He Makes the Plunger Sing

Both silliness and seriousness have been a part of the music scene this season. The solo performance by famed Dutch drummer Han Bennink last month was an event to remember. He brought a fascinating blend of solid musicality (he’s a very fine drummer by any standard), humor and absurdist tactics, including roping a potted tree and garbage pail into the performance.

This Saturday, the good folks behind the new music organization pfMENTUM, responsible for Bennink’s visit, are bringing back Eugene Chadbourne, whose instrument list includes guitar, banjo, electric rake and plunger. Come to think of it, Chadbourne, like Bennink, has also gotten resident objects into his musical act, as when he started playing a magazine rack during a performance at the Daily Grind.

A more-or-less regular visitor to Ventura, Chadbourne is, by now, a veteran with a still-youthful, prankster outlook. Improvisation is his thing, but he also ventures into varying degrees of structure in his music, as heard in the “Insect and Western” program. Chadbourne has interacted with a bevy of the world’s best-known improvisers and contemporary music characters, including Bennink, as heard on Chadbourne’s 1996 CD for the Leo label, “Boogie with the Hook.”

He’s got a large but hard-to-find discography at this point, dating back to his days with the group Shockabilly and including a collaboration with Camper Van Beethoven several years back. One new Chadbourne album worth hearing is “The Guitar Lesson,” a duet with fellow guitar outsider Henry Kaiser. It’s on the Victo label (the in-house label of the annual Victoriaville festival in Quebec). On these tracks, the pair offer a tidy summary of avant-guitar ideas as well as tidbits of folk, blues and other more “normal” genres gleefully taken apart.

Expect music to be made and taken apart, as well, this Saturday at City Hall. The concert is being billed, with poker-faced irony, as: “Dr. Chadbourne, Solo Guitar and Banjo.”

Don’t go anticipating you’ll hear “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” at least in a recognizable form.

DETAILS

Eugene Chadbourne, 8 p.m. Saturday at Ventura City Hall, 501 Poli St.; $10; https://www.pfmentum.com.

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FAMILIAR FACE: The fine Canadian-born violinist Corey Cerovsek has become a familiar face around Ventura in the past couple of years. For the past two editions of the Ventura Chamber Music Festival in the late spring, Cerovsek has proved an amiable presence and a masterful musician.

This Saturday night, he appears in a special seasonal concert presented by the Chamber Music Festival at Ventura College, a benefit for next year’s festival. On the menu is a compact version of that sturdy chestnut, Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” with Cerovsek as a soloist. The young violinist will also conduct the Rossetti String Quartet.

Vivaldi’s baroque jewel has inspired fresh interpretations. A very different take on this work was recently heard in Santa Barbara, when Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica performed a program called “Eight Seasons,” mixing material of Vivaldi and Argentine composer Piazzolla. But the real McCoy is always worth another listen.

DETAILS

Corey Cerovsek and the Rossetti String Quartet, playing Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”; 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Ventura College Theater, 4667 Telegraph Road; $25 and $15; 648-3146.

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VOICES RAISED: Los Robles Master Chorale will offer a holiday program with a twist this weekend at Moorpark College. Aside from the usual confections of carols and yuletide sentiments, it will present the West Coast premiere of British composer Paul Patterson’s “Magnificat,” replete with chorus, brass and percussion. Premiered in New Zealand in 1994, the work has been heard in the United Kingdom and on the East Coast several times, thereby surviving the “world premiere” jinx often faced by new music.

The chorale also will perform John Rutter’s “Brother Heinrich’s Christmas,” with guest narrator Bernard Raven Roberts.

DETAILS

Los Robles Master Chorale, 8 p.m. today and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Moorpark College Performing Arts Center, 7075 Campus Road; $18 general admission, $14 seniors, $10 for students, and $6 children 12 and under; 497-0386.

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JAZZ ALERT: Stu Goldberg, the keyboardist whose resume includes work with John McLaughlin, is bringing his quartet to California 66 this Saturday. In the band are his brother, Kenny Goldberg, on saxes and flute, bassist Jeff Faulkner and drummer Dave Renick.

DETAILS

Stu Goldberg Quartet, 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Saturday at 66 California, 66 California St. in Ventura; no cover; 648-2266.

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Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.