Eugene Weekly : Calendar : 03.09.06

The Eugene Concert Choir brings the five-time Grammy award-winning Paul Winter Consort to the stage for a joint performance of Winter's Missa Gaia. Winter, a saxophonist, bandleader and composer, has worked for decades on what his website calls "Earth Music," celebrating the creatures and cultures of the planet. Since 1985, the Missa Gaia, or Earth Mass, has been performed to celebrate the Feast of St. Francis at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. Alas, there won't be a parade of critters in the Hult Center this weekend, but this is still something special for the ECC. See Saturday Calendar.

The Eugene Symphony features pianist Kevin Cole (pictured) in "American Legends," a program featuring work from a trio of famed New York composers: George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Cole is a world-renowned interpreter of Gershwin, leaving gushing critics in his wake — like Howard Reich of the Chicago Tribune, who wrote, "When Cole sits down at the piano, you would swear Gershwin himself was at work." With two Gershwin pieces on the program, including the famous Rhapsody in Blue, Cole is sure to shine. See Thursday, March 16 Calendar.

It's an unusual — and entertaining — press release header: "Local businesses band together to fight schlocky wedding industry." For any area brides-to-be, what's not to love? The Eugene Boutique Bridal Show, hosted by Marché Catering and the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, brings together local businesses and resources to offer an alternative to, as they put it, "the tidal wave of often tacky, often expensive wedding paraphernalia that the about-to-be-married wade through." The show features members of Eugene's Bridal Arts Collective, a group of local businesses that works on creative wedding products, as well as local boutiques, wedding planners, bakeries and even pre-marital counselors. What more could you want? Especially when there won't be an embarrassing floral chartreuse bridesmaid's dress for miles. See Saturday Calendar.

Saturday afternoon, Jacobs Gallery hosts an artists' insight talk and reception for "Double Vision — Shared Site," a new exhibit curated by Terri Warpinski that features photographic work by Warpinski (below), her late husband Garry B. Fritz and six other artists within their creative sphere. Originally intended as a means for Fritz and Warpinski to focus on creative interaction in their work, the exhibit's purpose shifted after Fritz's sudden death to include the work of artists sharing a broad range of influences with the couple. See Saturday Calendar.