Marvel as our live jazz-rock sextet, “The Aces & Eights”, plays hard-bop, psychedelia, and Indian Raga-pop to set the mood as exceptional dancers from around the region combine dance styles into a whirlwind of whimsy and bawdy beauty. The superstars of Seattle’s Burlesque A-List take on the roles of Carroll’s famous characters and turn Wonderland’s topsy-turvy world into an ecdysiastic tour-de-force filled with glamour, comedy, dance, striptease, and song.

Written and recorded in an exhilarating creative whirlwind, Sondre Lerche’s remarkable new double album, Avatars of Love, is as ambitious as it is unexpected, defying the conventional wisdom of the streaming era with a series of sprawling, epic tracks that routinely stretch past the five, six, even ten-minute mark. What’s more, the record is perhaps the most revealing work of self-reflection Lerche’s ever dared to create, offering up a candid reckoning with loss, desire, and infatuation as it looks back on a lifetime of relationships (some more raw and recent than others). Captured with some of Lerche’s dearest friends back in his native Norway, the result is a beautiful and unabashedly romantic collection that walks the line between folk intimacy, electronic experimentalism, and orchestral grandeur, an open, honest exploration of sexuality and sentimentality that embraces the highs and lows of modern love in all its messy glory.

Born and raised in Bergen, Lerche first came to fame as a teenager with the release of his critically acclaimed debut, Faces Down, which Rolling Stone hailed as “one of the year’s loveliest, sunniest, poppiest albums.” Over the course of the ensuing two decades (most of which were spent living in the US), Lerche would go on to release eight more similarly celebrated studio albums, perform on Letterman, Conan, and at NPR’s Tiny Desk, score multiple feature films, and tour with the likes of Stereolab, Elvis Costello and St. Vincent, among others.

The internationally touring show Kalimba, The Spirit of Earth Wind and Fire provides an Earth Wind & Fire experience so satisfying it transports audiences back to the excitement of the first time they heard these unforgettable songs. Reproducing the infectious grooves created by EWF’s late founder Maurice White, Kalimba pays homage to Maurice with its exciting stage and lighting production. The show authentically replicates the signature high notes of Philip Bailey, the thick vocals harmonies of Maurice and Ralph Johnson, along with the grooving bass lines of Verdine White.