Heather Christian's Playful Musical Séance
Stories — sung or spoken, from the living and the dead — will figure in two programs at Guild Hall starting next Thursday when Heather Christian will perform “Animal Wisdom (Campfire Concert)” at 8 p.m. An Obie Award-winning composer/performer with eight records in release, Ms. Christian blurs genres in “Animal Wisdom,” which she calls “a lo-fi, idiosyncratic concert-cabaret about talking to the dead.”
Among the deceased conjured by the performer are her flamboyant and cruel childhood piano teacher and her ex-C.I.A. code-breaker godfather. The musical séance shifts in tone from playful to dark, with poorly remembered Methodist hymns from the 1800s, family myths, gothic Catholic Masses for the dead, folktales, and other musical offerings.
In a Vogue magazine profile, Adam Green called the performance “a moving meditation on mortality, love, faith, ritual, the power of music, the wisdom of the superstitious gesture, and the insufficiency of the intellect alone to help us navigate the mysteries, terrors, joys, and sorrows of life.”
In addition to Ms. Christian, the program features Sasha Brown, Fred Epstein, Eric Farber, and Maya Sharpe. Tickets are $22 to $55, $20 to $53 for members.
The other program, G.E. Smith’s Portraits, an ongoing series of musical evenings hosted by Mr. Smith and produced by Taylor Barton, will feature Sophie B. Hawkins and Trevor Hall on Friday, July 27, at 8 p.m.
Ms. Hawkins is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter who emerged on the national music scene in 1992 with her album “Tongues and Tails.” She is known for her powerful storytelling, which ranges from the forlorn to the comforting.
When she made her Cafe Carlyle debut last year, the critic Adam Cohen wrote, “Deeply wry, fierce personal songs filled with lyrical delicacy, deliciousness and musical bite, this well crafted luminous, intelligent, engaging evening makes one feel as if Ms. Hawkins is singing only to you in your living room.”
After recording his first album at 16, Trevor Hall left South Carolina for the Idyllwild Arts Academy in California, where he studied classical guitar and was introduced to yoga and meditation. A blend of roots and folk, his music reflects his involvement with Eastern mysticism and his many pilgrimages to India.
His new independent release, “The Fruitful Darkness,” became the top Kickstarter music campaign of 2017 and the 30th of all time. Currently on tour in the United States, Canada, and Europe, he has collaborated with such artists as Steel Pulse, Ziggy Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Matisyahu, Michael Franti, and Nahko & Medicine for the People.
Tickets are $55 to $150, $53 to $145 for members.