle, when an HBO rep saw his act. The creator of the documentary \u201cThe Problem with Apu,\u201d a reference to the Indian character on \u201cThe Simpsons,\u201d he regularly addresses Indian stereotypes in his standup routine. He performs at 7:30 p.m. on Friday; tickets are $56-$91. Also on Friday, there\u2019s a free outdoor drone light show at 9 p.m. (probably just as Kondabolu\u2019s show concludes). On Saturday, the center hosts a street fair from noon to 4 p.m. featuring dance and music performances, storytellers, artisans and food vendors, as well as workshops on how to make a mandala, a geometric design associated with the holiday. Information about these events is at www.lesherartscenter.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Conductor Kedrick Armstrong kicks off the new season for the Oakland Symphony with a program of works by Stravinsky, Ravel, Clyne and Hailstork on Oct. 17 the Paramount Theatre. (Kent Krieghauser via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

\u2018Tis the season for fresh starts: Conductor Kedrick Armstrong dives headlong into his second year leading the Oakland Symphony at 8 p.m. Friday in the Paramount Theatre with a colorful program concluding with Igor Stravinsky\u2019s dazzling suite from \u201cThe Firebird.\u201d The piece, composed in 1910 for a Ballets Russes production, immediately launched the young composer and the dance company to international fame and was recast as an independent orchestral suite in 1919. One critic present gushed, calling it \u201cthe most exquisite marvel of equilibrium that we have ever imagined between sounds, movements and forms.\u201d The concert is anchored by pianist Sara Davis\u00a0Buechner and the orchestra performing Maurice Ravel\u2019s delightful Piano Concerto in G Major, composed for its 1932 debut almost simultaneously with the much more difficult Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, and pleasing the composer immensely with its critical reception as \u201ca divertissement de luxe.\u201d Also in the concert: prolific American composer Adolphus Hailstork\u2019s Symphony No. 1, which he directed at its first performance at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, in 1988. British composer Anna Clyne\u2019s \u201cThis Midnight Hour,\u201d a \u201cnoirish nocturne\u201d inspired by two dreamlike poems and first performed in 2015, opens the program. Find tickets, $25-$92, at oaklandsymphony.org.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Soprano Maya Kherani depicts two different women devastatingly unlucky in love in Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale\u2019s season-opening concerts on Oct. 16 in San Francisco, Oct. 18 in Berkeley and Oct. 19 in Mountain View. (Maya Kherani via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

Another new beginning: The Bay Area\u2019s prestigious purveyor of early music, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, opens its 2025-26 concert season at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in San Francisco\u2019s Herbst Theatre in the first of a series of concerts labeled \u201cFury and Heartbreak.\u201d The overarching theme of the program is the depiction of heroic women destroyed by love. V\u00e1clav Lutz conducts the performances, with celebrated soprano Maya Kherani taking the stage first as \u201cAriadne Abandoned\u201d in the work by Benedetto Marcello about the Cretan princess done wrong by Theseus on the island of Naxos; and then as \u201cArmida Abandoned\u201d in the Handel cantata featuring the Saracen sorceress who unwisely falls for the crusading Christian knight Rinaldo, whose purposes she is supposed to thwart. Grief and rage ensue in this \u201chell hath no fury\u201d-themed program. Also in the lineup, which opens with Galuppi\u2019s Concerto for Strings No. 4 in C minor, are Durante\u2019s Concerto for Strings No. 2 in G minor and Vivaldi\u2019s \u201cIn furore justissimae irae\u201d (\u201cIn the Fury of Most Righteous Wrath\u201d), which will bring things to a fitting conclusion. Other performances are scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Berkeley\u2019s First Congregational Church and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Visit philharmonia.org<\/a> for tickets, $20-$125.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Singer-songwriter-pianist Vienna Teng returns to her native Bay Area to perform a concert at Stanford University with the Viano Quartet on Oct. 19. (Vienna Teng via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

Teng time: When Vienna Teng develops a passion, she gets really good at what she pursues, and the public benefits because two of her biggest passions are music and saving the planet. Growing up in the South Bay, Teng took to music almost from the start, playing classical compositions on the piano at age 5. She started recording her first album \u201cWaking Hour\u201d while a student at Stanford University and spent much of the early 2000s establishing herself as a talented singer-songwriter-pianist with a knack for literate and tuneful compositions incorporating chamber pop, folk and classical. In 2012, Teng began devoting more time pursuing work in the clean-renewable energy field and relocated to the East Coast, though she would occasionally visit and play an occasional gig. Now she is reportedly ready to devote more time to her music. On Sunday, she\u2019ll appear at Stanford, playing the much-raved-about Viano String Quartet in a program that includes Beethoven\u2019s String Quartet No. 10 (aka, the Harp Quartet) and several of her most popular songs. The concert begins at 2:30 p.m. at Bing Concert Hall; tickets are $16-$72.20; go to live.stanford.edu<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freebie of the week: Fall is such a terrific time for festivals in the Bay Area. Perhaps the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[7292,7293,4107,7294,7295,7296,7297,7298,7299,143,145,144,7300,7301,7302,7303,7304,7305,7306],"class_list":["post-7080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-andre-thierry","tag-baycoin-beats","tag-diwali","tag-galuppi","tag-half-moon-bay-art-and-pumpkin-festival","tag-hari-kondabolu","tag-harvest-festival","tag-kedrick-armstrong","tag-maya-kherani","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-oakland-symphony","tag-philharmonia-baroque","tag-sara-davis-buechner","tag-soucano","tag-vaclav-luks","tag-viano-quartet","tag-vienna-teng"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}