Pop Notes: Aging Musicians in Action 

Singer-songwriter Janis Ian isn’t expected to pick up her guitar and sing at the Riviera Theatre on Sunday morning, April 6, but the audience will still get good glimpses in her life and songbook via a preview screening of the new documentary Janis Ian: Breaking Silence. The movie, written and directed by Varda Bar-Kar, makes note of how Ian’s career mirrored the awakening of American women in the 1960s and ‘70s as they “found their voices” and embraced their power. 

Among the stories are an early life-changing moment for Ian at 16, when she had just started touring behind her Top 20 debut single “Society’s Child” in 1966. At a theater in Encino, she ran into a handful of race-baiting chanters who interrupted her performance of the song about the taboo subject of interracial romance. Ian eventually got through the show with the help of audience members and theater staff tossing out the protestorsm, and went on to have a highly influential career that includes a 1975 Top 10 single with “At Seventeen.”

Bar-Kar and Ian, who turns 74 the day following the Riviera event, will be on hand for a Q&A following the screening of the film that also features Joan Baez, Lily Tomlin, Arlo Guthrie, Jean Smart, Laurie Metcalf and others. Visit www.sbiff.org

Elsewhere, Santa Barbara’s vibrant group of amateur musicians ages 40 to 90-plus – The Prime Time Band – kicks off their 30^th anniversary year with a spring concert. The show will feature surprise guests and memories of past performances – symphonic band music that boasts a wide variety of pop, classics, show tunes, marches and seasonal music. For instance, the free afternoon program on April 6 at the Lobero will include pieces by Holst, Sousa, Brubeck, and the soundtrack to Top Gun. Visit www.lobero.org

The Rock Orchestra by Candlelight is a 14-strong British collective of costumed classical musicians whose concerts – bathed in an ethereal glow – transform rock and metal songs by AC/DC, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Linkin Park and others into swirling, dark symphonic rhapsodies that bridge the chasm between metal, hard rock, and classical music. Check out their Santa Barbara debut at the Granada on April 6.