All day: Celebration

The Southwest Museum honors the role Hispanic culture has played in the history of California by hosting a festive two-day Mercado. Originally, a mercado was a marketplace in Mexico where the trading of such items as corn and baskets took place. Guests at the museum’s Mount Washington site can buy masks, sculpture, pottery, weavings and paintings from Mexico and Central America. There will also be Mexican music, dance and food.

* Mercado, Southwest Museum, 234 Museum Drive, L.A. Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. $6; students and ages 62 and over, $4; ages 6-17, $3. (323) 221-2164.

8 pm: Pop Music

Sean Booth and Rob Brown emerged from the hip-hop scene in Manchester, England, zeroed in on the music’s electronic component and, under the group name Autechre, have developed over the past decade into one of the leading forces in experimental music--and one with a reputation for unmatched flexibility as live performers.

* Autechre, with Curtis Roads, Rob Hall and Russell Haswell, El Rey Theatre, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. $15. (323) 936-4790.

All day: Festival

Strawberry lovers will once again converge in Oxnard for the 18th Annual California Strawberry Festival. Numerous food items featuring this delectable red berry will be on sale, including strawberry pizza, shortcake and kebabs. The celebration also includes strawberry-related games and contests and an art and craft sale. Live musical entertainment will be provided by Dave Mason, Ambrosia and David Clayton-Thomas. Various children’s attractions from a carousel to a petting zoo will be offered at the Strawberryland for Kids area.

* California Strawberry Festival, Strawberry Meadows of College Park, 3250 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard. Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. $9; ages 5-12, and 55 and over, $5; ages 4 and under, free. (888) 288-9242.

8 pm: Music

With a program indicating the breadth of his musical interests, guest conductor Bobby McFerrin takes over the podium of the Pacific Chorale for one night only. The charismatic musician, as famous for his on-the-spot inventions, jazz riffs and vocal improvisations as his classical grounding, will conduct Gabriel Faure’s Requiem, plus spirituals and jazz arrangements, as well as improvisations by the group.

* Bobby McFerrin conducts the Pacific Chorale at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, 8 p.m. $15 to $49. (714) 740-7878.

8 pm: Music

Solo piano music by Beethoven, Schoenberg, Webern and Terry Riley provide the introduction to Brahms’ G-minor Piano Quartet, Opus 25, when Southwest Chamber Music closes its “The Universe” concert series.

* Southwest Chamber Music, Norton Simon Museum Theater, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, 8 p.m. $10 to $25. (800) 726-7147. Also, May 22 at 8 p.m. at Zipper Hall, Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.

1&3 pm: Theater/Family

“Beanstalk! A Tall Tale,” a family show by Lori Marshall about a pizza delivery boy who’s afraid of heights, features a professional cast of stage and film veterans that includes Marcia Strassman (“Honey, I Shrunk the Kids”), Richard Ashton, Nadege Auguste, Matt Young and the voice of Danny Bonaduce.

* “Beanstalk! A Tall Tale,” Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. Saturdays, 1 and 3 p.m.; Sundays, 1 p.m. Ends July 8. $10. (818) 955-8101.

*

FREEBIES

“Julian Stanczak: Pioneer of Op Art,” a 50-year survey of abstract paintings by the “Optical” artist, opens at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Ends July 22. (310) 506-4851.

*

Mark Taper Forum’s “Blacksmyths Play Development and Playwrights Lab” presents its sixth annual Juneteenth readings of a changing bill of new plays by African American playwrights David Lee Lindsey, Kira Arne, Tanya Wright, Christina Anderson, Lorey Hayes, Syd Rushing and Kim Yvonne Euell. At the Music Center Annex, 601 W. Temple St., downtown L.A. 3, 5:30 and 8 p.m. Also Sunday, 2, 3, 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. (213) 972-8088.