Arts & Events

For those heading down the coast, the Carmel Bach Festival is in its last week, with unusual programs like Stephen Prutsman's Bach, Jazz and the Spaces In Between, in which the San Francisco pianist plays his solo piece, Bach & Forth, working off themes from J. S. Bach, Charlie Parker and Schoenberg, as well as being joined by a string quartet for arrangements--some by Prutsman--of pieces by Bach, Dizzy Gilllespie, John Coltrane, Joe Zawinul, and Turkish and Uzbeki music, teasing out the relationships Prutsman discovers `in the mix. 

Or the evening, War & Peace, Landscapes of the Soul, put together by the Carmel Festival's new music director, British conductor and oboist Paul Goodwin, of pastoral symphonies by Vaughan-Williams and Beethoven, sandwiching a piece by contemporary British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, A Man Descending (which answers Vaughan-Williams' A Lark Ascending), which calls for a tenor saxophonist--in this case, the eminent New York player Joe Lovano. 

More innovation in California music programs--the true legacy of West Coast music: all of it, together ... 

Bach, Jazz & the Spaves In Between, 8 pm, Thursday; War & Peace, 8 pm Friday, both at the Sunset Theatre, Carmel. $51/$71. Reservations/Program info: (8310 624-1521; bachfestival.org 

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Berkeley West Edge Opera will present Berkeley composer Clark Suprynowicz's Caliban Dreams with libretto and lyrics by Amanda Moody (D'Arc) of Berkeley, based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, featuring tenor John Duykers. Stage direction by Melissa Weaver; Jonathan Khuner conducts. July 30, August 5--8 pm; August 7, 2 pm--540 Ashbury, El Cerrito. $15-$69. 841-1903; berkeleyopera.org