48 Hills writers and editors are choosing their Best of the Bay Editors’ Picks for our 50th anniversary Best of the Bay edition. See more great profiles here!
If you need some inspirational can-do in these doom-cloud times, hit up Cal Performances—its 2024-’25 season starts September 27—for an excellent example of getting on with the business of presenting great art. Launched in 1906 and based at Zellerbach Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley, Cal Performances is a pillar of the Bay Area scene, and it still continues to astonish with a variety of programming whose diversity is hard to match.
Take the upcoming season. The magnificent, Grammy-winning soprano and thought leader Julia Bullock serves as Cal Performances’ artist-in-residence throughout. Wasting no time establishing her power and profound impact, Bullock, along with a super team of pianist Conor Hanick and choreographer-dancers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, cracks open Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi. Its interweaving physicality of dance and one-hour song cycle add drama and intensity to Messiaen’s expression of love and loss. In January, Bullock returns with the period instrumental ensemble Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for a program of Baroque music. Numerous other campus and pubic events with the artist-in-residence will be announced in the coming months.
Another not-to-miss landmark is the triumphant return of South African artist William Kentridge with the Bay Area premiere of The Great Yes, The Great No. In March 2025, his new chamber opera will fictionalize a 1941 wartime escape of famous historic thinkers, creators, visionaries, and revolutionaries in a visually stunning theater-music-dance fusion.
A third pinnacle will be Twyla Tharp Dance taking over Zelerbach with the Diamond Jubilee. Showcasing two works from the dozens in the seminal choreographer’s industry-shaping repertoire, the company appears with Grammy-award-winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion in a new piece Tharp is making in collaboration with Philip Glass.
More reasons Cal Performances lands on the Best of the Bay list: Dover Quartet’s intriguing program in November; yMusic’s presentation of a world premiere by Gabriella Smith; dance company Pilobolus’ re-CREATION tour collection on Thanksgiving weekend; Martha Redbone Roots Project’s This Land is Our Land in February; the highly anticipated Grupo Corpo’s marvelous Brazilian ballet visit in April, which follows the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company’s annual residency earlier in the month.
Also in early April, an immersive live event with Story Boldly’s Defining Courage that tells the story of Nisei soldiers during WWII with a blend of stunning cinematography, live music, and spoken word. Orchestral and chamber shows, three top-tier solo jazz appearances in 2025, and a gangbuster slate of contemporary percussionists—Antonio Sánchez performing a live soundtrack for the screening of the Academy Award-winning film Birdman is just one—add breadth and breathless expectation for transcendence made manifest during the season.
CAL PERFORMANCES new season begins September 27 with Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi. More info and tickets here.
