Around Berkeley: Bishop Mariann Budde lecture, West Berkeley Community Print Festival

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Around Berkeley

🎤 Bishop Mariann Budde, who drew national attention earlier this year when she asked President Donald Trump to “have mercy” at her Jan. 21 post-inauguration sermon in Washington, D.C., is giving a lecture on religion and public life at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley. In-person registration is available on a first-come, first-served basis and limited to 500 guests, but there will also be a livestream. Wednesday, April 9, 5 p.m. First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley. FREE (RSVP)

📚 Oakland comic author/artist Dean Stuart shares his new graphic 7 Cassi and the House of Memories and leads a workshop for ages seven and older on making comics. Thursday, April 3, 4 p.m. Central Library. FREE

🕊️ The conductorless New Century Chamber Orchestra will give the West Coast premiere of San Francisco composer Jungyoon Wie’s “A Prayer for Peace” in Berkeley as part of a peace-themed program. The 2024 concerto grosso for string orchestra is a representation of the composer’s emotional evolution in her journey as a Korean immigrant to the U.S. Also on the program is African American composer Adolphus Hailstork’s “Sonata de Chiesa” and Richard Strauss’ “Metamorphosen.” Friday, April 4, 7:30 p.m. First Congregational Church. $35-80 (RSVP)

🎻 The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra will be playing Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra.” (You might recognize the opening fanfare from the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”) Also on the program are Paul Hindemith’s “Symphonic Metamorphosis” and Witold Lutoslawski’s Symphony No. 3. Saturday-Sunday, April 4-5, 8 p.m. Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley. $5-30 (RSVP)

🌱 Volunteer to help the city spread flower seeds and plant native trees and shrubs at the Berkeley Waterfront. Tools and lunch are provided.  Saturday, April 5, 9:15 a.m. Shorebird Park Nature Center. FREE (RSVP)

🛶 Paddle around the Berkeley Marina while learning about the history of the San Francisco Bay Estuary and searching for local wildlife. No experience is required — you’ll be taught some basic paddling techniques. Canoes, life jackets and paddle will be provided. Ages 5 and above. Saturday, April 5, 9:45 a.m. 201 University Avenue. $15 (RSVP)

🎭 Tina D’Elia celebrates the untold stories of Latina Hollywood stars with humor and poignancy in her one-woman show Overlooked Latinas. Saturdays, April 5-May 10, 5 p.m. The Marsh Berkeley. $25-$100

🎨 Nothing salves the cruelties of April like throwing oneself into a creative endeavor, and the Kala Art Institute’s annual West Berkeley Community Print Festival offers numerous paths for artistic expression via workshops, tours and demonstrations. Saturday, April 5, noon-4 p.m. Kala Art Institute. Free (registration encouraged)

🎸 Charismatic Congolese soukous singer/songwriter Samba Ngo, a former Berkeley resident, joins force with vocalist Mandjou Koné, a West African griot from Burkina Faso and Mali, for an evening of incantatory songs and dance-inducing African rhythms. Saturday, April 5, 8 p.m. Ashkenaz. $15-$20

🪨 Get to know the history of North Berkeley’s beloved rock parks by joining a walk led by the Rodney Paul of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association. You’ll visit Hinkel Park, Mortar Rock, Indian Rock, Contra Costa Rock and The Great Stoneface Park. Prepare to walk two miles at a moderate pace. Sunday, April 6, 10 a.m. 41 Somerset Place. FREE (RSVP required)

♻️ Three speakers, including The Filling Station’s owner Mandy Ladin, talk about the bizarre world of plastics – where they come from, what they do and what people can do to mitigate their impact – at a “youth gathering on plastics” (with snacks provided). Sunday, April 6, 1:30 p.m. Black Pine Circle School Library. FREE

🎹 Berkeley pianist Joyce Todd McBride, a prolific composer probably best known as the founder and primary arranger for the all-women vocal ensemble Conspiracy of Venus, has taken a long, wending musical path with numerous sojourns and adventures, including writing catchy, often ornately beautiful jazz tunes collected on her new album The Night-time Violets Bloom. She celebrates the album’s release with an enviable band featuring trumpeter Erik Jekabson, alto saxophonist Kasey Knudsen and the all-Berkeley rhythm section tandem of bassist Carla Kaufman and drummer Scott Amendola. Sunday, April 6, 2 p.m. The Back Room. $15

🎻 Chamber Music Sundaes presents a concert at the Hillside Club featuring violist Amy Hiraga and cellist Peter Wyrick — a married couple that recently retired from the San Francisco Symphony, their daughter Mayumi Wyrick, a violinist, and the pianist Keisuke Nakagoshi. The program features Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major and Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor. Sunday, April 6, 3 p.m. $15-30 (RSVP)

📚 Award-winning Young Adult author Rex Ogle shares his new novel-in-verse When We Ride, exploring “bonds of loyalty and friendship and how they’re tested by drugs and violence.” He is joined afterwards in conversation by local author and Mrs. Dalloway’s own Michael Leali. Monday, April 7, 6 p.m. Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore. FREE (registration encouraged)

🎶 Two extraordinary improvisational duos, one domestic and one imported, hit the Back Room when Canadian guitar and oud maverick Gordon Grdina and German drummer, composer, and percussionist KrisChen Lil’inger share a double bill with Dialogue, the intermittent confab pairing Berkeley clarinet tzadik Ben Goldberg with brilliant Berkeley pianist and fellow Cal faculty member Myra Melford. Tuesday, April 8, 7:30 p.m. The Back Room. $15-$20

🎥 Award-winning Arab-Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol’s Skin of Glass screens as part of the Berkeley Documentary Film Series, exploring the fate of her architect father’s most celebrated building, a modernist glass skyscraper in the heart of São Paulo, which has is now occupied by hundreds of homeless families. She’ll speak after the screening. Wednesday, April 9, 7 p.m. The Hillside Club. $10-$15

📸 Berkeley Rep’s production of “Here There Are Blueberries,” directed by Moisés Kaufman, runs April 5 through May 11. The play, which grapples with how ordinary people become murderers, is based on a real story about an album of Nazi-era photographs that mysteriously arrived at the desk of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist in 2007. $25–$134

🎻 The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is hosting a gala to raise funds for their summer European Tour. The afternoon reception will include hors d’oeuvres and a performance of the profound “Adagietto” from Gustav Mahler’s  monumental Symphony No. 5 by Celli@Berkeley, UC Berkeley’s student cello ensemble. Sunday, April 13, 3 p.m. Wu Performance Hall, Morrison Hall, UC Berkeley. $200–$300 (RSVP)

Beyond Berkeley

🖼️  One of the most popular outdoor events in Oakland is Friday Nights at OMCA, which brings different music acts every week and a rotating mix of food trucks, themed activities, after-hours access to exhibits, and gallery chats. The season is kicking off with Non Stop Bhangra and its dance lessons of the rhythms of Punjab, India. Also, there will be puppet making to commemorate the unveiling of Fairyland’s 75th-anniversary exhibit titled Fairyland @ 75: A Legacy of Magic, and the night will close with DJ Mare. fresh behind the turntables. Friday, April 4, 5 p.m. 100 Oak St., Oakland. FREE (access to galleries needs a ticket)

🎞️ Author, journalist, and LGBTQ community activist Dan Savage is bringing his bi-annual HUMP! Film Fest to the New Parkway Theater this weekend. The indie erotic film fest includes a curated selection of 23 adult short films running five minutes or less submitted by independent filmmakers and fans worldwide. All but one of the films are also available to stream on demand. Ages 18 and up. Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April 5, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. 474 24th St., Oakland. $31

🇰🇭 Oakland’s Cambodian community will celebrate Khmer New Year at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park. The festival helps the local Khmer community connect to Cambodia’s heritage through dance performances, Khmer food, visual arts, and live music. Saturday, April 6, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, 2465 34th Ave., Oakland. FREE

🏊 Oakland Olympic swimmer and Hollywood actor Buster Crabbe rose to fame in the 1920s for his athleticism and later as a Hollywood superstar who appeared in over 100 films and played iconic roles like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Tarzan, which earned him the nickname “king of the serials.” Through April 25, the Oakland History Center has an exhibit on display of Crabbe’s memorabilia by curator Miron Murcury and Oakland History Center librarian Emily Foster. Through April 25. Oakland History Center, Main Library, second floor, 125 14th St., Oakland. FREE

If there’s an event you’d like us to consider for this roundup, email us at [email protected]. If there’s an event that you’d like to promote on our calendar, you can use the self-submission form on our events page.

The Oaklandside’s Arts and Community reporter Azucena Rasilla contributed to this list.