9 essential Atlanta arts events this weekend

Each week, ArtsATL curates a selection of the most exciting arts and culture events happening in Atlanta this weekend, highlighting nine must-see experiences.

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Thursday 

Cluedunnit

Out Front Theatre presents this world premiere, written by Out Front founder and Artistic Director Paul Conroy. The show combines murder mystery and drag show parody and opens April 30 and continues through May 16. 

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

ASO Music Director Laureate Robert Spano returns to Symphony Hall for a two-week run in late April and early May, leading the orchestra in the music of Leonard Bernstein. On Thursday, April 30, and Saturday, May 2, they’ll perform the composer’s brass-heavy Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah). They will be joined by stellar pianist Stephen Hough for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Friday

Atlanta Master Chorale

Early Genius: Youthful Works of Handel, Mozart and Mendelssohn is the ensemble’s season finale and takes place at 8 p.m. on May 1 and May 2 at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. 

Saturday

Atlanta Center for Photography Block Party

The Center’s annual Block Party and Open Exhibition will celebrate the past, present and future of their home on Edgewood Avenue. The one-day event brings together art, food, music, and all-ages activities in collaboration with local businesses, arts organizations and arts partners. The open exhibition accepts all submissions and will spotlight photographers and lens-based artists. It happens from noon until 5 p.m. on May 2.

ABV Gallery openings

This weekend marks the opening of three new shows from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on May 2. In Motion is a group exhibition featuring more than 30 local and international artists creating new work inspired by movement. Lucky You is a solo exhibition of work by Tiny Kaiju, exploring her lifelong fascination with cartoons, symbolic imagery and Japanese culture and drawing inspiration from her travels through Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Portal by Sabrina Shumaker explores folklore, memory and imagination through paintings that act as gateways into fantastical realms. Drawing from her Panamanian heritage, Shumaker re-interprets myths including ghosts, spirits and legendary figures, through contemporary narratives. 

Emma

At Shakespeare Tavern, The Atlanta Shakespeare Company and feminist theater collective Belle Esprit present Claire F. Martin’s whimsical adaptation of the Jane Austen novel and its iconic antiheroine’s search for fulfillment in a world designed for men. It opens on Saturday, May 2, and runs through May 31.

Coro Vocati’s Dirt Roads and Footpaths

Coro Vocati’s season finale takes inspiration from both South Georgia dirt roads and the footpaths of England’s Lake District and includes John Corigliano’s setting of Dylan Thomas’ Fern Hill. Performances are at 7 p.m. on May 2 at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church and 3 p.m. on May 3 at St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church.

WigWag

The free one-day, multi-act festival is reminiscent of the old Corndogorama Festival in East Atlanta and will return for its fifth year on May 2 in Avondale Estates.

Sunday

Convergence

Presented by The Breman and First Congregational Church, vocalist Anthony Russell will explore new musical idioms by combining two distinct older ones: African American spirituals and the music of Jewish Eastern Europe. Early blues, Hungarian and Bessarabian klezmer, “old time” fiddle music, synagogue tunes and contemporary classical music combine to create a repertoire of songs that authentically inhabit the sounds and histories of two storied traditions. It happens at 3 p.m. on May 3 at First Congregational Church in downtown Atlanta. 

More things to do this weekend and beyond

Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Vega Quartet as quartet-in-residence at Emory University with music by Mozart and Beethoven and the Georgia premiere of a new quartet, co-commissioned by the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta, by Emory grad Joel Thompson. 4 p.m. May 3  in Emerson Concert Hall at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts … Tuesday, May 5, marks the return of one of jazz’s greatest living legends. Now in the seventh decade of his professional life, Herbie Hancock, who just celebrated his 86th birthday, has been at the forefront of world culture, technology, business and music — from his days as a member of the groundbreaking Miles Davis Quintet in the ’60s to his innovative work in the ’70s and ’80s that combined electric jazz with funk and rock in an innovative style that continues to influence contemporary music … The Roswell Spring Arts and Crafts Festival will feature approximately 100 painters, photographers, sculptors, metalworkers, glass artists, jewelers and more on May 2 and May 3 at Roswell City Hall … The live taping of The Downside With Gianmarco Soresi scheduled for 8 p.m. on April 30 at Variety Playhouse has been canceled … In Detroit ’67, Motown music is getting the party started, and Chelle and her brother Lank are making ends meet by turning their basement into an after-hours joint. See it at Onstage Atlanta beginning May 1 and continuing through May 17.