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Our fourth of 10 Folk Fest Red Carpet Concerts is with Harrison B and Tim Pepper. Harrison B, who is currently based in Seattle, defines his sound as progressive American Soul. Here is “Keep it Movin.”

Our Red Carpet Concert Folk Fest sessions are a collaboration between KTOO Public Media, Juneau filmmaker Ryan Cortes of Gemini Waltz Media, and Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus. Tune in Wednesday for the release of Kim Beggs.

Watch other Red Carpet Concerts with musicians like Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms, Liz Snyder and Patrick Troll, and Sean Tracey and Nate May. Tune in Wednesday for the release of Kim Beggs.

Our third of 10 Folk Fest Red Carpet Concerts is with Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms. The Portland, Oregon-based musicians are also part of the Foghorn Stringband and the Caleb Klauder Country Band. Here they sing a duet called “Last Time I Saw You.”

Watch more Red Carpet Concerts with musicians like Liz Snyder and Patrick Troll, Sean Tracey and Nate May, and Dara Rilatos. Tune in Monday for the release of Harrison B.

During this year’s Alaska Folk Festival, we filmed ten bands in a tiny room at the Alaskan Hotel as part of our Red Carpet Concert series. The videos are inspired by NPR’s popular Tiny Desk Concerts. The only criteria for the short concerts are that the music is original, and that it is played on the arts room’s red carpet wherever it may be — at KTOO, in a parking garage or on a beach.

Here are past Red Carpet Concerts with musicians like the Bowties, Sean Tracey and Nate May, Dara Rilatos, Cousin Curtiss, or Sophia Street. Check back on Friday for the release of Oregon-based Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms.

The Atlanta-based Vega String Quartet kicked off the Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival‘s Brown Bag Concert series Monday. The 30th annual festival runs through May 21 in venues all over town.

Nearly 200 Juneau students attended the free performance in the State Office Building atrium, including eight classes from Harbor View, Glacier Valley, Montessori Borealis and Riverbend elementary schools. The quartet has a residency at Emory University and shared a program of classical and contemporary string arrangements.

Here’s their performance of part of Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.”

See the entire Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival schedule at jazzandclassics.org.

The quartet’s concert was sponsored by Hecla Greens Creek and Princess Tours, which bused more then 150 students to the State Office Building.

Full Disclosure: Annie Bartholomew is a member of the Juneau Jazz & Classics Board of Directors.

What do you get when you pack 10 Alaska Folk Festival bands and all the audio/video gear and people to shoot and record them into a 12-by-12-foot room at the Alaskan Hotel?

You get a series of one-song videos with bands like The Carper Family, Harrison B, Foghorn Stringband, Kim Beggs and the Bowties. Over the next three weeks, we’re releasing a series of Red Carpet Concerts from Folk Fest, a collaboration between KTOO Public Media, Juneau filmmaker Ryan Cortes and audio engineer Justin Smith.

To start, here is the San Francisco-based Bowties with “Houston Blues.”

Here are some of our other Red Carpet Concerts with musicians like Sean Tracey and Nate May, Dara Rilatos, Cousin Curtiss and Sophia Street. Check in on Wednesday for the release of Whisky Class with Liz Snyder and Patrick Troll.

Perseverance Theatre’s production of “Annapurna” opens this Friday.

Anchorage-based actor Kevin T. Bennett says, “It’s like a symphony of missed opportunities for human beings.” Despite the gloomy description, he is quick to point out the play is also quite funny.

Bennett is one of two actors in the production and plays a recovering alcoholic who lives in a low-rent trailer park in Colorado.

“There’s this fella, by the name of Ulysses, who has had a remarkably checkered past. His health is failing and it looks grim for him. In through the door walks his estranged wife of 20 years,” says Bennett.

Enter Fairbanks-based Rebecca George who plays Emma. Readers may recognize her from her part as Dean Wreen in last spring’s Perseverance production of “Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England.”

“Over the course of the play we have an opportunity to explore the core of our humanity, and humor, the remnants of love, and rationale and substance abuse. In any case, the story unfolds in these two characters over the course of an hour and 40 minutes until we reach the conclusion—it’s a bit shocking,” Bennett says. He also played Ulysses in Perseverance’s productions of “Annapurna” in Anchorage.

“It’s very lyrical. There are sentiments shared by these two characters that are just so truthful that it’s impossible not to relate to,” says Bennett.

In researching the part, Bennett spoke with playwright Sharr White.

“He has a way with words. We discussed how he wrote the play, and how the words are almost musical. They’re orchestrated in such a way that they’re like movements, individual movements, of a fine piece of classical music,” says Bennett.

While “Annapurna” officially opens Friday at Perseverance Theatre, you can catch pay-as-you-can previews Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.