>> Founded by the late W.S. Merwin and his wife, Paula, to preserve in perpetuity their Haiku home with its hand-planted, botanically priceless exotic palm forest, the Merwin Conservancy seeks to foster a reverence for language, nature and the imagination. To that end the Conservancy’s Green Room Series presents readings, conversation and book-signings with distinguished literary and ecologically minded guests. Welcome Joy Harjo, enrolled member of the Mvskoke Nation, playwright and saxophonist. “The saxophone is so human,” she has written. “Its tendency is to be rowdy, edgy, talk too loud, bump into people, say the wrong words at the wrong time. But then, you take a breath, all the way from the center of the earth and blow. All that heartache is forgiven. All that love we humans carry makes a sweet, deep sound and we fly a little.” Have I mentioned that Harjo is America’s reigning poet laureate, following in the shining footsteps of Merwin himself? Poets laureate don’t grow on trees, you know. — 7 p.m. Thursday at MACC’s McCoy Studio Theater. Tickets: $25 ($10 students) at mauiarts.org or call 242-7469.
>> Arnold Schoenberg, immortal (or infamous) as the trailblazer of 12-tone music, was also an orchestrator of genius, capable of repurposing a piano quartet for symphony orchestra or crunching symphonies to chamber proportions. With Mahler’s mournful, tempestuous four-part cycle “Songs of a Wayfarer,” he was working in the latter vein. His exquisitely tinted version — performed by Robert E. Wills, baritone, plus 10 of Maui’s most intrepid classical instrumentalists — forms the centerpiece of a “A Classical Soiree” presented by ProArts and Halekulani Kula. Also on the program: Debussy’s sunnily sensual “Afternoon of a Faun,” arranged for trio, plus Mozart and Prokofiev. — 7:30 p.m. Thursday at ProArts Playhouse, 1280 S. Kihei Road. Tickets: $40 at proartsmaui.com or call 463-6550.
>> Let them entertain you! “Cabaret and Cocktails: Pastie Premiers 2020!” brings what old-timers used to call the Burly Q to Azeka Makai, promising new acts, new talent and new teases. Titillation guaranteed, until the vice squad rolls in. (Does anybody still have a vice squad?) Lin McEwan, ProArts Playhouse’s bouncy executive director, has been telling folks to leave the kids at home. — 8 p.m. Saturday at ProArts Playhouse. Tickets: $25, $35 at proartsmaui.com or call 463-6550.
Matthew Gurewitsch comes to Hawaii from three decades in New York as a cultural commentator for The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and other media. Browse his archive at beyondcriticism.com.
