Musical Variety
A jazz master, a guitar hero, and a versatile singer-songwriter are coming to Guild Hall this week. The Branford Marsalis Quartet will bring its interpretations of jazz originals and classics to the theater on Wednesday evening at 7:30.
As instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and educator, Mr. Marsalis crosses stylistic boundaries while maintaining an unwavering creative integrity. He has won three Grammy Awards, a Tony nomination for his work as a composer on Broadway, and a citation by the National Endowment for the Arts as Jazz Master.
Tickets are $85 to $165 ($76.50 to $148.50 for members).
G.E. Smith’s Portraits series, a fixture at Guild Hall prior to the theater’s renovation, will return next Thursday at 7 p.m., when the iconic guitarist will welcome Yola, a six-time Grammy-nominated artist, songwriter, and actor. The series features duets, conversations, and stripped-down performances.
Yola’s latest album, “Stand for Myself,” has been called the “best soul record of the past 20 years,” while Rolling Stone cited her as “one of contemporary pop’s greatest singers.”
Tickets range from $60 to $125, ($54 to $112.50 for members).
Facing Mortality
The world premiere of “What I Know, Now,” a one-woman play written by and starring Julia Motyka, will take the stage at Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater from Monday through July 20.
Staged in an early version at the theater’s New Works Festival last year, it is the story of a woman who is facing her own mortality. “She is waiting to get some test results for a potentially scary illness,” said Scott Schwartz, the theater’s artistic director. “She faces her own relationship to faith and her relationship to her family and their legacy of illness. . . . It’s actually quite fun in a way, because she is sitting in a doctor’s office and talking to the audience, and you really get to know her.”
A writer, performer, producer, and teacher, Ms. Motyka has appeared Off Broadway in the world premieres of “We Got Issues,” “Obama 44,” and “The Golden Ladder,” as well as at Bay Street in “Intimate Apparel” and “Travesties.”
Performance times are Monday at 8 p.m., Wednesday at 7, next Thursday at 4, Friday, July 19, at 8, and July 20 at 4. Tickets are $49.99 to $69.99.
World Music
Albino Mbie, a multi-award-winning musician, guitarist, singer, composer, and sound and mixing engineer from Mozambique, will return to The Church in Sag Harbor tomorrow at 6 for an evening of sound, story, and inspiration.
Mr. Mbie’s music combines rhythmic patterns and musical concepts to create a unique Afro-Pop and Moz-Jazz sound that reflects his musical experiences in Mozambique, the United States, and elsewhere. A professor at the Berklee College of Music, he is “fueled by resourcefulness, intrigued by the fusion of elements, and inspired by his multicultural experience,” says The Church.
Tickets are $30, $25 for members, $15 for students 18 and under.
Sonic Fusion
Next up in the music series at the Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs is Tomoki Sanders, who will perform a free concert with their quintet next Thursday at 6 p.m.
The child of the legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, Tomoki is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer whose music blends vapor wave, fusion, jazz, and hip-hop, all infused with elements of digital production. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music, they have performed with Pharoah Sanders, Kassa Overall, Ravi Coltrane, and many more.
Audience members have been encouraged to take seating and picnics. In the event of rain, the performance will happen in the John Little Barn, with limited seating available on a first-come-first-served basis.
