When it’s time to get a party started, Howard Wiley gets the call. The Oakland saxophonist has been a mainstay on the Bay Area music scene since he was a teenager, and in his early 40s he’s taken up the mantle of his mentors, playing soul-steeped jazz palpably connected to its social music roots. Impossible […]
No musician in the Bay Area has carved out a career path quite like Anita Lofton’s. A protégé of the legendary DJ Page Hodel, she spent her early years as one of the region’s top DJs. Looking for a different kind of action, she helped found the Black girl punk power trio Sistas in the […]
Bongo Sidibe moved from the West African nation of Guinea to San Francisco in 2008 and wasted no time putting his deep trove of rhythmic knowledge into action. As the music director of Duniya Dance and Drum Company, a singular troupe that combines South Asian and West African culture, he’s directed several acclaimed music and […]
The annual Jenny Lind Concert is a beloved and long-running Yerba Buena Gardens Festival tradition that showcases the most extraordinary young sopranos from Sweden. Presented with the Honorary Consulate of Sweden, the Jenny Lind Concert offers a thrilling peek at the future of opera. This year’s program features soprano Josefine Mindus, a member of the […]
A riveting artist in the midst of reinventing herself, Eritrean singer-songwriter ASTU left her life as a minister and found her calling in sensuous music. The Oakland-based R&B/soul singer identifies as a queer, gender-expansive artist and her music is a sleek vehicle for expressing her sexuality, identity and life experience. With her candid, often raw […]