THREE-DAY FORECAST

JAZZ

Living up to the buzz

Today is Lizz Wright’s 24th birthday. She’ll celebrate with four performances this weekend in Orange County. After several years of buzz generated by her live performances, Wright finally released her first solo CD, “Salt,” in May to a waiting jazz public. The Atlanta-born singer-songwriter’s gospel-flavored, richly dark vocal timbre has drawn comparisons to Sarah Vaughan, Bessie Smith and others.

Lizz Wright, Founders Hall, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Friday and Saturday, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. $46-$49. (714) 556-2787.

THEATER

Creature feature

Dogs and cats -- all rescued from animal shelters -- along with assorted mice and birds perform their favorite tricks in “Comedy and Pet Theatre,” a family show presented by noted Moscow Circus star and animal trainer Gregory Popovich, who has appeared on Leno’s and Letterman’s shows with his feathered and furry stars.

“Comedy and Pet Theatre,” Pepperdine University Center for the Arts, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Saturday, 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. $17.50. (310) 506-4522. (213) 365-3500.

WORDS

Turning the page on 8

The children’s bookstore and art gallery Storyopolis turns 9 years old this weekend and is throwing itself a party. The two-day celebration and festival, Turning the Page on Imagination: A Children’s Book Festival” brings together 15 children’s book authors, artists and other celebrities. Professionals such as Barney Saltzberg (“Crazy Hair Day”), Clive Barker (“Imajica”), Joe Cepeda (“The Tapping Tale”) and others will read from and sign their works. Children will enjoy story times, musical performances, drama and craft workshops. And visitors are encouraged to bring along any used books for donation to the Wonder of Reading program.

“Turning the Page on Imagination,” Storyopolis, 116 N. Robertson Blvd., Plaza A, Los Angeles. Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. (310) 358-2500.

POP MUSIC

In ‘Awe’ of Newman

In his recorded and on-stage endeavors, producer Hal Willner has saluted such artists as Kurt Weill, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Mingus, Nino Rota and renegade folklorist Harry Smith. A diverse bunch, but they have one thing in common -- they’re all dead. Willner has recently moved into the realm of the living, mounting a tribute to Leonard Cohen in New York last year and now, for the first time, staging a musical tribute to a man who is likely to be in the house. The lineup of “Shock and Awe: The Songs of Randy Newman” is packed with performers whose bent sensibilities promise intriguing matches with the Newman oeuvre, including Gavin Friday, Stan Ridgway, E (of the Eels), Vic Chesnutt and Victoria Williams, not to mention such wild cards as actor Rip Torn. Setting the stage, Newman himself will delve into the songbook in his own solo show the night before.

Randy Newman, Royce Hall, UCLA, Westwood, Friday, 8 p.m. $40-$50. (310) 825-2101. “Shock and Awe: The Songs of Randy Newman,” Royce Hall, Saturday, 8 p.m. $35-$50.

POP MUSIC

Tween queen Duff

As she moves from the Nickelodeon incubator into the perils of the big entertainment world, Hilary Duff has been iffy on the big screen (“The Lizzie McGuire Movie” rates as a modest success), but she looks like a potential force on the record charts -- her album “Metamorphosis” has sold more than 2.5 million copies. And as a live entertainer? She will show what she’s got as she headlines the 6,000-seat Universal Amphitheatre.

Hilary Duff, Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, Saturday, 3:15 and 7:15 p.m. $30-$45. (818) 622-4440.

MUSEUMS

A woven history

Centuries ago, the Safavid Dynasty, of what is now modern-day Iran, was at the center of a creative culture that saw the rural craft of carpet-weaving evolve into an art form. The Ardabil Carpet -- measuring 23 feet by 13 feet and woven of silk and wool, about 350 knots per square inch, 15.5 million knots total -- likely took six weavers four years to complete. It is one of a matching pair of Persian treasures and is signed and dated. Above the signature are lines of verse from the poet Hafiz:

Other than thy threshold

I have not refuge in this

world.

My head has no resting

place other than this

doorway.

“The Ardabil Carpet: A Sixteenth-Century Masterpiece Conserved,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Opens today at noon. Museum hours: Mondays and Tuesdays, Thursdays, noon-8 p.m.; Fridays, noon-9 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; closed Wednesdays. Ends May 11. Adults, $9; students and seniors, $5; 17 and younger, free. (323) 857-6000.

DANCE

United in movement

In “Can You Move Me?,” provocative, locally based contemporary choreographers Arianne MacBean and Stefan Fabry share an evening at Highways

Performance Space in Santa Monica. MacBean produces the annual Dance Moving Forward festival and specializes in what a Times reviewer called “thoughtful,

humane, feminist panorama.” Her “Way of

Moving” is a series of solos and trios choreographed for members of her troupe, the Big Show Company. Most often involved with contact improvisation

collaborations, Fabry has been praised in these pages for work boasting “powerful dance values and tight organization.” His 30-minute solo

“Gonna Stay” makes

use of a bag of barbecue charcoal in order to

create a series of

moods, images and landscapes.

“Can You Move Me?,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Friday and Saturday, 8:30 p.m. $13-$15. (310) 315-1459.

FESTIVAL

Monkey time of year

Chinatown celebrates the Year of the Monkey 4702 with a two-day Chinese New Year Festival that will also feature the 105th annual Golden Dragon Parade, a car show and such family fare as crafts, games, martial arts demonstrations, entertainment and food. For more information, see www.chinatownla.com.

Chinese New Year Festival, 727 N. Hill St., Chinatown. Saturday, noon-9 p.m.; Sunday, noon-6 p.m. The parade runs along Broadway and Hill streets on Saturday at 2 p.m. Free. (213) 617-0396.

MUSIC

Violins all, big to small

A violincello isn’t a larger, deeper-sounding violin. It’s a different instrument altogether. But luthier Carleen Hutchins has created a set of violins, from small to large, that are perfectly matched acoustically -- her cello-sized violin actually does sound like a deeper violin. The Hutchins Consort demonstrates its unique sound in this concert of music by Tchaikovsky, Bottesini and Dvorak.

Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. Friday,

8 p.m. $29-$34. (949) 854-4646. Neurosciences Institute, 10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive, San Diego. Saturday, 8 p.m. $29. (760) 632-0554.

MOVIES

Building a legacy for a father

The legacy of an architect can be one of the most enduring in the arts, yet the body of Louis I. Kahn, one of the 20th century’s most prominent builders, went unclaimed for three days upon his death in 1974. Kahn, whose many projects included the Yale University Art Gallery, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, the Kimbell Art Gallery in Fort Worth, Texas, and the capital buildings in Bangladesh (which were not completed until 1983), died alone and in debt, despite having families with three women, only one of whom was his wife. Nathaniel Kahn, one of his extramarital offspring and only son, narrates and directs the documentary “My Architect,” a five-year exploration of his father’s life, featuring interviews with the people who knew him, including other notable architects, such as Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei and Philip Johnson.

“My Architect,” unrated, opens Friday exclusively at the Landmark Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 281-8223.