> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.albanyscanner.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Culture Circuit, Nov. 5-11 - URL: https://www.albanyscanner.com/2026/11/06/arts-culture/culture-circuit-nov-5/ - Published: 2026-11-06T00:33:25.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-06T01:08:19.000Z - Description: This week's picks from East Bay stages and creative spaces. - Author: Andrew Gilbert - Tags: Arts & Culture, The Culture Circuit, #articles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b5/b0/b5b0b7ec-798c-4cb6-ab42-472b59c05589/content/images/2026/11/150628_Renee_01_0134-1-2.jpeg) Renée de la Prade plays Down Home Music on Friday. **Courtesy* From traditional Scottish fiddling and the celebratory sounds of klezmer to an accordion babe and a Gill Tract farm festival, we've got you covered when it comes to things to do this week around the East Bay. Please help keep this list lively and well informed by sending details about upcoming concerts, readings, performances and workshops to [events@albanyscanner.com](mailto:events@albanyscanner.com). ## Saving lives saves lives Following the lives of six trainees in the [Bay EMT](https://www.bayemt.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com) program, which provides free training in fire and emergency services to young people ages 18-24, [*In the Red*](https://www.intheredfilm.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com) is an intimate documentary by award-winning East Bay filmmaker Mimi Chakarova. Part of the Hillside Club's documentary series, the 2025 film was a decade in the making and features music by Oakland-reared R&B great Rafael Saadiq, who grew up with Bay EMT Executive Director Wellington Jackson. Jackson will be on hand with Chakarova for a post-screening discussion. **Thursday, Nov. 5, 7 p.m.** [**The Hillside Club**](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/documentary-film-in-the-red-tickets-2002112308811?aff=oddtdtcreator&ref=albanyscanner.com) **(Berkeley). $15** ## A Fraser family confab ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b5/b0/b5b0b7ec-798c-4cb6-ab42-472b59c05589/content/images/2026/11/abf-hucko-square.jpeg) Alasdair Fraser. **Courtesy* [Alasdair Fraser](https://alasdairfraser.com/?ref=albanyscanner.com) is more than one of the world's preeminent masters of traditional Scottish fiddling. Through his [Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddle School](https://www.valleyofthemoon.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com), a summer camp based for decades in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he's mentored several generations of string innovators who've gone on to make major contributions to traditional music. A longtime resident of Nevada City, Fraser performs regularly at the Freight with the [San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers](https://sfscottishfiddlers.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com) and his celebrated duo with cellist Natalie Haas, but for this engagement he's introducing a new band, and it's a Fraser family affair. Featuring his sons Galen and Cameron Fraser on various guitars and Spanish fiddler Maria San Miguel (Galen's life and musical partner in their duo San Miguel Fraser), the group draws from across the Celtic archipelago, from Galicia to Glasgow. Alasdair is no stranger to family music making. He was weaned in an extended musical clan and his late father, a piper and bassist, often served on the VOM faculty. Fraser's rise to prominence coincided with a renaissance of Scottish culture, a surge of self-confidence that led in 1999 to the creation of the first Scottish parliament in almost three centuries. Though Fraser settled in the Sierra Nevada foothills in the early 1980s, he has maintained strong ties to Scotland, returning regularly to his homeland to perform and teach. **Friday, Nov. 6, 8 p.m.** [**Ashkenaz**](https://www.ashkenaz.com/full-calendar?ref=albanyscanner.com#/events/197594) **(Berkeley). $30-$35** ## A squeezebox goddess returns to the temple Dedicated to recasting the oft-maligned accordion as a potent vehicle for rambunctiously frisky musicality, [Renée de la Prade](https://squeezeboxgoddess.com/?ref=albanyscanner.com) returns to the Bay Area for a solo show at [Down Home Music](https://www.downhomemusic.com/?ref=albanyscanner.com), a key site in her creative evolution. Born and raised in a Francophile North Bay family, she had a life-changing epiphany as a child when she caught a performance by Louisiana zydeco great Clifton Chenier. The experience linked her budding love of French to the accordion, a passion that started to bear fruit at 19 when she started working as an apprentice instrument repair tech at Amazing Grace Music in San Anselmo. Her fellow apprentices were Irish musicians, "and soon I ended up attending a live Irish music session at Johnny Foley's in San Francisco," she wrote in an email. "Suddenly I had to learn how to play Irish music like this was the most important mission in the world. I asked my friend Dave Cory for a list of 20 CDs of traditional Irish music (and similar styles), and took my money to Down Home Music to get started on my world music collection. This is truly one of the most special places in the Bay Area, each year I come here like a pilgrimage to get my ears on the roots music of many different genres." Now living in Hamburg, Germany, she performs on accordion, ukulele and harmonica, and sings at venues across Europe. She uses her downtime to edit and produce the [*Accordion Babes Album & Pin-Up Calendar*](https://accordionpinupcalendar.com/?ref=albanyscanner.com). She also teaches music workshops and lessons. **Friday, Nov. 6, 4 p.m.** [**Down Home Music**](https://www.downhomemusic.com/upcoming-free-down-home-music-foundation-in-store-presentations/?ref=albanyscanner.com) **(El Cerrito). Free** ## The young and the classical When the [Young People's Symphony Orchestra](https://www.ypsomusic.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com) was founded, the New Deal was in full swing, the Benny Goodman Orchestra ruled the pop charts and Jesse Owens was running rings around Hitler's master race fantasies at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The nation's second-oldest youth orchestra, the Berkeley-based YSPO celebrates its 90th season with David Ramadanoff conducting a program of Shostakovich, Debussy and Brahms. Albany talent is well represented in the orchestra's ranks with double bassist Chloe Burbage, violinists Zifan Chen and Jaron Lai and cellist Dylan Zhu. And the YSPO's low brass coach, Craig Bryant, is also the director of instrumental music at Albany High. **Saturday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m.** [**First Church Berkeley**](https://www.ypsomusic.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com#intro)**. $25-$30 (students and children free with registration)** ## A garden library takes root on the Bulb When I lived in Albany in the aughts, I spent many hours walking around the Bulb, luxuriating in the views of the Bay and the sculptures and murals created by Sniff, the artist collective that turned the 31-acre site into a spectacular outdoor exhibition space. This was years before Susan Moffat launched [Love the Bulb](https://www.albanybulb.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com), the volunteer organization that produced numerous art and music events while tending the space. This weekend's Fall Garden Spruce Up Day focuses on Freeman's Library Garden with pruning, weeding, painting rocks, clearing paths and doing general maintenance. Love the Bulb started the garden in 2016 by tucking some sticky monkeyflower and ceanothus into the concrete rubble on the former site of a library compiled by Bulb residents when it was home to several dozen people. With support from volunteers, donors and the Albany Community Foundation, the garden has expanded to include nearly 50 species and more than 120 individual plants, as well as art and sculptures. **Saturday, Nov. 7, 3-4:30 p.m.** [**Albany Bulb**](https://luma.com/a8627is7?mc%5Fcid=53e7182bfa&mc%5Feid=1800b48e4e&ref=albanyscanner.com)**. Free** ## Reading in the dark People always talk about summer reading, but with dusk falling while it's still afternoon, is there a better time to curl up with a good book than fall? [Friends of the Albany Library](https://friendsalbanycalibrary.com/?ref=albanyscanner.com) has all your autumnal literary needs covered. The on-site sale offers thousands of books in the Community Center Big Room (across the hall from the library), including books for all ages starting at 50 cents (holiday books and puzzles start at $1). From picture books for toddlers and chapter books for kids to books for tweens and teens and fiction and nonfiction for adults, there are finds for every reader. Check out the Edith Stone Room for collectible, rare and vintage books, book sets, vinyl and puzzles starting at $1\. **Saturday, Nov. 7, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 8, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.** [**Albany Library**](https://aclibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/6acfe2c42b40e729fed27679?ref=albanyscanner.com)**. Free** ## Klezmer power trio plays St. Alban's ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b5/b0/b5b0b7ec-798c-4cb6-ab42-472b59c05589/content/images/2026/11/Veretski-Pass-@-Calliope-by-Bill-Johnston.jpeg) Veretski Pass at St. Alban's. **Bill Johnston* In some settings, klezmer music comes laden with nostalgia for the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry. But in the hands of Berkeley's internationally renowned klezmer trio Veretski Pass, the celebratory sounds of Ashkenazi culture feel urgently of the moment. Returning to St. Alban's for a [Calliope East Bay Music & Arts](https://www.calliope-ebma.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com) concert, the ensemble performs a set of music centering on wedding celebrations, week-long events that were central to life across the constellation of Jewish communities from Romania and Hungary to Poland, Russia and Lithuania. With Cookie Segelstein on violin and viola, Joshua Horowitz on the tsimbl (hammered dulcimer) and button accordion, and Stuart Brotman on bass, baraban (drum) and Carpathian flute, the trio takes its name from a rugged Carpathian mountain pass through which Jews traveled to settle in Transcarpathia (now part of Ukraine) around the 16th century. The group's music is often drawn from that region, which is also where Segelstein's father was born. Combining the precision of a chamber ensemble with the period detail of an early music group, Veretski Pass has carved out a leading role in researching, preserving and presenting musical instruments, tunes and traditions nearly lost in the Holocaust. **Sunday, Nov. 8, 4 p.m.** [**St. Alban's Episcopal Church**](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/veretski-pass-tickets-1990986137132?aff=oddtdtcreator&ref=albanyscanner.com)**. $30 ($15 livestream)** ## Gill Tract harvest festival The Gill Tract Community Farm hosts its annual Harvest Festival on Sunday, with live music, crafts, food, a farm stand and volunteer opportunities for all ages. Bring a T-shirt for silk screening and your own bowl, spoon and cup to help reduce waste. Parking is limited. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. The 104-acre site straddling Berkeley and Albany was purchased by the University of California in 1928 and has served many purposes over the years. In recent years, several acres in Albany have flourished as an urban farm and a stopover for migrating western monarch butterflies. **Sunday, Nov. 8, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.** [**Gill Tract Community Farm**](https://www.gilltractfarm.org/?ref=albanyscanner.com)**. $5-$20 donation requested** *Have questions for Albany Scanner, or want to share story tips?* [*Here's how to reach us*](https://www.albanyscanner.com/tips/)*.* ## Sign up for Albany Scanner Stories for an informed community Get updates Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.