Event Previews

Beginning Friday night, Curtain Call Theatre is presenting Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me a Tenor, a 1986 comedy set in 1930s Cleveland.

More specifically, it’s described as a “screwball comedy,” a term that suggests something sophisticated, sublime and ridiculous. And so: Lend Me a Tenor is about what happens when a much ballyhooed Italian singer goes missing just before he is to set Cleveland’s music world on fire.

This production is directed by Cindy Brizzell-Bates, and stars Kris Anderson, Jimmy Cupp, Jack Fallon, Joan Meyer, Pamela O’Connor, Barbara Richards, Sarah Wasserbach and Ted Zeltner.

Lend Me a Tenor opens Friday (Feb. 24) at8 PM and runs through March 31 at Curtain Call Theatre (210 Old Loudon Road, Latham). Performances are Thursdays at7:30 PM, Fridays and Saturdays at8 PM, and Sundays at3 PM. Tickets are $22. For reservations and info, call 877-7529.

Working the outer edges of the string-quartet scene, Ethel have performed everything from conventional string compositions to electronic music to rock. This Saturday evening at theTroyMusic Hall, they’re teaming up with flautist Robert Mirabal to present Music of the Sun, a program of sounds “inspired by the sun mythology of Native Americans.”Mixing string instruments with traditional Native American flutes and drums, Ethel and Mirabal will “unite to create a cross-cultural contemporary music event exploring . . . and honoring indigenous cultures.”

Ethel have been around for almost a decade. The New York Times has praised the string quartet for their versatility (“Ethel prizes grittiness and punch as absolute values, but these expert players can produce a conventionally warm, unified tone when the music demands it”) and chops (“extraordinarily skilled, passionate musicians”).

Ethel and Robert Mirabal will perform Saturday (Feb. 25) at8 PMat the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (2nd and State streets,Troy). Tickets are $25-$35, $15 students and children. For more info, call the box office at 273-0038.

Photographer Robert Gullie’s new show at the Clement Art Gallery will, according to the gallery notes, take us “on a tour of his collage and mixed media pieces through a series of rooms which are filled with mystery, beauty and humor which provoke the viewer to imagine their interpretation and back stories.”

We don’t need convincing. We’re longtime fans of the former winner of Best Photographer in our annual Best Of issue.

As critic David Brickman wrote of Gullie’s work in Metroland, “In his now familiar process of dressing, staging, photographing and hand-coloring, he has given new, wickedly bizarre meaning to things. . . . Rarely does one get such an opportunity to witness firsthand the power of creative photography to completely transform a subject.”

Robert Gullie: Roominations opens tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 24) at theClementArtGallery (201 Broadway,Troy) with a reception from5 to8 PM. The exhibit runs through March 28. For more info, call 272-6811.

After a 1994 debut album that went nowhere, singer-songwriter Paula Cole broke through with her 1996 follow-up This Fire, which featured the radio hits “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” and “I Don’t Want to Wait” (which was picked up as the theme song for Dawson’s Creek). Cole toured with Lilith Fair in 1997, and made news for flaunting hairy armpits at the 1998 Grammy Awards; she won Best New Artist at that show, beating out Fiona Apple, Sean “Diddy” Combs (when he was still Puff Daddy), Erykah Badu and Hanson.

After one more release in 1999, Cole took some time off to raise her daughter, and didn’t return with a full album until 2007’s Courage, which was full of jazz influences. In 2010, she returned to her soft rock roots with Ithaca; Capital Region locals got to check her out that year at the Troy River Street Festival.

Paula Cole will play the Picotte Recital Hall at the Massry Center for the Arts (College of Saint Rose, 1002 Madison Ave., Albany) tonight (Thursday, Feb. 23) at7:30 PM.Tickets are $25. For more information, call 337-4871.

Nancy Grossman: Tough Life Diary

The Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery is welcoming spring a little early this year with the opening, this weekend, of multiple exhibits.

Nancy Grossman: Tough Life Diary draws from 50 years’ worth of work by this “largely underappreciated artist” who, according to the program notes, “combines exquisite craftsmanship with a long-standing exploration of the nature of violence and power.” Pictured is Grossman’s Light Is Faster Than Sound (1987-88). Nancy Grossman: Tough Life Diary opens Saturday (May 18) and runs through May 20.

Donald Moffat: The Extravagant Vein, which draws on 20 years’ worth of work, is the “first comprehensive survey of [his] investigations into art history, paint, and form.” The exhibit also opens Saturday and runs through June 3.

Pam Lins: Denver Gold represents the Brooklyn-based artist’s “love of formal, modernist art combined with her madcap sensibility.” This exhibit also opens Saturday and runs through April 22.

There will be an opening reception Saturday (Feb. 18) from 6 to 7:30 PM for all three exhibits at the Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery (Skidmore College, 815 N. Broadway, Saratoga Springs). For more info, call 580-8080.

“What happens when you place two chatbot programs in conversation?”

This is the question posed by Obie Award-winning writer-director Annie Dorsen about the set-up of Hello Hi There, the performance piece she will present at EMPAC on Saturday evening. The “performers” are two human-esque software programs “in conversation,” using issues raised in a 1971 debate between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault. Venturing an answer to Dorsen’s question, EMPAC describes Hello Hi There as “an unexpected, uncanny, and humorous meditation on what separates humans from machines.”

We asked the voices in our head for an answer, and this is what they said:

“It will be an unenlightening exchange between two machines in a closed loop.”

“I don’t know. What happens when two chatbots, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar?”

“You’ll see a vision of the inevitable post-human future.”

We’ll leave it to you: Which answer suits your philosophy?

Annie Dorsen’s Hello Hi There will be presented in EMPAC’s Studio 1: Goodman (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy) at 8 PM Saturday (Feb. 18). Tickets are $18. As a kind of warm-up act, there will be a free screening of the original debate between Chomsky and Foucault at 6 PM in the other EMPAC studio. For more info, call 276-3921.

Martha Scanlan

If the past two Thursdays are any indication, Timbre Coup are just getting warmed up during their monthlong Jillian’s residency. Tonight, they’ll be joined by Dopapod (9 PM, 432-1997). . . . Psych-folk quartet Swamp Baby are back with new material. They’ll offer a taste tonight at the Foundry (8 PM, 229-2173). . . . Albany Frequencies takes over the FuzeBox tonight with EDM by Eric Savage, DJ Mercy!!!, and Party Horn (9 PM, free, 951-9561). . . . Bassfix is back at Red Square tomorrow (Friday) night, featuring two rooms of DJs (8 PM, $7-$10, 465-0444). . . . Olivia Quillio shares the stage with MaryLeigh and the Fauves and Bethel Steele Friday night at the Hudson River Coffee House (596-0959). . . . Tony Quattro and DJ Sliink both got plugged on Diplo’s Mad Decent blog this week. Should make for a fine OUTPOST1 on Friday with Party With Tina, Looney and Knomad (10 PM, $5-$10, 951-9561). . . . Berkshire band the Spurs are bringing back old-time country music. They’ll make their Albany debut at Pauly’s Hotel on Friday (8 PM, 426-0828). . . . The American Roots Music series returns to the Linda Friday night with Martha Scanlan, Amy Helm and Byron Isaacs (8 PM, $18, 465-5233). . . . Legendary Saratoga garage rockers Dryer play the Putnam Den on Friday with Slim Charles and Houseboat (10 PM, free, 584-8066). . . . Rhinebeck’s the Drive come to Valentine’s on Friday with Heroes and Martyrs, Mountains on the Moon and Promise Me Tomorrow (7 PM, 432-6572). . . . Dirty Paris celebrate their three year anniversary and an upcoming record release this Saturday at Red Square (8 PM, 465-0444). . . . Stringfever will bring virtuoso electric chamber music to Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on Sunday (3 PM, $15-$32).

Malaysian singer-songwriter, guitarist and ukele player Zee Avi (once a fashion-design student), was discovered via her amateur YouTube video in September 2007. Her airy vocals and upbeat guitar are the perfect partners for a jazzy folk style with a hint of Borneo flavor. “Every song has a different mood, every song is a different voice, every song is a different story,” says Avi of her 2011 album ghostbird. On Tuesday, singer Bryan Thomas will open for Avi and her band. (Feb. 21, 7:30 PM, $15-$20, Empire State Plaza, Albany, 473-1845)

It’s a Cellobration! Literally.

The Albany Symphony Orchestra will present a pair of cello-centric concerts this weekend, featuring the up-and-coming virtuoso students of cello guru Richard Aaron.

It’s a diverse program. Mathew Zalkind will be the cello soloist on Haydn’s Concerto No. 2 in D major; Browyn Banerdt, So Hee Chang and Madeline Huberth will be featured on Popper’s Requiem; Respighi’s Adagio con variazioni will provide a showcase for Sarina Zhang, and Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos will do likewise for Nathan Chan and Nathaniel Pierce; and Julie Albers (pictured) will be the soloist for the world premiere of Gity Razaz’s Afterthoughts for Cello and Orchestra.

Maestro David Alan Miller will conduct the Albany Symphony Orchestra in a Cellobration! concert Saturday (Feb. 18) at 7:30 PM at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (2nd and State streets, Troy); tickets are $19 to $54, and can be purchased by calling the box office at 273-0038. The program will be repeated Sunday (Feb. 19) at 3PM at the Zankel Music Center (Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs). Tickets for the Saratoga performance are $19 to $47; please call 465-4755 for info.

At the heart of this 11-piece big band, built from harmonium, horns, guitar, bass and three percussionists, is the Sufi devotional music of legendary Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Formed in 2004 by percussionist Brook Martinez, the band have reimagined the style as an infectiously danceable nightclub party in the manner of American funk and Afrobeat. We’ll have two chances to catch these guys, first at Club Helsinki on Friday, and then as part of the Party Horns NYC series at Proctors on Saturday. (Feb. 17, 9 PM, $15, 405 Columbia St., Hudson, 828-4800; Feb. 18, 7:30 PM, $15, 432 State St., Schenectady, 346-6204)