For nine years now, Pittsburgh's hottest dance party has been Pandemic.
On Dec. 5 at Brillobox, they'll be celebrating their peculiar goulash of international sounds: Balkan brass, Columbian cumbia, Indian bhangra, Jamaican dancehall, Brazilian baile funk, and a bunch of other trans-national musical styles, past and present.
For the ninth-anniversary celebration, Pandemic is bringing in longtime favorite Brooklyn-via-Bulgaria DJ Joro Boro, who pioneered this style (along with renegade Gypsy rocker Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello).
The show will start at 9 p.m. Details: 412-621-4900 or brillobox.net
Music
All this, and Santa, too
The Pittsburgh Concert Chorale is keeping busy this weekend.
From Dec. 5 to 7, the group's subscription concert, “Sounds of the Season,” will feature traditional carols, holiday classics and some contemporary numbers.
The concert begin at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5 and 4 p.m. Dec. 7 at Ingomar United Methodist Church , McCandless, and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 6 at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church. Admission is $22, $8 for students, free for age 11 and under.
The choir also will perform a morning show, “Singin' With Santa,” for children at 11 a.m. Dec. 6 at the Ingomar church . In addition to holiday songs, the show will feature a sing-along and a visit from Santa. Admission is $5 for one child and parent, $10 for a family.
Details: 412-635-7654 or pccsing.org.
Music
‘Holiday' sounds
Thomas Wesley Douglas is taking some of the bleakness out of the midwinter.
“I'm just hoping to provide a good blend of styles and periods and make the concert a good time,” the artistic director of the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh says in regard to the ensemble's holiday concert.
“Holiday Happening” will be at 8 p.m. Dec. 6 and 4 p.m. Dec. 7 at the St. Agnes Center at Carlow University, Oakland.
The mix will come from music as different as Giovanni Gabrieli's “In Ecclesiis” and Daniel Pinkham's “Christmas Cantata.” Both works are in Latin, but that's about the end of their similarities.
The Pinkham piece is “very contemporary,” Douglas says. He says it uses a brass choir and its harmonies have a distinctly 20th-century nature, far different from the Baroque style of the Gabrieli piece.
The concerts will include Douglas' arrangement of “In the Bleak Midwinter.”
Admission is $30, $22 for seniors, $12 for students.
Details: 888-718-4253 or bachpgh.showclix.com
Benefit
Delicious music
Musical and edible delights will be offered at a benefit concert for the Jubilee Kitchen and the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh on Dec. 7 at Rodef Shalom Congregation.
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra principal flutist Lorna McGhee will perform with pianist Vahan Sargsyan in a program McGhee describes as fun, enjoyable and “not hard work for the listener.” In addition to music by Felix Mendelssohn and Johann Sebastian Bach, the program will include “Touching the Ether,” written in 2006 by Ian Clark for his mother.
McGhee also will perform her transcription of Claude Debussy's Violin Sonata, inspired in part by Jacques Thibaud's 1929 recording. “He does so many beautiful colors. He got so many ‘flautando' sounds, I thought, why not the real thing?” she says.
In addition, teens from the congregation will have a concession stand selling tasty treats to sweeten the benefit event's proceeds.
The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. at 4905 Fifth Ave., Oakland. Admission is by donation.
Details: 412-621-6566 or rodefshalom.org
Theater
A ‘Tuna' holiday
Little Lake Theatre is celebrating the holidays with a return visit to Tuna, Texas.
This is the fifth time the North Strabane theater company has performed this popular comedy where two male actors — Art DeConciliis and Buddy Wickerham — transform themselves into Aunt Pearl, Petey Fisk, Bertha Bumiller and all the other wacky residents of this miniscule village as they prepare for Christmas.
“A Tuna Christmas” continues through Dec. 13 at 500 Lakeside Drive South, North Strabane.
Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, and 7 p.m. Dec. 7. Admission is $20, $12 for age 15 and younger.
Details: 724-744-6300 or littlelake.org
— Alice T. Carter
