Thursday

Who says swingin’ requires multiple partners? Jazz at the Lobero presents the Ray Brown Trio tonight at 8. Bassist Ray Brown was a founding member of the Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie quintet, later to collaborate (in more than one sense) with Ella Fitzgerald. Tickets are $38/28. The Lobero Theatre is located at 33 E. Canon Perdido. If that’s too hot for you, consider seeing Schubert’s “Winterreise (Winter’s Journey)” at UCSB’s Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall, tonight at 8. Baritone Michael Sokol and pianist Paul Berkowitz, present this musical depiction of a young man, unlucky at love, who leaves town to wander the lonely winter landscape. Tickets are $12 general, $7 students, only available at the door.

Friday

Who could possibly resist an operetta with characters named Nanki-poo, Pish-Tush, and Yum-Yum? It’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s most often performed work – “The Mikado” – and it’s playing tonight through Sunday at the Granada Theatre. Musical Theater of Santa Barbara presents a concert form of this comic tale of social restrictions. Tonight and Saturday’s shows are at 8: Sunday’s is at 2. Tickets are $35/25. The Granada Theatre is located at 1216 State St., downtown. Call 966-2324 for more information. Camerata Pacifica presents Concert H, including music by Bartok, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy tonight at Santa Barbara City College at 8. Tickets are $35/25 general, $5 students. Call 880-557-BACH for more info.

Saturday

You don’t have to go to India to see the one and only Taj Mahal – he’s playing tonight at the Lobero Theatre. A legendary master of more than 20 instruments and Grammy winner, his brand of blues serves as a cultural preservation for the United States’ musical traditions. The show is at 8. Tickets are $40/35. That ho, Benvolio! The Tchaikovsky Perm Ballet Theatre brings Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” to the Arlington Theatre tonight at 8. The company of 125 will bring the classic tale of erotic love and tragic mishap in 3 acts with a full orchestra. Tickets are $31.50-$46.50. Call 963-4406 for more information. The Arlington is located at 1317 State St., downtown.

Sunday

This could either be very poignant or very erotic. Arts & Lectures presents The T‡kacs Quartet and Robert Pinksy in “All the World for Love,” selections of poetry and music, including works from Janacek, Barber and Britten. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Pinksy will read poems about love, including his own, “The Want Bone,” as the T‡kacs Quartet accompanies. The event is in Campbell Hall, Sunday at 4. Tickets are $30/25 general, $19/16 UCSB students. Also on Sunday, clarinetist HŒkan Rosengren and pianist Anne Epperson perform a concert of Schumann, Saint-Saens, and Kuchera-Morin in Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall at 2. Tickets are $12 general, $7 students, only available at the door.

Tuesday

Do parallel lines ever intersect? It depends on your perspective. Arts & Lectures presents the Compagnie Maguy Marin performing their latest full-length work, “Points de fuite (Vanishing Points)” tonight at the Lobero Theatre. See why the troupe and the choreographer have been called “fiercely original.” The performance is at 9. Tickets are $35 general, $25 UCSB students. Call 893-3535 for more information. I wish I’d been published since the age of 10! Then again, I wish I had taken her English 106 course. English faculty member Shirley Geok-lin Lim is reading from her latest novel, Joss and Gold, tonight at the MultiCultural Center on campus. The reading begins at 4:30 and admission is free.

Wednesday

Voice actor April Winchell said it best: “It’s the reason I’m a woman / And where a lady pees.” Arts & Lectures presents the national tour of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” in Campbell Hall. This tour features Amy J. Carle and Michele Shay – and Maria Conchita Alonso of “The Running Man” and “Predator II” fame. Performances start tonight and run through Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 5 p.m. Tickets are $35/30 general, $19 UCSB students. Celebrate V-Day! Also tonight, the Community Arts Music Association presents Czech pianist Ivan Moravec, playing a concert of two of France’s best: Chopin and Debussy. Tickets are $30-40. The performance is at the Lobero Theatre at 8.