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Parisian Gypsy Jazz Featured in Concerts in the Court Hot Club of San Francisco featuring Isabelle Fontaine Meet Me in Paris Satur day, October 3, 8 p.m.
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raditional Parisian gypsy jazz will fill the Museum of Art when the Concerts in the Court series welcomes the return of the Hot Club of San Francisco featuring Isabelle Fontaine 8 p.m. Saturday, October 3 in the Edward Wales Root Sculpture Court.
Tickets for this performance and for all Concerts in the Court are $37.50 for members, $42.50 for general admission, and $22.50 for students. Flexible subscriptions are also available. The Museum opens at 7 p.m. so patrons may view the current exhibitions, socialize and visit the Museum Shop.
The acclaimed Hot Club of San Francisco and the popular French vocalist Isabelle Fontaine have created Meet Me in Paris, a charming concert invoking an unforgettable Parisian experience. Love songs and driving gypsy jazz are a combination made famous during the 1920s and 30s in Paris by the legendary Hot Club de France, Django Reinhardt, and Stephane Grappelli. Keep time with the strum of the rhythm guitars and let the magical guitar and fiddle solos take you on a ride down the Seine and through the heart of “the city of light.”
Concerts in the Court also feature a cash bar and special gallery talks at intermission. For tickets contact the Performing Arts Ticket Office at 7970055 or 800-754-0797. Tickets are also available online at www.mwpai.org. Sponsored by
R. Robert Sossen, Jr. Attorney at Law Series Sponsored by
The Italian Presepe: Cultural Landscapes of the Soul October 10 through January 4
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n intriguing union of art, religion, and cultural history is presented in The Italian Presepe: Cultural Landscapes of the Soul, opening Saturday, October 10 in the Museum of Art. More than 50 images by photographer Margot Balboni combine with some rare 18th-century figures and other contextual objects to document an important form of Italian installation art—the Nativity scene, or presepe. The Italian Presepe: Cultural Landscapes of the Soul originated in 2014 as an exhibition co–curated by Sarah Stanbury and Margot Balboni at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. The rich history of presepe dates to 1223 when St. Francis of Assisi staged a reenactment Margot Balboni, Samaritan Woman Approaches, 2013; from the Palazzo Reale, Banco di Napoli Presepe with figures attributed to of the Christian biblical Nativity Genzano, who worked in the workshop of Lorenzo Mosca. story. Through the centuries, a Fascinated by the tradition, Balboni and medievalist professor Sarah profound tradition entwining art and culture evolved from presepe. All Stanbury set out to document the evolution of this art form, which inover Italy, school children to highly skilled artisans practice the art of tegrates elements of sculpture, painting, and set design. They travcreating personalized, often highly detailed and elaborate installaeled to Rome and Naples, Italy, and surrounding towns where tions. Initially erected in prominent public spaces, presepe developed stunning and elaborate public presepe have been produced since the to include astonishingly elaborate settings that reach far beyond the 17th century. Some presepe are as large as 700 figures while othcommon manger to include vernacular buildings, volcanoes, caves, ers are intimate depictions set in grottos or even dioramas that use aqueducts, and even entire towns representative of the cultures that traditional materials and techniques to convey modern messages of create the panorama. Figures encompass biblical characters along political and social change. All of the scenes illustrate vital exwith peasants, shopkeepers, politicians, and ordinary citizens surchanges between religious and secular life and offer a glimpse into rounded by objects of everyday life. regional traditions.