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See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of events to watch out for the week, including our editor's pick: Trio Gitano & guests, playing at Kleinhans Music Hall on Monday, May 18th. As always, check our on-line events calendar for a constantly updated and comprehensive listing of what's going on!

Trio Gitano & Guests

Monday, May 18

The members of Trio Gitano—guitarist Mir Ali, bass player Jim Kurzdorfer (formerly with the jazz fusion group Spiro Gyra), and hand-percussionist Dave Phillips—will open the program at Kleinhans Music Hall on Monday (May 18). BPO members Amy Glidden, associate concertmaster, Betsy Reeds, second flute, and cellist Amelie Fradette will then accompany Ali in a range of selections, while guest accordionist Al Schlisserman will join all the musicians on stage to close the program with Libertango, a piece by the bandoneón player who became the modern master of Argentinean tango music, Astor Piazzolla.

Mir Ali is truly a guitarist for all seasons, being an award-winning classical guitarist, a fiery flamenco guitarist, a practicing jazz guitarist, and a trained practitioner of North Indian classical music, as well as a composer of music in multiple genres. As a widely touring artist, Ali has performed across America, Canada, Europe, and Asia. A widely respected teacher and giver of master classes for guitar, Ali is also president of the Buffalo Guitar Society and director of the locally based, nationally recognized Rantucci International Guitar Festival and Competition. Trio Gitano will open the program with their arrangement of Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz’ Asturias, followed by the Suite del Recuerdo, by the Venezuelan Jose Luis Merlin. Two works by Argentinean composers, Milonga, by Jorge Cardoso, and Condombe, by Maximo Diego Pujol, with Estudio Simples y Buleria, a joint composition by Cuban composer Leo Brouwer and Mir Ali will conclude the first section of the program.

Violinist Amy Glidden will then join Ali for a pair of Italian works, Paganini’s beautiful Cantabile and Vittorio Monti’s Csárdás, originally composed for violin and piano and played by every gypsy orchestra in the world. Cellist Amelie Fradette and Ali will play arrangements of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas brasileiras No. 1 and the Intermezzo from the opera Goyescas by Spanish composer Enrique Granados. Trio Gitano returns with BPO flute player Betsy Reeds, to round out the program with a selection of South American dance music, including the Brazilian pieces Vou Vivendo, by Larceda /Pinxiniqa, and Pacoca Choro by Celso Machado, along with Danza Brasilera, a famous work by the Argentinean Jorge Morel, as well as the anonymous Venezuelan work, La Partida. Flutist Reeds has often appeared locally with Mir Ali, and CAFÉ, their 2002 CD on the Triloca label, which debuted to wide critical acclaim, remains a favorite throughout the country on numerous radio stations, including National Public Radio.

—jan jeziorio

7:30pm. Kleinhans Music Hall, Symphony Circle (885-5000 / www.bpo.org). $15/advance at box office or $20/at door. Call 884-0714 or 807-2292 for more info

Friday, May 15

Flatbed

Local Americana roots rockers Flatbed celebrate lead singer Joelle Lambert’s birthday at a happy hour show at Nietzsche’s on Friday (May 15) The band continues to build an impressive repertoire of covers and originals that are featured on their self-titled independent release, as well as the live recording of their appearance at UB’s Allen Hall, which was part of WBFO’s soon-to-be missed Wednesday night concert series that featured local talent. Backing Lambert’s distinctive and powerful vocals are guitarist Derek Bassett, bassist Michael Tinsmon, harmonica ace Nathan “Uncle Monty” Montague, and recent addition Ian Belknap on the trap kit. Together, they produce a sound that hearkens back to the folksy Cosmic American country vibe of Gram Parsons & the Fallen Angels, with a healthy dose of gut-bucket blues and torchy jazz. Stop down to Allentown and start your weekend off right with one of the best happy hours in town, and drop a tip in the pitcher for the birthday girl and her boys..

—buck quigley

7-10pm. Nietzsche’s, 248 Allen Street (886-8539 / www.nietzsches.com).

Friday, May 15

Pissed Jeans

Allentown, PA’s Pissed Jeans comes to Buffalo this weekend on Friday (May 15). For a hardcore revival band known for dark sludge metal, these guys can be pretty funny. They tackle important issues like sexual quirks, drinking, and the weather set against a vicious, aggressive instrumental backdrop, shedding clothes at their live shows like burlesquers and usually whipping the audience into a crowd crashing frenzy. Lyrics may be incongruous with the music, but that only adds to the band’s chaotic appeal. A new release, King of Jeans, Pissed Jeans’ second effort for Sub Pop records, is due for release in August, and fans should be able to get at least a taste of the new material at the show. Opening acts Plates, the Dense, and Sonorous Gale kick htings off, after a more mellow happy hour with Pete Worden & the Hardtimers starting at 6pm.

—k. o’day

9pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St.

(855-3931 / www.mohawkplace.com). $10

Friday, May 15

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Imagine it’s 2056, and for the past quarter century an epidemic of organ failures has ravaged the world’s population. A company called GeneCo emerges, selling organ transplants on the installment plan (like car payments). Those who miss payments have their transplants repossessed—violently. There’s the premise for Repo! The Genetic Opera, director Darren Lynn Bousman’s movie/musical/rock opera version of the stage play written by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. The film opened in limited release last November and met with complete disdain from those film critics who saw it…and almost immediately became a cult hit, which is surely what the makers of this incredibly gross and campy film intended. Among the film’s more unlikely stars: socialite Paris Hilton (who won another Razzie for the role), singer Sarah Brightman, Spy Kids’ kid Alexa Vega as the teen heroine, and Paul Sorvino as GeneCo’s morally conflicted president.

—geoff kelly

Midnight. Hamburg Palace Theatre, 31 Buffalo Street, Hamburg (648-2678 / www.hamburgpalace.com). $7.

Saturday, May 16

Vetiver, Papercuts

Though associated with the freak folk of Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, there’s little that’s strange about the music of Vetiver. They just released an album oh Sub Pop records, the Coca-Cola of lulling pop, a modern take on folk that can be best described as comfortable. But their laxed style doesn’t translate to boring, and their gig at Soundlab on Saturday (May 16) will have more pleasurable swirls of acoustics and gentle melodies than listless folk pretentions. Those looking for hearing damage and a bloody nose should look elsewhere, but pretty much anyone else will find a lot to smile and nod their head approvingly to. Adding to this warm, wistful soup will be California’s Papercuts, who, even though currently signed to Gnomonsong, sound more like Sub Pop affiliates than Vetiver does with their pleasantly subdued rock sound. While neither are as lively as Sub Pop heavy-hitter the Shins, if you’re one of those people who can’t get over the Fleetfoxes then both bands should add some music to your afternoon-coffee play list.

—geoff antstey

9pm. Soundlab, 110 Pearl St. (883-3209 / www.bigorbitgallery.org/soundlab). $12/$14

Sunday, May 17

Tony Horwitz: Voyages Long & Strange

Journalist Tony Horwitz has been touring his latest book, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, a New York Times best-seller released last April by Henry Holt and Co. The 1995 Pulitzer Prize winning journalist is best known, perhaps, for a couple of earlier books: 1992’s Baghdad Without a Map, an account of his travels in the Middle East in the late 1980s and early 1990s; and 1999’s Confederates in the Attic, in which he explores Americans’ fascination with the Civil War through the lens of the grown men who spend their weekends re-enacting its battles. Horwitz has written for the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker. His latest deals with early European explorations of the New World. Horwitz is the 2009 Prince lecturer at the Nichols School. A book signing will follow his talk.

—geoff kelly

4pm. Rand Dining Room, Mitchell Hall, Nichols School, 1250 Amherst Street. FREE.

Wednesday, May 20

WBFO on the border: BOOM winner

Next Wednesday (May 20) WBFO will host its final scheduled Wednesday Night Concert Series event at UB’s Allen Hall. The concert series has fallen victim to these troubled times, with WBFO losing the grant that has allowed them to stage and broadcast the concerts hosted by Alison Zero—a tireless promoter of homegrown music. The last of these concerts should leave faithful listeners pleased, as they will appropriately be going out with a bang . . . or a B.O.O.M. The yet to be determined winner of this Friday’s Artvoice B.O.O.M. Grand Finale will also win the honor of ending WBFO’s beloved concert series on a high note. It all comes down to four bands: Peanut Brittle Satellite, Fashion Expo 1990, TypeRelevant, and Seen It All. One of them will collect the most votes from the audience at the Tralf, win a bunch of cool stuff, and a spot on the radio. So come out next Wednesday to help send this concert series off in style.

—justin sondel

8pm Allen Hall, UB Main Street Campus (www.wbfo.org) Free