Freebie of the week: Artist Jeremy Frey is a first-rate basket weaver and key figure in the preservation of Northeastern U.S. Native American art and culture. Some of his most acclaimed works are in “Jeremy Frey: Woven,” which recently opened at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Frey, a member of the Passamaquoddy tribe of the Wabanaki Native American confederation, describes himself as a seventh-generation creator of ash-and-sweetgrass baskets, a longtime art form with a deep history in Maine, Canada and other areas of the Northeast. Frey, who learned the craft from his mother, Frances “Gal” Frey, finds and harvests his own ash trees, pounds the material to loosen and detach the fibers and whittles down the strands that form the building blocks of his baskets. He is said to be so committed to the traditional aspects of the materials and artistry that he describes the touring exhibit of his creations as “thousands of years in the making.” His popularity as an artist is said to have drawn crucial attention to the art form. “Jeremy Frey: Woven” will be on display through July 20. Admission is free. The museum is located at 328 Lomita Drive, on the Stanford campus. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Go to museum.stanford.edu.
Hoop dreams: With both men’s and women’s NCAA college basketball tournaments serving up annual displays of talent and drama, it’s a good time for a stage play about basketball. San Francisco Playhouse is heeding that call with “Flex,” Candrice Jones’ 2020 play about five members of championship-hungry girls high school basketball team in rural Arkansas. Jones is from Arkansas and presumably knows a thing or two about the pressures of being a talented athlete in a small community where high school sports are everything. In addition to competing for a state championship, the young women in “Flex” also deal with internal rivalries, personal issues, family demands and more. “Flex” is directed by Margo Hall, one of the Bay Area’s most talented stage actors. As basketball fans like to put it – this one looks like nothing but net. Performances at San Francisco Playhouse run through May 2. The theater is at 450 Post St. Tickets are $45-$100 at sfplayhouse.org
All about Mary: New York-based Jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson is an extraordinarily talented and versatile musician – so much so that Ambrose Akinmusire, Peter Evans, Bill Frisell and Nicole Mitchell have lined up to work with her. A MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” winner who’s been guitarist of the year in nine consecutive critics polls by DownBeat magazine, her distinctive riffs have been captured on some 70 albums; many feature her as a guest artist. Halvorson’s most recent release, 2025’s “About Ghosts,” featuring her six-member band Amaryllis, was produced by John Dieterich, known to Bay Area fans as the guitarist for San Francisco band Deerhoof. Halvorson is now on tour with a new quartet, Canis Major, which also features longtime Halvorson collaborator drummer Tomas Fujiwara. With such a deep and varied musical resume, Halvorson is likely to kick up a few surprises when she performs twice this week in Northern California. Shows are 7 p.m. Thursday at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz ($34.97-$36.75; kuumbwajazz.org) and 8 p.m. Friday at The Freight in Berkeley ($39-$44; thefreight.org).
Strike up both bands: Anticipation is high, cheeks are puffed and preparations are feverish as San Jose’s 30-member San Francisco Brass Band gets ready to compete in a big North American band competition in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the musicians will join forces with their counterparts in the Pacific Brass Band, based in Salinas and Gilroy, to roll out championship-level material at a concert Saturday night at 7 p.m. in the Scottish Rite Center in San Jose. An SFBB quintet kicks things off with a performance of pieces from Jack Gale’s arrangement of “West Side Story,” followed by the PBB, led by music director Jim O’Briant, performing a variety of the brass band repertoire. Then Jeffrey de Seriere takes up his baton to conduct the full SFBB playing Jan van der Roost’s “The Lost Circle,” a work inspired by the mysteries of Stonehenge, and a to-be-announced-from-the stage selection. The evening will end with both bands participating in a rousing rendition of “American Patrol” by “March King” John Philip Sousa. Tickets, $10-$25, are available at sfband.org.
On being aware: The perpetually curious and persistently probing mind of Berkeley journalist, author and professor Michael Pollan, who has famously expounded upon the complexities of psychedelics, foodstuffs and caffeine, has turned to exploring the mysteries of consciousness – ours and – wait! Might plants also have some glimmers of awareness about their own state of being? Pollan’s new book, “A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness,” will be the topic in a discussion between the author and the artist and writer Avram Kosasky in the Angelico Concert Hall on the Dominican University campus in San Rafael at 7 p.m. Thursday. Among the inquiries to be featured in the conversation will be the latest efforts to engineer feelings into artificial intelligence, but the evening also will cover the philosophic, literary and spiritual implications of consciousness. Tickets for the event, co-sponsored by Book Passage in Corte Madera, are $41, and include a copy of the book. Visit bookpassage.com.