City Week


Thursday 6

ELDER CONCERTS. The Elder Rehab Concert Series offers a musical outlet to disabled elderly, caregivers and family members.

You can show your support for serious effort any Thursday, but if you decide to check out these special musicians today, you'll get an earful of Dean Armstrong.

Armstrong, a guitarist and singer, will be performing a solo concert at Streams in the Desert Lutheran Church, 5360 E. Pima St,, one block west of Craycroft Road. The church is the site of concerts held from 6 to 7 p.m. the first and last Thursday of each month.

Daytime concerts are scheduled for 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. on the second and third Thursday of each month, at Atria Campana del Rio, 1550 E. River Road. Emerson Bartlime will be performing music from the 1920s and '30s in a show on September 13.

For more information, call 326-4589.


Friday 7

BIKERS AND BIKER WANNABES. I haven't plugged the monthly motorcycle show at Kick Start Grill in a while, so here's the skinny on an event that's great fun for lovers of two-wheeled thunder.

Thunder? I am referring to Harleys, of course, but you'll also find the tinny whine of Yamahas, Kawasakis and Hondas (remember that old commercial, "Wouldn't you really rather have a Honda?"). Anyway, whatever scooter gets you off--sportbike, tourer, cruiser, classic (1980 or older), American or foreign--you'll probably find it at one of these shows.

The show opens at 7 tonight at Kickstart, 8987 E. Tanque Verde Road in Bear Canyon Center at the corner of Catalina Highway and Tanque Verde. If you've got a bike you think others might want to check out, get to the grill between 5:30 and 7. For more information, call 760-3013.


Saturday 8

WHAT A SHAME. Life Would be a Shame Left to Description.

If Allan Graham's art is as intriguing as the name he dreamed up for his latest exhibition, his fans are in for a treat.

The works of Graham, known to art-lovers as Toadhouse, will fill the main galleries of the Tucson Museum of Art from today through November 4. The exhibit's selections are this year's Contemporary Southwest Images: The Stonewall Foundation Series.

Graham's approach, in which he views life as something to be experienced, not just understood, through books and description, results in light gray paintings buzzing with thousands of hand-written words that appear to swirl and fly about the canvas.

His other works are simple, roughly shaped circular shield forms of deep rich black.

Building an impressive career since the 1970s, Graham has exhibited his paintings and installations globally.

Also on display at the museum is Women of the World: A Global Collection of Art, a collection of two-dimensional works created by women artists from 177 countries.

Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. General admission costs $5, seniors $4 and students $3. Members and children under 12 are free. For more information, call 624-2333 or visit www.tucsonarts.com.

THE ROOT OF THE MATTERS. Learn how to make green corn tamales during a special event at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.

Las Raises de la Raza, a two-weekend tribute to Hispanic Heritage Month, also includes discussions of foods, medicines and memories of Mexican-American neighborhood gardens.

The tamale class, limited to 15 people, is from 10 a.m. to noon today in the gardens' education center. Brenda Zamora Silvas, owner of Nana Z's Tamales and Tamalez, will show the class how to roast chiles and shuck and grind corn.

The best part?

You get to eat what you make at the end of the class, which costs $25 for non-members and $20 for members.

On September 13, in Porter Hall, Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, professor emeritus at Pima Community College, will talk about the history and cultural heritage of gardening in Southern Arizona. A $3 donation is suggested for the talk.

Tucson Botanical Gardens is located at 2150 N. Alvernon Way. For more information, call 326-9686, ext. 24, or visit www.tucsonbotanical.org.

GALLERY FINALE. Elizabeth Cherry Contemporary Art is closing with a two-day grand finale.

A retrospective show today and next Saturday (September 15) marks the gallery's successful five-year run. Cherry's new appointment as executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson led to the decision to close.

The exhibition will feature the highlights from the last five years, including work by Peter Young, Valerie Galloway, Sylvie Fleury, Steven Parrino and others.

The show is noon to 5 p.m. both Saturdays. Also, a closing reception is scheduled for 7 to 10 p.m. on September 15. The gallery is at 441 E. Grant Road. For more information, call 903-0577.


Sunday 9

FALL FOR THIS. Margo Reed leads off a promising series of super jazz performances.

For years Arizona jazz fans have encouraged Reed to record an album featuring her classic approach to swinging jazz standards.

Margo Live! is the result.

After hearing this tremendous jazz collaboration between Reed and the Armand Boatman Trio, the Tucson Jazz Society decided it was time to bring this stellar Phoenix ensemble back to town.

The energy and emotion of Reed's unmistakable sound can chase away the blues or soothe like a mother's lullaby. Her memorable style is as unique as those of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington.

"Every performance becomes a new celebration of life," writes jazz journalist Patricia Myers.

In addition to Reed and Boatman (piano), the group features Dwight Kilian (bass) and Dom Moio (drums).

Reed's show is the first in a Plaza Suite fall series of six jazz performances organized by the Tucson Jazz Society.

Margo Reed with the Armand Boatman Trio take the stage at 6 tonight at La Placita Village, on the corner of Broadway Boulevard and Church Avenue. Tickets cost $7 members, $14 non-members. For more information, visit www.tucsonjazz.org.


Monday 10

TICKETS, GET YOUR TICKETS. It is the riveting tale of a lascivious duke who sets his sights on the sheltered daughter of his court jester.

Rigoletto, complete with some of opera's most recognizable arias, is the first of five operas scheduled for Arizona Opera's 31st season.

Madama Butterfly, The Merry Widow, Don Giovanni and Dialogues of the Carmelites round out a schedule that lays bare human emotions at their most extreme and explores what the heart can feel. Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto starts its run October 5.

Arizona Opera was established in Tucson 30 years ago by a dedicated group of opera enthusiasts. Now under the leadership of general director David Speers, it has grown into a $5.5 million company that produces five grand operas and special recital events each season.

Tickets for the upcoming season go on sale today at 10 a.m. Prices are $25 to $72. Student discounts are offered with a valid photo I.D. Tickets are available through the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall at 260 S. Church Ave., Ticketmaster at 321-1000 or the opera company at 293-4336. Tickets are also available for purchase online at www.azopera.com. For more information, call Liz Warren at 293-4336 or e-mail liz@azopera.com.

MUSIC FROM THE DEEP END. Baritone Charles Roe will get some help from pianist Rex Woods tonight in a UA Faculty Artists Series concert.

Roe, professor of voice and artistic director of the University of Arizona Opera Theater, has sung leading roles with the New York City Opera and numerous regional companies, and he has appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras.

The Los Angeles Times described Roe as "ardent in demeanor, expressive in declamation and the master of a beautifully focused baritone."

Woods has performed widely throughout the world. Regional audiences best know him for his performances as both a soloist and chamber musician. He is also a member of the Bruch Trio.

Roe and Woods will perform a moving program that includes four songs by Carl Loewe (1796-1869), Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann by Frank Martin (1890-1974), Histoires Naturelles by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), and Benjamin Britten's (1913-1976) Songs and Proverbs of William Blake.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at Crowder Hall, in the UA music building, at the south end of the pedestrian underpass on Speedway Boulevard east of Park Avenue. Tickets are $10 general admission, $8 UA employees and seniors (55-plus) and $4 students with valid ID. Tickets are available through the UA fine arts box office by calling 621-1162. For more information, visit www.arts.arizona.edu/music.


Tuesday 11

BIRTH OF A YUPPIE YOUNGUN'. If you're a yuppie couple and you're thinking about having kids, you may want to see Little Footsteps first.

Invisible Theatre opens its 31st season with the story of Ben and Joanie, WASP yuppies in their mid-30s who are about to be parents for the first time. The pending arrival has both of them in a near panic.

"The unprepared attempting the impossible for the sake of the ungrateful." That's how Ben sums up parenthood.

This inventive, touching comedy explores the challenges of parenting, interfaith marriage and the demands of growing up before your offspring does.

Little Footsteps opens tonight and runs through September 30 at 1400 N. First Ave., at Drachman. Tickets cost $18 to $20 and are available by calling 882-9721. Tonight's performance begins at 7:30. For more information and other showtimes, call 882-9721 or 884-0672.


Wednesday 12

STICKING WITH WHAT WORKS. Author Denise Chávez lives in the same Las Cruces, N.M. house in which she grew up and writes in the same room in which she was born.

It works. Her first novel, Face of an Angel, won the 1995 American Book Award, the Premio Aztlan (awarded for an outstanding novel by a Chicano/Chicana writer) and the 1995 Mesilla Valley Author of the Year Award.

The title story from her collection The Last of the Menu Girls was published in the Norton Anthology of American Literature. Her new novel, Loving Pedro Infante, was published this year.

Listen as Chávez reads from her work tonight in a special event sponsored by the UA College of Humanities, English department and Poetry Center as part of a prose reading series.

For the reading, Chávez was asked to select an emerging writer to read with her, and she chose Loida Maritza Pérez.

Pérez was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her first book, Geographies of Home, was referred to by the New York Times Book Review as "a deluge of intense imagery where the magical and the real occupy the same awful and sometimes sensual space."

The free reading starts at 8 tonight in the Modern Languages auditorium, on the north side of the UA mall west of Cherry Avenue. For more information, visit www.coh.arizona.edu/poetry.