• Arena laughs: With an act that begins with an entrance riding a Vespa, Sebastian Maniscalco is well-suited to hockey rink humor; it’s been years since the comic has appeared in a nightclub or even an opera house. His It Ain’t Right is in town with Maniscalco’s trademark physical comedy, as well as Pete & Sebastian Show podcast sidekick Pete Correale opening the show. Thursday, March 6, 7:30 p.m., SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St., Manchester, $39 and up at ticketmaster.com.
• SoCal sound: Some alt-rock fans bristle at their favorite bands being called classic rock, but Everclear’s Art Alexakis is honored by the moniker. Friday, March 7, 8 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $55 at tupelohall.com.
• Electric cowboys: The twang-fueled alter ego of prog-rock band Mindset X, Horsefly Gulch performs at an adult fun house that includes axe throwing, arcade games and augmented reality darts aimed at laser targets. This critic watched them early on and called their sound “Link Wray meets Primus by way of Crazy Horse, or Rush playing incognito at a cowboy bar.” It still stands. Saturday, March 8, 8 p.m., Smitty’s GameLAB, 630 W. Main St., Tilton. Visit horseflygulch.com.
• Good guy: Performing in support of his latest album, Time is a Thief, Marc Broussard stops in Portsmouth. The record, produced by Eric Krasno and Jeremy Most, is Broussard’s first collection of originals in seven years and follows the 2023 collaboration with blues rock chart topper Joe Bonamassa, S.O.S. 4 Blues for Your Soul, part of a series of benefit releases from the vocalist. Sunday, March 9, 7 p.m., Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, $37 and up at themusichall.org.
• Blues rocking: With slide guitar augmented by Hammond organ, Barrett Anderson Band rips through standards like Bo Diddley’s “Mona” with fierce reverence, calling their sound “hypnoboogie.” The Cambridge-based trio plays a midweek set at a downtown eatery that regularly hosts live music along with tasty smashburgers and fun items like the Bad Bird and DRTY MNKY shake. Wednesday, March 12, 8 p.m., BAD BRGR, 1015 Elm St., Manchester. Visit barrettandersonband.com.
The mother-and-child theme has been part of Ann Agee’s art going back to a 1999 porcelain figure recently revived for the Rena Bransten Gallery’s RBG at 50-Focus on Ceramics exhibition in San Francisco. She’s frequently returned to the form, but recently Agee has taken a different approach, making Madonnas with a feminist touch.
“Madonna of the Girl Child” has grown into a significant body of work, and on March 7 the Currier Museum will begin showing five of the largest figures from it. Also on display at the exhibition, running through June 5, are two relief works done in porcelain, welded steel and epoxy resin, “Offering Madonna” and “Donatello Riff Madonna.”
In a recent phone interview Agee said she made the first piece out of curiosity in 2019, then a few more to fight a bout of altitude sickness. Occasionally she’d ask herself why she was focusing on religious icons. It was, she decided, a good way to look at and comment on their inherent oppression.
As she walked through churches on a trip to Italy, the clash between depictions of violence like the crucifixion and the gentle nature of the Madonna got her thinking.
“So many horrific things that were the guides to how to live your life … don’t do that, watch out for this,” she said. “Then you see the Madonna, and it’s … have a child, and everything is peaceful.”
Amidst this warmth and maternal comfort, however, something stark stood out to Agee.
“It’s always a boy child,” she said. “I wanted for myself a Madonna that held a girl child and publicly showed the interest that a mother could have in her. That this child, this girl, could deserve your hopes and dreams in the same way that your boy child could. Slowly, it became a little bit of a campaign.”
The upcoming Currier display is a departure for Agee, who usually displays her Madonnas in groups of mixed sizes. It will be held in the Manchester museum’s Welcome Gallery, which is a space between other spaces.
“There’s a sprawling staircase, it spreads out to both sides, and there are banisters of a different material,” she said. “I decided to keep it really simple, and have the work stand up to all that’s architecturally going on in that room, and the movement of people coming and going.”
The five pieces are the largest ones she’s done, Agee said.
“I’ve enjoyed slowly learning how to make things bigger,” she said. “Last summer I was sitting on someone’s deck and looking out into this grass and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to just have a big red figure in the grass there?’ So I made one in red, and then I made one in pink.”
She was further inspired by a trip to Boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy. “I was looking at all the white marble sculptures that are in the garden there. They’re not really that big, but they’re one color. There’s all this stuff around them, and they hold their form. That’s basically the shift in these Madonnas, they’re big and they’re a solid color.”
The works, however, further Agee’s “campaign” for a feminist reinterpretation of religious iconography. More than a simple exploration of motherhood, “Madonna of the Girl Child” is a critical commentary on the way these traditional symbols have reinforced gender roles. Agee’s art usurps an image steeped in patriarchal culture.
This shift is a deliberate act of reclaiming this symbol for women. Agee wanted to present a vision where a mother could hold and nurture a girl child with the same devotion and aspirations traditionally reserved for sons. In this new context, the Madonna figure becomes a symbol not just of motherhood but of equality.
Ann Agee: Madonna of the Girl Child When: Friday, March 7, through Thursday, June 5 Where: Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St., Manchester More: annageestudio.com
Featured photo: “Offering Madonna” by Ann Agee. Courtesy photo.
A look at Symphony NH as its music director prepares to pass the baton
Though it doesn’t take cues from the movie Conclave, the process of finding a successor to Roger Kalia, Music Director of Symphony NH, is similar in spirit.
“You’re really looking for someone who is the face of the organization,” search consultant Nick Adams said recently. “How they interact with a whole host of fairly disparate groups of people … you want to have a system that allows you to see that person in these different environments.”
Kalia announced his departure in early 2024. When the final notes of Aaron Copland’s American Symphony fade at his last concert on May 10 at Concord’s Capitol Center for the Arts, the maestro will have spent six years leading the state’s largest orchestra. By then, four or five potential new conductors will be finalized.
What happens next is an interesting twist on filling an outgoing leadership role. Each candidate will have an opportunity to perform for the classical music community over the course of the 2025-26 concert season. At the end, one will become Symphony NH Music Director.
Adams, who served as Operations Manager at Symphony NH from 2007 to 2014 and now heads the Boston-based Cantata Singers along with his search efforts, believes the season-long audition is the best way for a community to choose a potential conductor. They’ve considered 10 candidates thus far.
“What we were looking for is are they able to take an art form that’s hundreds of years old and program it in a way that … speaks to people who already know the language of classical music and orchestras, but also package it and involve composers and other music in a way that might bring new 21st-century audiences in.”
Symphony NH Executive Director Deanna Hoying values this long hello as a way to see how potential Music Directors will bond with the orchestra. To that end, the search committee will attend rehearsals to evaluate chemistry between them and the candidate.
“You want to know how these folks work with the musicians,” she said by phone in late February. “Are they efficient in how they use the time that they have? How do they work with our librarian? Watching how they work, how they treat people in that environment is really important, because our musicians are our most valuable asset. Many of them have been with us for decades.”
The selection process that culminated in 2019 was the result of a national search for a Music Director. Kalia lives in Evansville, Indiana, where he leads that city’s orchestra, and traveled to Nashua for his work there. The current effort is focused on finding a candidate based in the region.
Deanna Hoying. Courtesy photo.
“Working with a Music Director who doesn’t live here; I think one of the things they realized is the value of having them be a little bit closer is, one, you just get to see them more, and that helps a lot,” Hoying said. “People have connections to these artists.”
They began with an element of uncertainty, wondering if they could attract enough candidates, and they built safeguards into the process in case they needed to expand at some point.
“We felt like, ‘let’s start with what we actually want, which is somebody within a two-hour drive of New Hampshire,” Hoying said, adding the net would widen “if we felt that we didn’t have enough in the pool.”
Fortunately, she continued, “We had so much wealth of talent that we didn’t need to do that. What blew us all away was that we had so many incredibly talented people who are local … because you don’t know until you throw the net out what you’re going to get.”
Kalia and Hoying came to Symphony NH in the same year. After moving to Manchester from Louisville, where she worked with their orchestra, Hoying reached out to then director Mark Thayer to offer her services. She started as a grant writer in the spring. Kalia began his tenure that fall.
When the pandemic arrived, the organization turned from celebrating a new leader to wondering how it could survive.
“Roger started and didn’t even get through his first season, dear guy,” Hoying said. “In spring, it’s like, ‘Guess what? We’re going to have to pivot.’ He and I talked about pivoting a lot and we did it a lot as more information became available. We got through Covid; we did the livestream shows.”
Emerging from months of virtual programming, there were still plenty of restrictions to address.
“Everything was changing, sometimes very rapidly, and we were always having to respond,” Hoying recalled. “What’s everybody feeling now; how is this going to work? We knew there might be a percentage of our pre-Covid audience who may never come back.”
During that time, Thayer left to work for the symphony in Elgin, Illinois. He recommended Hoying, whose role had expanded into development, as his replacement. She accepted, but asked to begin as Interim Executive Director. “I wanted the board to feel like they had some agency, and to make sure they were comfortable with me,” she said. “And that I, in all honesty, was comfortable doing the job. I mean, this is a big job.”
The upcoming 2022-2023 season marking Symphony NH’s centennial year was an immediate challenge as she moved into her permanent position. “Covid really upended planning, but we were able to put together a season that really celebrated, as we called it, looking back.”
This included longtime partner organization the Nashua Choral Society performing Mozart’s Requiem with the local Nashoba Valley Chorale.“We looked to our past for inspiration,” she recalled. “We celebrated the hundredth at the brand-new Nashua Center for the Arts, which was lovely. We were one of the first shows; I think they had been open all of three weeks.”
That connection with Nashua’s newest venue became more critical with the closing of Keefe Auditorium, the site for many concerts in the past. In an interview last fall, Roger Kalia spoke of the challenges presented by losing the Keefe and its larger stage, while at the same time praising the Nashua Center.
“We had a dedicated audience at the Keefe, and that is a little bit challenging in the sense that we’re going to miss that,” he said. The new venue, Kalia added, “is acoustically really good, and close to the audience, in the sense that the seats are very close to the stage. It’s intimate music-making, and I really enjoy that.”
Symphony NH. Courtesy photo.
He went on to say that while the Keefe was the state’s largest auditorium, its 1,400 seats were sometimes hard to fill. “The Nashua Center has 700, and every seat is essentially filled. As a musician, you enjoy that, when you see a full audience sitting there.”
The relationship will continue when the Symphony NH Brass Ensemble is among the performers gathering to celebrate the center’s second anniversary on Tuesday, April 1. The Nashua Community Music School String Ensemble, Ukestra, Ruby Shabazz, Y Dance in Motion, Peacock Players and Actorsingers will also appear.
A statewide entity — the name was changed from Nashua Symphony Orchestra in 2012 — Symphony NH has expanded its reach in recent years, with multiple concerts in Concord, Derry and Manchester, in addition to Nashua’s St. Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church, where the annual Holiday Brass concert was held last December.
All parties in the search expressed that finding a Music Director who lives in the community comes with an underlying priority: selecting a candidate who will also be of the community. Nick Adams recalled a search committee member telling him that one of their evaluation metrics is, “Would I like to have a bagel and coffee with this person at the corner cafe? They’ll tell me about their musical selections and what inspires them. It’s an excellent way to think about it.”
Hoying concurred, saying, “there are definitely a lot of elements to this job, and Music Director is equal parts being on stage and working with the musicians and then really having that presence in the community … when they go into a local coffee shop, people know who they are.”
Part of classical music’s enduring nature comes from centuries of maestros reinterpreting important works, she continued, citing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as an example. “Everybody brings their own take to it, so I think that’s where you want to kind of generate that interest and this level of approachability. You’ve got to be able to connect with your audiences. Otherwise … that’s where I think you miss the mark.”
Further, she continued, “What I look for in a candidate is someone that’s got a very clear vision of what an orchestra can be in the 21st century, knowing that we do still have a lot of challenges. We are still competing with inflation and content on streaming services and all those things that keep people from coming out. What is the vision of the orchestra in the future, and how do we welcome everyone to our family, to our concerts?”
The committee hopes to choose finalists soon.
“Our current field of semifinalists is 10 people,” Adams said. “I tell Deanna all the time, ‘Your next music director is in this pool.’ The number of applicants that we had that are just really talented and are interested in this position is — it’s a very deep pool. I think a host of them will be really exciting for the community to see. What is most encouraging to me is I think the future is really bright.”
It’s a rich and varied list, he continued. “There’s certainly some that bring different kinds of strengths to the table, but each of them has been really able to present a compelling picture of what their music directorship would look like. So I think at this point we’re really looking at whatever the perfect fit is for the southern New Hampshire community…. There’s a lot of reasons to be excited.”
Next up for Maestro Kalia What: “Serenade for Winds,” a unique concert that focuses on the orchestra’s wind section. When: Saturday, March 8, 7:30 p.m., Nashua Community College (505 Amherst St., Nashua) Tickets: $10-$40 at symphonynh.org
Kalia described the program: “Although less common in concert halls than full symphonic orchestras with winds, today’s concert wind ensemble has a lengthy history, rooting itself in the European tradition of Harmoniemusik. Emerging in the late 18th century, Harmoniemusik was a form of chamber music written specifically for wind instruments. These ensembles, typically composed of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons — the common instrumentation of the wind section for court and theater orchestras — were initially associated with the courts of European aristocracy. They provided lively outdoor entertainment or underscored formal banquets, serving as a sonic emblem of both elegance and status. Composers like Mozart and Haydn were among the first to elevate the genre, recognizing its potential beyond mere functional music.
“The growing prominence of the wind ensemble coincided with a broader interest in exploring the unique tonal palette of wind instruments. While strings dominated the symphonic repertoire, winds offered a range of colors — from the playful chirping of flutes and clarinets to the noble warmth of horns. By the early 19th century, advancements in instrument design allowed for greater technical and dynamic capabilities, inspiring composers to craft more ambitious works for winds. The wind ensemble transformed from a courtly entertainment medium to a standalone artistic force, paving the way for masterpieces such as those featured in this program.
“I would also mention that Mendelssohn was only 15 years old when he wrote his Overture for Winds. A very impressive achievement!”
Indiana wants him
Maestro Kalia talks about his final Symphony NH concerts
Roger Kalia’s tenure as Symphony NH’s Music Director draws to a close with three more concerts, the final in May. In a phone interview on Feb. 24 he talked about his final three concerts and shared memories about his time leading the orchestra, once again intimating that classical music fans may see him again.
Though he’s not participating in the search for his successor, Kalia offered his thoughts on becoming the Music Director at Symphony NH through a similar process.
For my year, they had, I think, eight or nine candidates. So it was a little bit bigger. I think it was over a year and a half rather than just one season. All the finalists conducted a concert, and then during the week we’d meet with search committee members and all sorts of community members. It’s an intense process.
Roger Kalia. Courtesy photo.
“Serenade of the Winds”happens Saturday, March 8, at Nashua Community College.
There are three incredible works in this concert that really are probably the most famous pieces from the wind repertoire, I would say. When Mozart was writing these pieces, he was really kind of opening up a … I don’t want to say new genre, but a new way of writing for chamber music, and the focus was on wind instruments. The Mozart is one of the most famous works; it’s called the Gran Partita. It’s full of elegance, charm. It has a stunning slow movement, which is an adagio. It’s a seven-movement work, and we’re doing the first three movements and the finale…. We’re also doing the Dvorak Serenade for Winds, which is a joyful work that’s infused with a lot of Czech folk music, which is where he was from [and] it features, once again, all of the wind instruments of the orchestra, and really highlights the principal winds…. We’re opening the concert with a work by Felix Mendelssohn called the Overture for Winds, a very youthful, energetic piece, that really highlights his gift of melody and drama….
I feel that it’s important to highlight our wind musicians because they’re incredibly talented and it gives them more of a soloistic feature…. A lot of orchestras, I think, don’t program these works often just because … the strings aren’t playing. I think Symphony NH is unique in that, I feel especially during my tenure, we’ve done a lot with chamber works, and I call them that because they’re smaller works, it’s not a full orchestra. We did it during Covid especially.
With music from West Side Story and Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, “It’s All Overtures” on Saturday, April 19, will appeal to even casual fans of classical music.
They’re all shorter pieces, let’s say 5 to 10 minutes. We’re doing nine or 10 overtures on this program, all pretty popular ones. I mean, talk about accessible and familiar pieces. You think about Rossini, the William Tell Overture, the one made famous by the Lone Ranger, something I think everyone would know. West Side Story with Bernstein … Maestro was an Oscar-nominated movie with Bradley Cooper. Because of that, Bernstein’s music has … been in the spotlight a little bit more. I think a lot of people know the Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart. It’s light, it sparkles, it’s fast, virtuosic.
The concert will also feature a piece by Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix’s older sister — a rarity, a 19th-century female composer.
It’s a great work, eight to nine minutes, and it sounds a lot like early Beethoven. It’s so melodic and rich. So I’m excited to feature that work. It deserves to be heard and celebrated. She faced a lot of barriers, [but] this overture now is getting played everywhere, the Overture in C. I think it’s a hidden gem, and it’s a fun one. The orchestra is featured, especially the woodwinds. There’s some beautiful clarinet solos and oboe flute solos.
For the all-American “Rhapsody in Blue” concert on May 10, Kalia bids adieu to Symphony NH with a program featuring pianist Fei Fei.
I’ve always loved conducting the music of American composers like Gershwin and Copland. Appalachian Spring has always been one of my favorite works, but rather than do that, I wanted to do a grand, majestic work like the Symphony No. 3…. It captures the spirit of America, the optimism of our country. It culminates in the triumphant Fanfare for the Common Man. I’m a former trumpet player and this is one of the great brass works in the repertoire…. Fei Fei, I want to say this will be our fourth time collaborating on Rhapsody in Blue…. She performs it with a unique twist … she really brings out the jazz elements, and she is so exciting to watch.
On becoming Musical Director of the Terre Haute Symphony on July 1.
I’m looking forward to working with their [outgoing] music director next month on … a decades-of-pop concert [featuring acts like] Frank Sinatra; Earth, Wind & Fire; Metallica; Led Zeppelin. It’s going to be a fun show with a singer [and] not to get off track here, I grew up a huge metal fan, and I was a big Metallica fan when I was in high school, and I love conducting rock shows with an orchestra, it’s so much fun. Audiences just go crazy. It’s not your typical classical audience where they’re just sitting there. They’re up, moving around, dancing, it’s great to see. Terre Haute, as with Symphony NH, they’re open to innovative programming. So I’m looking forward to all of these different innovative programs that we’re going to be putting on, the variety of music.
Though he’s leaving, it’s not goodbye forever.
I’m still going to be in touch with everyone from Symphony NH. Even though it’s a job, I’ve made a lot of personal friendships…. Deanna, who’s been my partner the last four years since she took the job as Executive Director, she’s been great to me. We see eye to eye on programming, and she’s all about … expanding the repertoire and making it more inclusive, and being about the community and reaching new audiences. I hope to continue that in a community like Terre Haute. I know they’re open to it. They’re open to innovation and making the orchestra accessible and community engagement is the key. I think that’s going to be a big part of my tenure there.
Finally, a favorite memory.
One of my most proud moments with the orchestra was the New Hampshire Concerto that we did last year, where we collaborated with four student composers from four different universities in New Hampshire, and they created a multi-movement work that was about New Hampshire, about the topography, the geography, the history, whatever it had to do with New Hampshire. It was really special to give those kids an opportunity to work with a professional orchestra, and I’m actually hoping to bring that model to my other orchestras now because I think it was so successful. Because it celebrated not only new music, but connected with the local community, the state of New Hampshire. Which is what this is all about, community engagement. It was also an opportunity to showcase our focus on music education, giving student musicians opportunities.
Symphony NH upcoming concerts
Serenade of the Winds Saturday, March 8, 7:30 p.m. at Nashua Community College, Judd Gregg Hall Auditorium, 505 Amherst St., Nashua A concert dedicated to the orchestra’s wind instruments, the program includes Mendelssohn’s Overture for Winds, Op. 24 in C Major (1824), select movements from Gran Partita, Mozart’s Serenade No.10 in B-flat Major, K.361, (1781) and Dvořák’s Serenade, Op.44, B.77, D minor (1878)
Hollywood Hits Saturday, March 29, 7:30 p.m. at Stockbridge Theatre, 22-98 Bypass 28, Derry Sunday, March 30, 3 p.m. at Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord Blockbuster movie themes from Gone with the Wind, The Magnificent Seven, Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, James Bond, Rocky, The Pink Panther, Moon River, Dances with Wolves, Ben Hur and more.
It’s All Overtures Saturday, April 19, 7:30 p.m. at Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua Well-known overtures, from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.
Rhapsody in Blue Saturday, May 10, 7:30 p.m. at Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 South Main St., Concord, Maestro Kalia leads his last concert, with guest pianist Fei-Fei. It’s an all-American affair with works of Aaron Copland, Florence Price and George Gershwin. The program includes Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement (1934) and Copland’s Symphony No. 3 (1944-46)
Illuminated Ensembles – Chamber Favorites Sunday, May 18, 4 p.m. at Bank of New Hampshire Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord The final concert in the Illuminated Ensembles series, with the Symphony NH Woodwind Quintet performing an evening of classical chamber music.
Orleans’ story is one of hurdles faced and cleared, including one so monumental it’s a miracle they’re still making music.
The first challenge came two years after the band formed in 1972, when the record label didn’t hear a hit on their second album and dropped them. They bounced back after the A&R head at Asylum listened to “Dance With Me” and “Let There Be Music” from the rejected LP. He caught something, and bought the re-recording rights.
Lance Hoppen made the trio his brother Larry co-founded a quartet 10 months after forming. In a recent phone interview, he explained why two enduring hits were non-starters until they landed on the ears of Asylum’s Chuck Plotnick. “With his input, they were re-sculpted,” he said. The first “opened the door at radio, and ‘Dance With Me’ basically went top five.”
The latter, he continued, “was now a hit record, as well as a hit song.”
Now a wedding standard, the ballad began as a riff that guitarist John Hall played at rehearsal.
“Larry said, ‘That’s a good one, you should finish that,’” Hoppen recalled. The song was atypical of a band that got its name from the Allan Toussaint and Meters covers it favored. Hall’s co-writer wife Johanna, who’d later pen the smash “Still The One,” wrote the lyrics.
“John said to her, ‘Is that it? Is that all it is?’ and she said, ‘Yeah, that’s what it is’ — look what happened to that,” Hoppen continued. “Some things just come out of the blue; no way could we have predicted it would be a hit, especially in light of the mainstream of our material.”
Orleans’ biggest hit came two years later, when a neighbor of John and Johanna Hall who was splitting with her husband asked if they could write a song about relationships that didn’t end in breakup. Joanna jotted the words to “Still the One” on the back of an envelope and gave it to John, who said in a 2021 interview that he wrote the music in 15 minutes.
Hall departed for a solo career in 1977, and the band’s final charting single, “Love Takes Time,” came two years later. But label problems of a different kind choked their momentum. Infinity Records made a big bet on an album of live recordings from Pope John Paul II that flopped. MCA took it over, and let Orleans’ 1980 follow-up record wither on the vine.
In July 2012, Larry Hoppen died by suicide. Reeling from tragedy, Lance was at the same time mindful of the band’s many business commitments.
“I just changed the question; it was not, are we going to continue, it was how,” he said. “So I called John.” Hall had wanted back into the band after serving two terms in Congress, and now he was needed, if only to fulfill obligations.
With the help of various alumni, they continued through November, concluding with a memorial concert in Nashville.
“I raised some money for his kids, that’s what that was for,” Lance said. “I was sure we were done, forty years, this must be it … then I got a phone call.”
A promoter putting together a Sail Rock Tour asked Orleans to be the house band for Christopher Cross, Robbie Dupree, Gary Wright and others.
“We were resurrected in that manner, and the years kept flowing,” Lance said. “It was a really high hurdle, under duress, and we made it.”
More than a dozen years later the band soldiers on. The current lineup includes Lance Hoppen and his brother Lane, Brady Spencer, Tom Lane, and Tony Hooper. Hall retired from touring due to health concerns but still joins on occasion. Lance hopes he and his longtime band mate will return to the studio one more time before calling it a career.
“We have … a retrospective collection and some new cuts,” he said. “John and I are kind of like, ‘Well, it’s come up again, are we going to finish this thing or what?’ There are a couple of tracks that … have been there for a long time. If we just finish them, we’ll have something to put out, and it’ll probably be the last thing we do.”
Orleans When: Thursday, Feb. 27, 7:30 p.m. Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord Tickets: $69 and up at ccanh.com
•• Welcome back: The show never ends as Carl Palmer hosts An Evening With Emerson, Lake & Palmer that’s a virtual concert from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame prog rock band. Video from a 1992 Royal Albert Hall performance brings back Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, who both passed away in 2016, while Palmer plays along on drums to evoke the masterful power trio. Thursday, Feb. 27, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $55 and up at tupelohall.com.
• Hard rocking: Check out three distinct flavors of female-fronted metal with Dystopica, a Connecticut-based band led by singer Becky Brideau, who recently released the revved-up single “Freewheel Burning,” local favorites Sepsiss, hot on the heels of their latest, “Play the Game,” an indictment of industry success syndrome, and riffy duo the Saturn Cycle. Hollow Virtue opens. Friday, Feb. 28, 8 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester, $10 at the door, 21+, @KineticCityEvents.
• Bag boys: Boasting they’re “the most famous bagpipe band on the planet,” the Red Hot Chilli Pipers have a pair of area appearances to kick off the Celtic-centric month. The nine-piece group is known for its rock ’n trad “bag rock,” which includes covers of everything from “Amazing Grace” to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Saturday, March 1, 8 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, and Sunday, March 2, 7 p.m., Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia. $29 and up at etix.com.
• Forthright folk: The rootsy trio Low Lily — married couple Liz Simmons and Flynn Cohen, and fiddler Natalie Padilla — decided to be bold on their latest, Angels in the Wreckage. The a capella anthem “What’ll You Do” is punchy, political and ready-made for a march, while “One Wild World” covers similar territory more tenderly. Sunday, March 2, 6 p.m., Andres Institute of Art, 106 Route 13, Brookline, $25 at andresinstitute.org.
• Neighbor loving: It’s legend that The Rough & Tumble was born when Mallory Graham met Scott Tyler on a double decker bus in 2011 while spying on his notebook. Their latest, Hymns for My Atheist Sister & Her Friends to Sing Along To, is a hopeful album focused on the nature of faith in a corrosive world. The energetic chorale piece “Love Them, Too” is a standout. Tuesday, March 4, 2 p.m., Taylor Community Center, 435 Union Ave., Wolfeboro, bandsintown.com.
New England spent most of February waking up to single-digit temperatures and the sound of snowplows in the street, so the latest musical at the Palace Theatre couldn’t arrive at a better time. Set in a sunny resort somewhere near the equator, Escape to Margaritaville is a frothy, guilty pleasure that’s packed with Jimmy Buffet songs.
With a book from a pair of sitcom veterans, the jukebox musical’s mood is best summed up by Tully (Matt McCloskey), who sings at the hotel bar and is modeled after the writer of “Changes in Latitudes” and the show’s title song. “The deeper you go,” Tully says, “the less interesting it gets.”
To paraphrase the Bard of the Keys, this evening comes with a license to chill.
The plot centers on a bachelorette getaway. Tammy (Megan Quinn) is finding some respite from her boorish fiance ahead of her wedding. Rachel (Jen Fogarty-Morgan) cares more about getting a soil sample from an island volcano for an energy venture that apparently involves potatoes, but falls quickly in a fling with the one-week-stand specialist Tully.
While that’s happening, Tammy is warming to the polar opposite of her husband-to-be, a genial bartender named Brick (Adam Fields). With those parts in place, and a few colorful denizens like hotel owner Marley (Nakiiya Coleman), old-timer J.D. (Jacob Medich) and handyman Jamal (Tyler Price Robinson), the Parrothead-pleasing songfest moves forward.
Though Escape to Margaritaville is aimed at the people who instinctively know the last two words in the chorus of “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” it’s also fun for folks who are new to Buffett’s brand of trop rock. In fact, the Palace company had little awareness of him before rehearsals, one of which was canceled due to a foot of snow falling.
That would change.
“Now I get it; I’m kind of a converted Parrothead,” Director Carl Rajotte said by phone recently. “We’re having a blast teaching this show. There’s a lot of stylized dancing, a Caribbean feel, and then just all the puns. The show is written for people who enjoy puns, and all of the actors are laughing during rehearsal.”
In a joint interview, Fogarty-Morgan and Quinn discussed the cast’s mood as a Feb. 28 opening night approached.
“It’s a really nice, easy story,” Fogarty-Morgan said. “It’s fun, it’s goofy and silly. The music is amazing and wonderful and you get to hear it in a new way, which will be fun for the fans. They put together a phenomenal cast, and everyone’s really going to have a good time.”
Quinn, a Palace favorite who also runs their Youth Theatre Company, is pleased to see many fresh faces in Margaritaville. “Besides Jen and one other person, I have not worked with any of these people before,” she said. “They are all so good, so talented and very funny. We’ve been having such a good time with them, so that’s been a nice experience.”
Early on, both Quinn and Rajotte were certain “for an embarrassingly long time” that Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” was a Buffett tune, but they since have come far. Everyone has a favorite now — “Cheeseburger in Paradise” is Quinn’s go-to, and Fogarty-Morgan is a fan of “Five O’clock Somewhere,” which began as an Alan Jackson tune with a guest vocal before Buffett took sole ownership by making it a staple at his concerts.
Rajotte selected the new work with an eye on the schedule, and the Palace will keep the tropical vibe alive by handing out leis to audience members. No word yet on whether blenders will be whirring with the show’s signature drink, though. The show is a great way to clear thoughts of frigid temperatures and seasonal stress, if only for a couple of hours.
“We always strive to do at least two brand new shows per season,” he said. “It’s the perfect time to do it, with the cold and snow … I keep on falling on the ice, but then I get to come in here and have a good time with this music and this show, and I know the audience will, too.”
Escape to Margaritaville
When: Fridays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 2 & 7:30 p.m., and Sundays, 2 p.m. through March 23. Also Thursday, March 20, 7:30 p.m. Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester Tickets: $39 and up at palacetheatre.org
Featured photo: The cast of Escape to Margaritaville. Courtesy photo.
