GOINGS ON SANTA BARBARA : Piano Is His Forte : Robert Silverman will perform with the Santa Barbara Symphony this weekend and give a free recital Tuesday.

Canadian classical pianist Robert Silverman is coming to Santa Barbara this weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday, Silverman will join the Santa Barbara Symphony for a performance at the Arlington Theater. He will be featured in Schumann’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Rounding out the program will be Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.”

The Arlington is at 1317 State St. Saturday’s concert will begin at 8 p.m., Sunday’s at 3 p.m. Tickets cost $13.50 to $29.50 Saturday and $10.50 to $20.50 Sunday. Call 965-6596.

On Tuesday, Silverman will be at the Lobero Theater for a free recital sponsored by the Esperia Foundation, a nonprofit group working to bring classical music to Santa Barbara. Silverman is scheduled to perform “Prelude, Chorale and Fugue” by Franck, “Sonata No. 31, Op. 110” by Beethoven and “Sonata, Op. 36” by Rachmaninoff. The performance will begin at 8 p.m. The Lobero is at 33 E. Canon Perdido St.

UC Santa Barbara will kick off a “Contemporary Cinema” series Sunday with a presentation of “Paris Is Burning.” This critically acclaimed film, released earlier this year, is a documentary look at the drag queen balls of Harlem and the gay Latino and black men who are a part of them.

This film series will continue each Sunday through March 1 (except Feb. 16). The other six movies to be shown are “Rikyu,” “Song of the Exile,” “Black Robe,” “Eating,” “Rosencrantz & Gildenstern Are Dead” and “Requiem for Dominic.” All movies will be shown at Campbell Hall. General admission is $5 (for individual films), $18 (for the series). For information, call 893-3535.

Speaking of cinema, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History will resume its travel film series Sunday with a presentation of “Touring Egypt and the Nile.” Filmmaker Dennis Burkhart studied the country’s inhabitants as he visited the Sinai Desert, Nile River, Pyramids, Sphinx and Cairo. Show time is 3 p.m. at Fleischmann Auditorium. General admission is $4. The museum is at 2559 Puesta del Sol Road. For information, call 682-4711.

The Santa Barbara City College Symphony will give its first concert of the season Sunday at Garvin Theater. The program will include Nicolai’s “Overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor,” Albinoni’s “Adagio for Strings and Organ” and Saint-Saens’ “Symphony No. 3,” also known as “Organ Symphony.” The concert will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $4 and $6. Call 965-5935.

As part of its ongoing lunchtime tours, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden on Monday will present a walk through its edible and medicinal plant collections.

Tour leader Steve Junak will show off the garden’s jojoba plant, the largest in the area. “It has edible fruits on it and fruits that yield wax that can be used as a substitute for sperm whale oil,” he said. “It’s used mostly for lubrication and a lot for detergents and for shampoos.”

Other plants on the tour will include huckleberries, gooseberries, leather root (used as a source of fiber and yellow dye), manzanita, Mormon tea (a popular medicinal tea), the creosote bush (sold in stores as chaparral tea) and juniper (the berry of which is used as flavoring in gin).

The 40-minute tour is scheduled to begin at 12:10 p.m. Admission to the garden is $3, $2 senior citizens and teen-agers, and $1 children ages 5 to 12. There is no separate charge for the tour. The garden is at 1212 Mission Canyon Road. For information, call 682-4726.

On Tuesday, Santa Barbara City College’s Adult Education program will present the second in a four-part series of seminars dealing with public information issues. Among the scheduled panelists: TV commentator Ralph Story, former CBS President Ed Joyce, Duffy Leon of Cox Cable in Santa Barbara, employees of KEYT television and Claudia Bratton, who was an unsuccessful applicant for a Federal Communications Commission license. Veteran newsman Bayard Stockton will moderate. Admission is free. The program, to be held in the Santa Barbara Public Library’s Faulkner Gallery, 40 E. Anapamu St., will begin at 7:30 p.m. For information, call 687-0812.