Your weekend arts forecast: Trolley stops and string quartets

The St. Petersburg Arts Alliance MUSE Awards celebration, Friday night at the Museum of Fine Arts, is sold out. Next on the arts aggregate’s collective calendar is the February ArtsWalk – it happens every second Saturday of every month, swinging open the welcoming doors of 40 studios and galleries, with an up-close and personal connection to something like 200 artists.

The Second Saturday ArtWalk is serious business – St. Pete wants residents and visitors alike to appreciate the vibrancy and diversity of its arts community. A free trolley runs continuously from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday between the Central Arts District, EDGE District, Grand Central District, Warehouse Arts District and the downtown Waterfront District. There are 20 stops on the trolley loop; conversely, you can park somewhere and do the “tour” on your own. See the map here.

In honor of Black History Month, Creative Clay is opening Voices of a Dream, featuring work by Marquise R., Sydney R., Michael W., Cornell W., Shawn D., Justin D., Latoya B., Barbie R. and Yalanda Speights. Chant the Trees will perform live music.

Dreams Deferred, new at the Mize Gallery, is named for the Langston Hughes poem Harlem – “our intention,” according to a gallery press release, “is to provide a venue for the artists and our community to have a dialogue around the state of racial relations within St. Petersburg.” The show includes mixed media works by artists from the Tampa Bay area and elsewhere, including Marcus Rogers, Carrie Boucher & the Justice Studio Creatives, Perry deVick, Tamesha Kirkland, iBoms, Kelly U. Johnson, Tenea Johnson, Ajamu Kojo, Valincy-Jean Patelle, Joshua Pearson, Calan Ree & Marquise Russ, Erika Schnur, Sleep and Zulu Painter.

A moderated artist talk with several of the artists is planned for Feb. 21.

Artists including Evan Cool Art, Oscar Guerra, Tim Kim, Barry Rothstein, Hunter Slade, Taylor Torres and Jyeesha Wilson take part in The Creative Saints of St. Petersburg, an exhibition opening Saturday at thestudio@620.

The group show includes painting, photography, pastel drawings and sculptural installations by Evan Cool Art, Oscar Guerra, Tim Kim, Barry Rothstein, Hunter Slade, Taylor Torres and Jyeesha Wilson.

Fiber installation artist Saumitra Chandratreya, recipient of a 2018 Emerging Artist Grants from Creative Pinellas, opens a show (Everyday Obvious) of works with a reception, during Saturday’s Artwalk, in the Tully-Levine Gallery at the ArtsXchange – in the Warehouse Arts District. The native of India welcomes Pandit Nandkishor Muley, playing the classical instrument known as a santoor, between 6 and 8 p.m.

“As an immigrant to the United States,” Chandratreya says, “my upbringing gave me the tools to critically think about my social discourse. I believe that textiles are a versatile medium for contemporary art and I like molding them to create objects, sculptural pieces, and installations using materials that aren’t always associated with fine art.”

Performing arts this weekend

Tampa singer/songwriter/musical provocateur Ona Kirei, a native of Barcelona, Spain, is in concert tonight (Thursday, Feb. 7) at thestudio@620. She has a new record, Iberia, on which she performs Iberian-influenced jazz, singing in the different languages of the Iberic Peninsula – Spanish, Catalan, Basque, and Portuguese.

If you need more convincing, check this out:

Ibis String Quartet

The Ibis String Quartet performs at 8 p.m. Friday (Feb. 8) at Creative Soul Studio, 2425 Central. The group – violinists Rebecca Zapen and Julie Tollen, Lauren Collier on viola and Ruth Kern, cello – promises a Valentine’s Day-friendly program of Brahms, Debussy, Tchaikovsky and modern stuff.

And a string quartet comprised of musicians from the Florida Orchestra plays Sunday, from 3 to 5 p.m., at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum. Players at the “pay what you can” event are Yuan-Yuan Wang, violin; Zubaida Azezi, violin; Derek Mosloff, viola; Doniyor Zuparov, violoncello. A reception follows; proceeds benefit the museum.

The Palladium Theater is still home base for Kiss Me, Kate by the St. Petersburg Opera Company this weekend. There are two performances of the Cole Porter musical remaining: Friday (Feb. 8) at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday (Feb. 10) at 2.

The Shakespeare-themed Celebration of the Arts continues with a Spitfire Theater Improv show, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Aren’t Dead, Friday at 10 p.m. (the address is 14 18^th Street South). Spitfire’s doing the Rosencrantz dance every Friday, all month long; Veronica Leone Matthews mash-up Hamlett, Snell and Ella J, in a free, open, all-day rehearsal Saturday at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Arts, followed by a 7 p.m. performance at the St. Petersburg Museum of History.

Lest we forget, Perfect Arrangement is onstage all weekend at freeFall Theatre, just as Pipeline is in the middle of its successful run at American Stage.

And, of course, Saturday finds crooner Seal out in front of the Florida Orchestra for the band’s season-51 gala at the Mahaffey, with Michael Francis conducting.