Wanda's Picks

Today we feature the music of Sila & the AfroFunk Experience and Tosin Aribasala "The Hallalujah Jazz Project." Guests are: Josef Norris, founder and director of Kid Serve, an organization that creates mosaic murals in San Francisco Bay Area communities, one school or neighborhood at a time. Visit http://www.kidserve.com/. There is an unveiling Friday, May 29, 12 noon at Ida B. Wells High School, 1099 Hayes St., on the Fell St. side in San Francisco. Kid Serve with the Oakland Mosaic Project offers adult classes June 27-28 in Oakland. Visit Kid Serve's website for details. Josef is followed by a wonderful conversation with Eric Green who appears as "Jake, the fisherman," who is married to "Clara" (soprano, Angel Blue)in Porgy and Bess, at San Francisco Opera in a few weeks. Eric has been with the production since its inception in Washington, DC, and has performed "Jake" along the tour at the Lyric Opera Chicago, Baltimore Opera and the Grand Théâtre Luxembourg. Visit http://sfopera.com/press/porgyandbess/PorgyandBess.pdf San Francisco Opera's George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, is set, this production, in the '50s. Dubose and Dorothy Heyward's play is the basis for the opera, which opens June 9-27 at the War Memorial Opera House. Bass-baritone Eric Owens and soprano Laquita Mitchell headline the cast as "Porgy" and "Bess," an unlikely couple who manage to find love amidst the squalor of Catfish Row. We close the show with Amana Harris, founder and executive director of ArtEsteem, a program of the Attitudinal Healing Connection, where she is Associate Director. "The 11th Annual Self As Hero" show is up at the Oliver Art Center Center for Art and Public Life, at the California College of the Arts--CCA, 5212 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94618 through Friday, May 29. Hours are: M-F: 8:30 a.m. to 12 noon and 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Wednesdays, 1-4:30 p.m. Visit http://www.ahc-oakland.org/