In spite of its name, the venerable Tokyo String Quartet has long been an international ensemble.
The quartet, which is disbanding this summer, was formed 44 years ago by Japanese musicians studying at New York’s Juilliard School. But through the decades, its changing members have been of varied nationalities.
Currently, the Tokyo quartet, which presents its last concert in The City at Herbst Theatre on Thursday, consists of violinists Martin Beaver and Kikuei Ikeda, cellist Clive Greensmith and violist Kazuhide Isomura, the only original member of the ensemble.
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Country-rock kingpin and part-time thespian Steve Earle truly delights in the depravity of his character in David Burris’ upcoming film, “The World Made Straight.”
“I’m the villain, a hillbilly drug dealer, and I love that guy,” he says from the movie’s North Carolina set. “I’ve played the bad guy in this other movie that Tim Blake-Nelson made, ‘Leaves of Grass,’ but that was a comedy. This is not a comedy.”
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When Natasha Khan – who records under the name Bat for Lashes – finished touring the world behind her 2009 sophomore CD “Two Suns,” she was mentally and physically exhausted.
Having just endured a romantic breakup as well, she returned to her seaside English retreat in Brighton and drew the brakes on her fast-paced existence.
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Choreographer, writer and performance artist Sheetal Gandhi's gentle persona and youthful, lilting voice belie the emotional power behind her one-woman performance piece "Bahu-Beti-Biwi."
Translated from Hindi, the title means, "Daughter-Daughter-in-Law-Wife." The charged phrase illustrates proscribed roles that still define the life of Indian women today.
The Oakland-born Gandhi, who took a circuitous path to fully understand the roles, brings them to the stage in her show, which opens Friday at ODC Theater.
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John Murry is hoping his CD release show Sunday at the Make-Out Room is unlike a lot of concerts these days.
“It seems like musicians aren’t giving emotionally to the audience. I want to do that, I want to get it right — to get it rightly wrong, perfectly ragged and real,” says the Oakland-based singer-songwriter, who was born in Tupelo, Miss., and has a sweet tinge of a Southern accent.
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When Aussie singer Clairy Browne hits San Francisco this week with her R&B-rockabilly band the Bangin’ Rackettes — touting their steamy debut, “Baby Caught the Bus,” with its single “Love Letter,” featured in a Heineken ad — it won’t be the first time she has appeared in town. She was here on vacation a decade ago, crooning karaoke in the Castro. Clubs warned her she could only perform one song, she says, on the phone from a South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. “So I’d take a bunch of wigs and do as many songs as I could in as many wigs as I had.” But security caught her.
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Modern house aficionados will pack Public Works on Friday for another “Icee Hot” dance party, this time featuring the West Coast debut of Rotterdam, Netherlands, artist Gerd. “Icee Hot” co-founder Ghosts on Tape (aka Ryan Merry) said the Gerd night has been long in coming.
“We’ve just been big fans for a long time and he’s awesome,” Merry said. “It was just perfect for us. His music represents a lot of what we’re about.”
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When Dead Can Dance co-founder Brendan Perry is strumming onstage next to his otherworldly voiced bandmate Lisa Gerrard, he hardly notices the soft play of violet and aquamarine lights flickering over him. Singing with his eyes shut, he isn’t overly conscious of what happens around him, and is in a “very special place” by the end of the set. With no distractions, he makes every intricate note count, like the group does on its ethereal new live recording, “In Concert.” The group plays Davies Symphony Hall this week. Never seen them?
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Karpathos is a minuscule Greek island in the south Aegean sea, 24 hours away from Athens by boat with roughly 6,000 inhabitants in 10 villages. With a population of 761, its dinky waystation of Olympos is even more remote, says Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis, who returned to his birthplace to compose portions of his U.K. band’s third outing, “Holy Fire.”
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Amanda Warner would love to recount optimistic stories of her post-college years living in the Bay Area from 2003 to 2009, before she moved to New York and — with producer-partner Peter Wade — re-created herself as the brainy synth-popper MNDR.
But she doesn’t have any.
Retaining a publishing deal after her band Triangle failed, Warner became a hot Big Apple songwriter. An early effort there was “Bang Bang Bang,” a collaboration with Mark Ronson and the first hit single on the album “Record Collection.”
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