THE HILLS ARE ALIVE With just one week left, the city’s free music series Friday Nights Live is about to call it a year. The seasonal series hosts live music from 6 to 9 p.m. at four locations in the Village. Final performances take place next Friday. Tonight’s lineup includes Dynamite Dawson at Laemmle plaza; Ana Maria de la Cruz at the chamber; Grateful Dead cover band Pride of Cucamonga at Shelton Park; and Honeybuckets at city hall. More info is at claremontchamber.org.
Live music fans will soon have another nearby option when the Canyon Club opens its doors at the Montclair Place mall.
“I’m trying like a crazy man to open up on the 30th of November,” said owner Lance Sterling. The Canyon Club Montclair, located at the west end of the mall in the former food court area, will boast a $1 million audio/video system and have a capacity of 1,300.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, 1500 N. College Ave., Claremont, invites visitors to unravel the myths and mysteries of nature’s nightlife at Things That Go Bump in the Night today and tomorrow from 5:30 to 9 p.m. The event offers activity stations along Garden trails, live animal encounters and family-friendly comedy shows that showcase the natural world’s nocturnal side.
‘MUCH ADO’ IN 1945? The Shakespeare Club of Pomona Valley hosts a free and open to the public 2 p.m. talk at the Joslyn Center 660 N. Mountain Ave., Claremont with director Wendi Johnson, who chose to set her new production of the Bard’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in 1945. The comedy opens next month at the Lewis Family Playhouse in Rancho Cucamonga. “What themes connect America, as World War II ends, with the world Shakespeare created when he wrote the play in the 1590s?”
CCA HOSTS ‘BE THE MATCH’ Residents are invited to join the Be The Match Registry from 2 to 6 p.m. at Claremont Craft Ales, 1420 N. Claremont Blvd., 204c. Be The Match pairs potential bone marrow donors and people with life-threatening blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, for life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplants. The group needs marrow donors as well as volunteers and financial contributions.
PRIMAL NATURE Claremont Museum of Art, 200 W. First St., opens a new show at noon today, “Primal Nature: Animalia by Women in Post-War Claremont.” “Animals, both real and fantastic, occupied an important place in artistic expression in mid-twentieth-century Claremont, appearing in the work of ceramists, painters, enamelists, and sculptors,” a press release read. “Primal Nature, curated by Susan M. Anderson, focuses on this phenomenon, particularly in the work of women artists who played a vital role in the development of the arts in Claremont.”
FRIDAY NOON CONCERTS ARE BACK: Scripps College’s free Friday Noon Concert Series kicks off the 2019-2019 season today with music by Raymond Luedeke, Anthony Plog and Halsey Stevens. The show at Balch Auditorium, 1030 Columbia Ave., Claremont, begins at 12:15 p.m. with performers Stephen Klein and Beth Mitchell, tubas, Jennie Jung, piano, and Gibb Schreffler, narrator. The weekly concerts are a joint production of Scripps and the Pomona College Music Department.
VIDEO GAME PARTY: Claremont’s Wheeler Steffen Sotheby’s, at 500 W. Foothill Blvd., hosts a video game party from 6 to 10 p.m. The free and open to the public event includes a drawing for prizes. Among the multiplayer games are Drawful, which includes up to eight players drawing and the other players trying to guess what has been drawn; Fibbage, which also includes up to eight players testing their ability to lie creatively while making up definitions; Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and many more!
‘I HAVE A DREAM’: HAVE WE MADE PROGRESS? This week marks the 55th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s profound “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered in 1963 to some 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Today the Pomona Valley chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is celebrating with a free and open to the public viewing and panel discussion of the historic speech from 6 to 8 p.m. at The African American Museum of Beginnings, 1460 E. Holt Ave., Pomona, entrance 3.
Well, not just a band anyway. Since the group’s nascent beginnings—at a 1982 house party right here in Claremont—it’s been more of an ever-evolving conceptual art project that has veered off on innumerable tangents, each sharing the common theme of being completely engrossing and wholly original.
JAZZ VESPERS TUNE INTO LABOR: Claremont Presbyterian Church’s Jazz Vespers perform a free and open 6 p.m. concert with the Ron Kobayshi Trio and vocalist Debbi Ebert, all around the theme of labor. The church is at 1111 N. Mountain Ave., Claremont. “Labor Day is coming,” a press release read. “That got some of us here at Claremont Presbyterian thinking; what do we labor for? In the Christian tradition we are encouraged to labor for justice. So this Jazz Vespers is dedicated to the people and organizations that labor for a more just world.
CONCERT IN THE PARK: Claremont’s annual free Concerts in the Park series continues at 7 p.m. with a night of traditional Irish music and dance with Spirit of Ireland, with Michael Ryan and friends, featuring members of Craic Haus and the Tamara School of Irish Dance. The Monday concerts at Memorial Park, 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd., start at 7 p.m. and run through Labor Day, September 3. Here’s the rest of this year’s lineup: August 27:?Suavé; September 3: The Answer. For more information call (909) 399-5490 or email specialevents@ci.claremont.ca.us.
LIVE MUSIC IN THE VILLAGE: The city’s free concert series Friday Nights Live continues with the smooth guitar-driven jazz of the Marc Weller Combo at Laemmle plaza; Mike’s Guitar World at the chamber of commerce; Patrick Carrico Band at Shelton Park; and Ana Maria de la Cruz at city hall. Friday Nights Live runs from 6 to 9 p.m. through October. More information is at claremontchamber.org.
NIGHT BLOOMING JAZZMEN: Claremont’s annual free Concerts in the Park series continues at 7 p.m. Monday with local treasures Night Blooming Jazzmen. The Monday concerts at Memorial Park, 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd., start at 7 p.m. and run through Labor Day, September 3. Remember to bring blankets and low chairs. The Kiwanis Club provides a variety of food concessions, and dogs and alcoholic beverages are not allowed.
