More at The Rotunda

• 

  2026-02-16📍 University City

  In-person! Michael Prentky’s sad boy: ADD: apocalypse Album Release Tour 2026; with Ira Khonen Temple

  Michael Prentky’s sad boy:ADD:apocalypse Album Release Tour 2026 with co headliner Ira Khonan Temple (based in NYC) Boston trombonist Michael Prentky is bringing his 12-piece orchestra across the Northeast U.S. and Canada, performing his debut genre-defying album. From January 17 - February 28th 2026, Boston-based trombonist Michael Prentky will tour his debut album, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse , across the Northeast U.S. and Canada. His orchestra includes a string quartet, 4 trombones, tuba, and rhythm section. Prentky will conduct, play trombone, sing, and recite original poetry. In addition to performing the entire album, Prentky will be premiering new original Klezmer compositions. He’s bringing a fresh perspective  to Klezmer music with his high-energy trombone band and harmonically-rich compositions while staying rooted in Klezmer traditions. He'll be teaching audiences traditional corresponding Yiddish line dancing, such as the zhouk (aka hora ) and terkisher , with the intention of reviving endangered dance steps. Tour dates include La Sotterennea (Montreal, QC), The Phoenix Gallery (Waterbury, VT), AS220 (Providence, RI), Stone Circle Theater (NYC), the Rotunda (Philadelphia, PA), and ZUMIX (Boston). At various shows, Prentky will be joined by Kallisto , Ira Khonen Temple , and Jose Soto’s the Ancestral Call . “The subject matter is intense, but Prentky’s music is as satisfying as it is daring” – Noah Schaffer WBUR It’s an “adventurous extravaganza… Frank Zappa would’ve loved it” – Mike Greenblatt, Beyond Genre, Goldmine Magazine “Deep revealing of some personal feelings on these tracks, it’s a very nice work” – Ken Field WMBR Click here to listen to sad boy:ADD:apocalypse Click here if you would like to review sad boy:ADD:apocalypse January 17 - La Sotterenea (Montreal, Canada) with Kallisto January 24 - The Phoenix Gallery (Waterbury, VT) February 14 - AS220 (Providence, RI) - with Ira Khonen Temple February 15 - Stone Circle Theater (NYC) - with Ira Khonen Temple February 16 - The Rotunda (Philadelphia, PA) - with Ira Khonen Temple February 28 - ZUMIX (Boston, MA) - with Jose Soto’s Ancestral Call About sad boy:ADD:apocalypse : Six years in the making, Boston trombonist Michael Prentky’s debut album, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse, is an epic, Zappa-esque suite for small orchestra – string quartet, four trombones and rhythm section. This mammoth odyssey is Prentky’s unwavering commitment to authenticity. The writing is lush, emotive and cathartic. Prentky’s sonic worlds showcase his eclectic interests: dreamy Beach House guitar riffs, avant-pop orchestral strings, breakbeat klezmer, pacific brass chorales, confessional poetry and raucous instrumental frenzies. Prentky conducts the orchestra, plays trombone, sings, and recites original poetry. About Michael Prentky: Michael Prentky’s freelancing on trombone can be summarized in three words – chameleon, omnivore and polyglot. Navigating performances with rapper 50 Cent, Mozambican Funk band Kina Zoré (featured on NPR Tiny Desk), avante-garde jazz with the Walking Cliché Sextet, or Balkan Romani music with Sarma Brass Band requires an adventurous and flexible musicianship. It’s this musical synthesis that Prentky crystallizes in his artistic debut, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse . www.michaelprentky.com · www.michaelprentky.bandcamp.com · www.instagram.com/michaelprentky Michael Prentky - For German (Live in Cambridge, MA 2025) [Official Video] Michael Prentky - Have Your Laughs (Live in Cambridge, MA 2025) [Official Video] Michael Prentky - Terkisher? Barely Knew Her! (Live in Cambridge, MA 2025) [Official Video] For more information, contact Michael Prentky- mprentky@gmail.com , 617-827-7378

  Read more

  #music#arts

  Add to Digest+
• 

  2026-02-18📍 University City

  In-person! Weekly improvised music drop-in jam session

  Weekly Improvised Music Session. All are welcome to come and jam if you like to play music with friends and/or strangers. Any genre/instrument/experience level welcome. Every Wednesday 12pm-2pm

  Read more

  #music

  Add to Digest+
• 

  2026-02-20📍 University City

  In-person! Merce Cunningham Dance Films: Screening of Variations V and Channels/Inserts

  Merce Cunningham Dance Films: Screening of Variations V and Channels/Inserts Bowerbird is pleased to present an evening of dance film screenings by Merce Cunningham with scores by David Tudor and John Cage. PROGRAM: Variations V (1966) | 49:05, black & white, sound, 16 mm film on video Choreography: Merce Cunningham. Director: Arne Arnbom Channels/Inserts (1982) | 31:40 min, color, sound, 16 mm film on HD video Choreography: Merce Cunningham. Direction/Editing: Charles Atlas ABOUT THE FILMS First composed and performed in 1965, Variations V is a true testament to 1960’s experiments with “intermedia”—a coexistence and cutting across of artistic genres that profoundly informed Cunningham’s choreographic practice. Video is materially integrated into the performance, with projections by Stan VanDerBeek and overlaid TV distortions by Nam June Paik enveloping the dancers. Twelve sound-sensitive electronic poles dot the stage; sound is triggered by the dancers’ movements and then altered or delayed by the musicians. Variations V predates Cunningham’s “video-dances,” demonstrating a different moment in his relation to the technology. A kind of explicit, corporeal engagement with video as medium is reflected in the performance’s sound component. Sound, like video, exists in this dance visually and even kinetically. The viewer of this 1966 archival performance gains access to the locus of sound production, seeing John Cage and David Tudor perched over a wide spread of electronic equipment. Cunningham pays attention to the musicians’ movements in his 1968 book Changes: Notes on Choreography, their “constant scuttling” moving “back and forth on the platform to fix things, wiring that came out, a plug, etc.” The performance moves dialectically between its phenomenological whole and the “varied” elements of sound, video and dance that constitute it. Unlike most of Cage and Cunningham’s collaborations, sound and movement are more technically codependent than autonomous in Variations V. Cunningham writes in Changes, “John decided to find out if there might not be ways that sound could be affected by movement, and he and David Tudor proceeded to find out that there were.” To create Channels/Inserts, Cunningham and Atlas divided the Cunningham Dance Company’s Westbeth studio into sixteen possible areas for dancing and used chance methods based on the I Ching to determine the order in which these spaces would be used, the number of dancers to be seen, and the events that would occur in each space. Atlas employed cross-cutting and animated mattes or wipes to indicate a simultaneity of dance events occurring in different spaces, as well as to allow for diversity in the continuity of the image. The sound score is a recording of David Tudor’s PHONEMES. Dancers are dressed in everyday clothing and at times stop dancing to congregate casually. This cessation, of course, is legible neither as dance nor “not-dance,” but is in-between and liminal, pointing to Cunningham’s persistent interest in “pedestrian” movement. Movement, the choreographer seems to indicate, exists in a continual tension—the everyday appears in the dance phrase and the dance phrase appears in the everyday, or bear each other’s traces. The dancing body is always-already an everyday body and in turn, the everyday body always-already contains the potential for movement read as dance. This event is part of A VIEW FROM INSIDE: DAVID TUDOR AT 100 , an exhibition at Drexel’s Pearlstein Gallery from January 15 to March 21, 2026. Major support for A View from Inside has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia . Admission is FREE

  Read more

  #music#arts

  Add to Digest+
• 

  2026-02-21📍 University City

  In-person! It's All in the Game of Love stage play and R&B Comedy Show

  It's All in the Game of Love stage play and R&B Comedy Show

  #comedy

  Add to Digest+
• 

  2026-02-22📍 University City

  In-person! I Can Do Bad All By Myself, A Rick Watson stage play

  I Can Do Bad All By Myself, A Rick Watson stage play to encourage breaking the cycle of abuse in a relationship Performances at 4pm and 7pm.

  #arts

  Add to Digest+