Arts And Entertainment

Austrian Peter Bruenner's film “In Our Hands” was named “Best of Fest” at the 45th Humboldt Film Festival, sponsored by Humboldt State University’s Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and billed as the oldest student-run international independent short film festival worldwide.

With selections from West Side Story, Avenue Q and other musicals and operas, HSU Opera Workshop highlights the serious and comic treatment of race, gender and other bias in two performances with an early start: 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21 in Fulkerson Recital Hall.

HSU Percussion Ensemble mines metal and the HSU World Percussion Group plays prize-winning sambas in their shared concert on Sunday, April 15, in Fulkerson Recital Hall.

Four bands, three vocalists, with music ranging from gypsy jazz to post-bop and funk, classics to originals, and even an alien tune from a Star Wars bar—all in the HSU version of a relaxed and intimate jazz club, the Depot. Together it’s an evening with Jazz Combos on Saturday April 14.

From hip hop to ballet, Broadway to contemporary, HSU student dancers present their annual spring concert for five performances beginning Wednesday, Apr. 11 in the Van Duzer Theatre—including a dance recently honored at the American College Dance Festival.

The Humboldt Bay Brass Band and its related ensembles—including the first U.S. student group to be invited to a prestigious event in New York City—perform classics and familiar tunes on Saturday, Apr. 7 at Fulkerson Recital Hall, under the direction of Gilbert Cline.

The flute can sound like a singer, mimic a violin or even imitate a blackbird—and in this concert featuring Laura Snodgrass on flute and Daniela Mineva on piano, it does all three, and more. The flute as chameleon is the theme on Friday, Apr. 6 at the Fulkerson Recital Hall.

Humboldt State University's Unscripted Sutras invite fans of theatre and comedy to An Unscripted Evening to see what happens when the playwright is tossed aside and a full-length play is made up on the spot, complete with improvised musical accompaniment and on-the-fly lighting.

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents Celebrating the Eel River Salmon Run with art by Michael Guerriero. The exhibition of works on paper, canvas and mixed-media commemorate the return of higher population levels of salmon in the Eel River watershed.

CenterArts presents Patti Smith on Thursday, May 10 at 8 p.m. in the Van Duzer Theatre, HSU.

CenterArts presents Bruce Cockburn on Sunday, Apr. 29 at 8 p.m. in the Van Duzer Theatre, HSU.

CenterArts presents Cirque Dreams in Pop Goes The Rock on Thursday, Apr. 26 at 8 p.m. in the Van Duzer Theatre, HSU.

The Humboldt State University campus bookstore has taken delivery of "Love, InshAllah, the Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women." Co-editors Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi will read excerpts on Tuesday, Apr. 3 at 5 p.m. in the HSU Library Fishbowl.

The Redwood Jazz Alliance and the Humboldt Arts Council proudly presens vocalist Kitty Margolis and her trio on Friday, Mar. 30 at 8 p.m. at the Morris Graves Museum of Art, 636 F Street, Eureka, Calif. Margolis’s trio features pianist Murray Low, bassist John Shifflett and drummer Allison Miller.

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents Projections: Paintings and Mixed Media by Erin Whitman, a lecturer in the Art Department at Humboldt State. The exhibit will run from April 3 through May 13, 2012.

Comedy Central’s Eliot Chang brings his “Indecent Behavior” Stand-Up Comedy Tour to Humboldt State University’s Van Duzer Theatre on Friday, Mar. 23 at 8 p.m.

CenterArts presents an evening with Branford Marsalis on Sunday, Mar. 25 at 8 p.m. in the Van Duzer Theatre, HSU. The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, renowned Grammy Award®-winning saxophonist and Tony Award® nominee is one of the most revered instrumentalists of his time.

Sunday, Apr. 22, 2012 at 8 p.m. in the Van Duzer Theatre, HSU. Tickets are $35 general, $35 Senior/Child and $15 HSU students. Tickets are available at the University Ticket Office and at "humboldt.edu/centerarts":http://humboldt.edu/centerarts.

AS Presents Nick Waterhouse and The Missing Link Disc Jockeys on Saturday, Apr. 28, 2012 at 9 p.m. in the Depot, HSU.

AS Presents Eskmo and K Theory on Friday, Apr. 27, 2012 at 9 p.m. in the Depot, HSU.

AS Presents Wanda Jackson and Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside on Wednesday, Apr. 18, 2012 at 9 p.m. in the Depot, HSU.

Guest pianist Henning Vauth performs a portrait of a mad conductor, plus one of Mozart’s most popular sonatas and other works on Friday, Mar. 9 at HSU.

Can a husband be unfaithful with his first wife’s ghost? Is it “astral bigamy” as his second wife suggests? These and other odd questions fly around in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit—along with furniture and airborne household objects--in this haunting supernatural couples comedy. It opens Feb. 29 for one weekend at HSU.

On Friday, Mar. 2 in Fulkerson Recital Hall, internationally renowned violinist and Paganini Competition winner Bin Huang returns to HSU to play Paganini’s best known work, and again combines with pianist and HSU professor Daniela Mineva on other classical favorites.

On Saturday and Sunday, Mar. 3 and 4, the Humboldt Symphony performs Variations on a Theme by Paganini for Piano and Orchestra, featuring the winner of this year’s student piano concerto competition, Joseph Welnick.