From bird banding to poetry to lunch with Bach: Things to do on Cape April 28 to May 5

The Museum School at the Cape Cod Museum of Art presents “Ninth Street Women,” a lecture and discussion with Laura Shabott, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 29, at the Cape Cod Museum of Art, 60 Hope Lane, Dennis. Inspired by Mary Gabriel's book, "Ninth Street Women," Shabott will look at the work of five women during the Abstract Expressionist movement: Lee Krasner, Elaine De Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan and Joan Mitchell. Often overshadowed by husbands and male critics, these women are being honored, exhibited, and studied now. The talk will also explore the regional ties of Frankenthaler to Cape Cod.

Shabott is an artist, educator and gallerist living and working in Provincetown. She teaches figure drawing and painting at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and is represented regionally by Berta Walker Gallery of Provincetown. Lecture tickets are $18 ($10 for members) and include museum admission. They are available at www.CCMoA.org/events

Cape Cod Concert Band offers 'The Royal Treatment'

From Elgar to Elvis, and just in time for the coronation across the pond, the Cape Cod Concert Band presents The Royal Treatment, a free concert at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 30, in the Knight Auditorium at Barnstable High School.The concert includes selections like "All Shook Up," featuring the music of Elvis the King, and the rock band Queen, a tribute march for P.T. Barnum, "the King of the American Circus," and more.

Conducted by Tom Borning, also the director of the Falmouth Town Band and a trumpet player throughout New England, the concert includes a tribute to incoming King Charles and his long-reigning mother, Queen Elizabeth. More info: www.capecodconcertband.org.

Falmouth Chorale celebrates spring of its 59th year

Falmouth Chorale will present “Voices of Falmouth,” a concert of music with links to the Cape and New England at 4 p.m. Saturday, April 29, and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 30, at John Wesley United Methodist Church, Gifford Street, Falmouth. The concert will include songs of past and present, interwoven with themes of the sea in a nod to Cape Cod. The Falmouth Chorale, led by Artistic Director Andrew Jonathan Welch, has about 80 singers.

Information and tickets are available at www.falmouthchorale.org or 774-392-2383. Tickets for adults are $25 in advance, $30 at the door, and $5 for students.  Advance tickets paid by cash or check are also available from Chorale members, and at Eight Cousins Books in Falmouth, Uncle Bill’s Country Store in North Falmouth, Market Street Bookshop in Mashpee Commons, and Titcomb’s Book Shop in East Sandwich.

An afternoon with lunch and Johann Sebastian Bach's cello suites

Presented by the Cultural Center of Cape Cod at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, April 30, chef Joseph Cyzinski serves a lunch inspired by the life of Johann Sebastian Bach when he served as Kapellmeister in Kothon, Germany from 1717-1723. The lunch, a prelude to the 3 p.m. cello concert with Samuel DeCaprio, includes lentil salad with smoked salmon and root vegetables, Senfeir boiled eggs with potatoes, spinach and weisswurst, schnitzel with poached asparagus and caper lemon sauce and fruit pudding. This is a BYOB event to enjoy your favorite German wines or beers. $75/$65 for members. Register at www.cultural-center.org or call 508-394-7100. The Cultural Center is located at 307 Old Main St. in South Yarmouth.

The concert with DeCaprio playing an afternoon of cello suites by J.S. Bach begins at 3 p.m. Recent highlights of his career include his Lincoln Center concerto debut presenting the United States premiere of Grażyna Bacewicz’s "Cello Concerto No. 2" with the Juilliard Orchestra and conductor David Robertson in Alice Tully Hall, as well as solo and chamber performances in England, New York City, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Tickets for the concert are $25 and are available at  www.cultural-center.org/.

Poetry contest winners take the stage

Poet and contest judge Marge Piercy will be joined by local winning poets at a celebratory reading at the Wellfleet Preservation Hall at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 3, contest sponsor and community radio station WOMR announced.

Poets submitted poetry in the fall of 2022 and received notification of the results in early 2023. Winning local Cape Cod-based poets include: Jennifer M. Phillips, M. Bleichman, Lucile Burt, Wayne Miller, Betty-Ann Lauria, Mary Ellen Redmond, Jen Sexton-Riley, Jim Kubat, Gregory Hischak and Anne Hoffman.

"The contest is named for the late Joe Gouveia, who hosted the weekly Poets Corner radio show on WOMR and was best known as a poet and pioneer of the Cape Cod poetry community," according to the WOMR release. WOMR will launch the Outermost Poetry literary journal later this year that will include copies of the winning poems.

Piercy will also read a selection of new poems at the event. She is the author of more than 18 volumes of poems.

Bird banding with Sue Finnegan

The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster is offering an afterhours series of programs designed to reach those in our community who are not able to attend programs during regular museum hours. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, Sue Finnegan will talk about her two decades of work with Cape birding communities.

"Her reputation in the birding world reaches far beyond the Museum’s Wing Island Bird Banding Station where she has worked since 2000. Sue is a Certified Master Bird Bander and with her team has banded over 58,468 birds on Wing Island and some 152 bird species," according to a statement from museum officials.

Tickets are $12 ($10 for members) and are available at www.ccmnh.org or at the door the night of the program.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Best bets: Bird banding, abstract art, cello lunch and 2 big concerts