It’s Halloween weekend (sort of, since Halloween falls on a Tuesday this year), so we’ve got films with witches and and werewolves right alongside a great comedic opera, a tribute to one of psychedelia’s best bands, and more much. Keep reading for our picks for the best bets this coming week.
Nanguan, a type of classical music popular in Taiwan that originated in Fujian, China, will be in the spotlight on Thursday, October 26, at 7:30 p.m. when Asia Society Texas presents Formosa Quartet with Mei-Hui Wei: The Music of Taiwan. The evening, part of the center’s “Spotlight Taiwan” project, will be part-concert, part-lecture with the quartet playing several musical works by composer Shih-Hui Chen, who will be on hand to speak during the performance about things like the similarities and differences between instrumental and vocal nanguan, a word which “literally means southern pipe.” Also featured during the concert will be Taiwanese vocalist and pipa (a type of lute) player Mei-Hui Wei. A reception will follow the concert at 9 p.m. and tickets for the evening are available here for $30.
Gather your friends and family and take them to Discovery Green for their annual Scream on the Green at 6 p.m. on Friday, October 27. The Halloween festivities include a costume contest for the whole family (including your dog) – with registration from 6:45 to 8:15 p.m., the contest starting at 7 p.m. and winners announced at 9:30 p.m. – music by DJ Mohawk Steve, entertainers from Cirque Olympus and, at 7:30 p.m., a screening of “one of the best Halloween movies ever,” Hocus Pocus. The now 30-year-old family-friendly film, about the return of three witchy sisters to present-day Salem, Massachusetts on Halloween night, “proves that a film doesn’t have to be horrifying in order to capture the spooky aura of the Halloween season.”
Rob Saucedo knows films. He’s been programming weekly horror films for Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for the past 12 years. As the author of Where Wolf, we know he’s also pretty familiar with werewolves. So, on Friday, October 27, 7 p.m. when Saucedo presents Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas’s Good Manners at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, we know it’s a probably a pretty good choice. In the “ambitiously allegorical” film, a “genre-twisting hybrid” that “links art house and slaughterhouse with unexpected success,” a “werewolf child” dropped into a “lesbian love affair” serves as a dramatization of “class and racial tensions in contemporary Brazil by creating contrasting worlds: rich and poor, black and white, high-rise chic and shantytown.” Tickets to the screening can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
In Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff, which Houston Grand Opera will open on Friday, October 27, at 7:30 p.m., the title character decides to try seducing two rich women to solve his debt problems – only they’re friends and they don’t let it slide. The production’s Falstaff, baritone Reginald Smith Jr., recently told the Houston Press that “one of the joys” of the opera is that it is a show “that’s fun, that’s friendly, that’s funny and that’s just generally warm-hearted,” adding that “you don’t have to be a big opera buff to understand what’s going on.” Performances will continue through November 10 and are scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, October 29, and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, November 4, Wednesday, November 8, and Friday, November 10 at the Wortham Theater Center. Tickets can be purchased here for $25 to $280.
Just eight years ago “progressive rock pioneers turned synthesizer-driven rockers,” The Moody Blues, were described as “one of the last critically unrehabilitated bands of the 60s.” Of course, just three years later, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On Friday, October 27, at 8 p.m. Michael Krajewski will lead the Houston Symphony in GO NOW! A Tribute to The Moody Blues. The tribute band, which features drummer Gordy Marshall who played with the Moody Blues for 25 years, will bring the group’s classic songs to Jones Hall for a symphonic spin. The concert will also be presented on Saturday, October 28, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, October 29, at 2:30 p.m. Tickets to the in-hall performances can be purchased here for $34 to $145. Saturday night’s concert will also be livestreamed and access can be purchased here for $20.
Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, that yearly “mash-up of pre-Hispanic religious rites and Christian feasts” meant to find the “life-affirming joy” in death, once again sets the stage for the return of MECA’s Día de Muertos Festival: Honoring Our Past, Celebrating Our Future, scheduled for Saturday, October 28, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. at MECA’s Dow School campus. In addition to two stages showcasing live music and dance performances, you can expect food representing a variety of regions in the U.S. and Latin America, vendors peddling authentic Day of the Dead-related wares, a playground and arts area for children, and a community ofrenda exhibition curated by Luis Gavito. The festival continues the following day, Sunday, October 29, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Entry is free, and the festival goes on rain or shine.
EGOT and Pulitzer Prize winner Marvin Hamlisch took home an Oscar for Best Original Song as the co-writer of “The Way We Were,” the Barbra Streisand-sung ballad from the movie of the same name (though, allegedly, Streisand thought the song “too sentimental”). Still, it’s a classic and you can hear it along with other with other Hollywood hits on Saturday, October 28, at 7:30 p.m. when the Houston Chamber Choir stops by Miller Outdoor Theatre for City of Stars. You can reserve a free ticket for covered seating beginning here at 10 a.m. on Friday, October 27, or you can grab a blanket or lawn chair and head for the free ticketless seating on the Hill. If you can’t make it to the show, you can catch the concert on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel or Facebook page.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
