Fall tours treat Madison to another solid week of live music, with shows by Béla Fleck & the Marcus Roberts Trio, the Old 97's with a solo set by Rhett Miller, El Ten Eleven, Shemekia Copeland, Mayer Hawthorne, and Youngblood Brass Band. The calendar also includes: The Winds of March poetry reading; Jeffrey Siegel's Keyboard Conversations; and, lectures by Dayton Duncan, Graham Spencer, and Timothy Morton.
Monday 10.15
NOTEWORTHY: Huey Newton and Bobby Seale form Black Panther Party, 1966.
Bartell Theatre, 7:30 pm
The Colombia Support Network presents a solo work by poet Lynn Werner, based on her experience documenting human rights abuses in Colombia.
Tuesday 10.16
NOTEWORTHY: Marie Antoinette guillotined, 1793.
Jeffrey Siegel's Keyboard Conversations
Mills Hall, UW Humanities Building, 7:30 pm
To kick off his 25th season of Keyboard Conversations, the renowned pianist will perform and discuss some of Bach's most beloved works, including the chorale prelude "Rejoice, Beloved Christians" and the jovial "Toccata in D Major."
Béla Fleck & the Marcus Roberts Trio
Overture Center's Capitol Theater, 7:30 pm
Banjo virtuoso Fleck will partner with the jazz musicians of the Marcus Roberts Trio to highlight a new collaborative album called Across the Imaginary Divide.
Wednesday 10.17
Mills Hall in the UW Humanities Bldg., 7 pm
Duncan is the writer and producer of several Ken Burns documentaries. In this "Academy Evenings" appearance, he pays tribute to Wisconsin conservationist Bud Jordahl with a talk called "Lands for the Public: America's Best Idea."
Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, 7 pm
Spencer, of Google Ventures, discusses the radical new programming strategies practiced by today's computer scientists, spurred by changes in hardware.
Overture Center's Capitol Theater, 7:30 pm
These alt-country trailblazers will fete the 15th anniversary of their 1997 album, Too Far to Care, after frontman Rhett Miller shows off his new solo album, The Dreamer (see Music). With Salim Nourallah.
Frequency, 8 pm
Marvel at Kristian Dunn's doubleneck bass and Tim Fogarty's thunderous drumming as they build dense layers of song from acoustic and electric sounds. With Beacon.
High Noon Saloon, 8 pm
One of the blues world's most soulful singers, Copeland assumed the title of "Queen of the Blues" at the 2011 Chicago Blues Festival, following the passing of fellow vocal powerhouse Koko Taylor.
Thursday 10.18
UW Elvehjem Building, 7:30 pm
The Rice University English professor contemplates the end times in "Dark Ecology: Philosophy in the Anthropocene," weaving in radioactivity, humans and inanimate objects.
Majestic Theatre, 8:30 pm
Though his music's usually labeled retro soul, Hawthorne got his start as a hip-hop DJ who'd create Motown-influenced tracks to avoid sampling other artists. This show will revolve around 2011's How Do You Do, which received a thumbs-up from SPIN.
High Noon Saloon, 8:30 pm
Armed with a funky fusion of New Orleans-style jazz and hip-hop influences, this group of former band geeks from Oregon High School has grown into an international sensation, recording with famous rappers such as Talib Kweli and touring Europe with Swiss rhyme-slinger Bligg. With Chants and Madden.
