Top Picks

Wake up!

It calls itself “an orchestra of voices,” and few choral ensembles can match Chanticleer, the male a cappella group that specializes in medieval and Renaissance vocal music. Even its name (borrowed from that of the rooster in “Canterbury Tales”) means “to sing clear.” The 12 songsters are on a 30th anniversary tour and stop by George Mason University Center for the Arts on April 4 with a bill that includes Palestrina, Byrd and some plainsong. See Classical Music.

Politics as dance

Victoria Marks, a Guggenheim Fellow who teaches choreography at UCLA, wraps all her work in politics. “Not About Iraq,” a meditation on the dislocations of that war, is no exception. Ms. Marks previewed an excerpt from the piece in Washington last fall; now she and her dancers return to Dance Place on April 5 and 6 for a full-length performance. See Dance.

The kilted community

James MacMillan has been called the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation, one whose works combine Scottish, Irish, pan-Celtic and other European strains in every variant from jigs to drinking songs. He comes to the the Music Center at Strathmore on April 3 to conduct the BSO in, among other things, his own Piano Concerto No. 2 and “Stomp,” based on Irish dance. Rolf Hind is at the piano. See Classical Music.

Feelin’ blue

Last year the Textile Museum tackled the color red and all its works and pomps. This year it’s blue’s turn, and with the show called simply Blue, museum curators explore the use of the cool, calming hue on textiles ranging from Greco-Roman and pre-Columbian tunic fragments to installations by contemporary artists, with special emphasis on the mythology and lore of indigo. The exhibit opens April 4 and runs through Sept. 18. See Museums.

Swoon time

He’s everybody’s favorite Broadway matinee idol, with credits ranging from “Ragtime” to “Sweeney Todd,” and he plays the Music Center at Strathmore on April 4. Tony-winning baritone Brian Stokes Mitchell will reprise the hits of a 20-year career. See Pop Music.

Fury on canvas

The Ecuadorian painter and sculptor Oswaldo Guayasamin, who died in 1999 at the age of 79, lived through some of his country’s most tumultuous times, and his art shows it. Of Rage and Redemption: The Art of Oswaldo Guayasamin, at the Art Museum of the Americas from April 5 to May 29, features more than 40 works that range across emotions but focus on political and social terror. See Museums.

The heart of it all

Two of hip-hop’s most celebrated artists hit Washington for one night only, on a 25-date North American co-headlining tour that fans have been waiting for. Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z: The Heart of the City Tour touches down at the Verizon Center April 6; Verizon may never be the same. See Pop Music.

Diplomatic jam

The Brubeck Festival, celebrating what was, 50 years ago, a new and offbeat way for America to engage the world, gets off to a colorful start April 3 with Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World, at the Meridian International Center through July 13. The show features more than 80 images, posters and other materials on the tours of jazz musicians the U.S. State Department picked to serve as roving cultural ambassadors — including Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter and Sarah Vaughan. See Galleries.

Classic theater

When the late John Houseman became famous for creating the very model of the academic martinet in “The Paper Chase,” everyone forgot what he had done before — including his work with Orson Welles, with whom he founded radio’s landmark Mercury Theatre. Houseman’s legacy lives on in The Acting Company, a troupe he founded in 1972 that teaches theater and literacy by touring the classics to more than 50 cities a year. Now it comes to George Mason University Center for the Arts, on April 5 offering Moby Dick Rehearsed, Welles’ own adaptation of the Melville novel, and on April 6 Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Theater buffs, take note. See Stage.