The city will be alive with the sound of music this weekend, with the final shows of the Cabaret Fringe and concerts by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Youth Orchestra and Adelaide Chamber Singers.

Singer Mojo Juju and acoustic blues musician Lloyd Spiegel will present concerts of a different style, while other weekend picks include a tribute to ’70s star Cat Stevens and a Holden Street show that’s gone to the dogs.

Cabaret Fringe Festival

Singer-songwriter Jen de Ness is promising a cocktail of “tongue-in-cheek cabaret, smoky bluesy numbers, and Kerouac-meets-Piaf” at her show See Things Like You. There are performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings at La Boheme as part of the Cabaret Fringe, which finishes this weekend. Other shows include burlesque performer Luna Eclipse’s Adult-ish (La Boheme), The Fabulettes’ She’s So Fine (The Promethean) and To Diva or Not to Diva (Crown & Sceptre). The full Cab Fringe program can be downloaded here.

Great Classics – Symphony & Song

Soprano Christine Brewer is joining the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for this concert at the Festival Theatre on Saturday night. Conducted by Christoph Koenig, Symphony & Song will comprise Strauss’s Four Last Songs, Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Overture), and Mahler’s Symphony No 1, which takes its nickname, Titan, from the novel by Romantic author Jean Paul which influenced the composer when he was writing the epic work.

Mojo Juju

Mojo Juju (right) knows how to seduce a crowd with her sultry charm and rich vocals, and she’s back in town tonight (Friday) for a gig at Pirie Street Social Club. The Melbourne singer is touring on the back of her second solo album, Seeing Red / Feeling Blue, which combines elements of R ’n’ B, soul and funk, but with an added punch of pop and a slight electronic flavour. You can get a taste of the sound here. The live gigs include members of The Cactus Channel, The Bangin’ Rackettes and Steve “T-Bone” Ruiz de Luzuriaga.

Mutts – A Dog’s Tale

“Funny and moving, this play will open your eyes to what may be going through a dog’s mind,” says the blurb for Mutts at Holden Street Theatres. The show sees nine unwanted dogs sharing their stories of how they ended up at the local refuge. Performances continue until July 4, with ticket sales helping raise money for adoption programs run by Paws & Claws Adoptions Incorporated and SA Dog Rescue.

Adelaide Chamber Singers

Northern Lights is the title of the first concert in the Adelaide Chamber Singers’ 2015 subscription season, with performances  on  Saturday at 6.30pm in St Peter’s Cathedral, North Adelaide, and Sunday at 3pm at The Village Well, Aldgate Church of Christ. “Northern Lights is descriptive of both art and nature in this concert,” says  conductor Christie Anderson. “The clear, pristine and eternal coldness of the northern night and the graceful, elegant and ever-changing shapes of the Aurora Borealis are depicted in the tonalities, compositional colours and textures of the works by composers and poets from the north.” Program details here.

Cirque du Soleil’s Totem

Presented under the big top in the west parklands, Totem traces the journey of humankind, beginning with amphibians emerging from the water and continuing all the way through to attempts to fly to the Moon. The show, created by Canadian writer and director Robert Lepage, combines spectacular imagery, set design and costumes with the slick acrobatics for which Cirque du Soleil is renowned. see InDaily’s review here. Performances continue in Adelaide until July 12.

Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices

Exploring the cultural and spiritual exchange between Europe and Asia during the era of the spice trade, this exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia comprises around 300 works including paintings, furniture, textiles, ceramics and engravings. It is imbued with stories of adventure, shipwrecks, piracy and treasure. Click here to read InDaily’s story about Treasures Ships, which will be at the gallery until August 30, and here for a list of associated gallery events this weekend.

Peace Train – a tribute to Cat Stevens

Darren Coggan (right) is returning for an encore performance of his tribute to ’70s singer-songwriter Cat Stevens at the Dunstan Playhouse on Saturday. The show features a mixture of music and storytelling, including hits such as “Moonshadow”, “Peace Train” and “Morning Has Broken”.

AdYO – Passion

The Adelaide Youth Orchestra (with guest conductor Nicholas Braithwaite) is collaborating with State Opera for this semi-staged production. Passion will include  arias, trios and choruses from Act 1 of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Act 2 of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, and the final trio and duet from Richard Strauss’s  Der Rosenkavalier. Sunday’s performance at the State Opera of SA Studio has sold out, but tickets are still available for Saturday’s concert.

Lloyd Spiegel

Acoustic blues musician Lloyd Spiegel is celebrating 25 years in the biz with a new double live album and a tour that sees him perform at The Semaphore Workers Club tonight (Friday) and The Wheatsheaf Hotel on Saturday.  Spiegel’s style is said to blend both tradition and originality, with the album’s tracks including blues classics from the likes of John Lee Hooker, tunes from his Australian mentors Alex Legg and  “Dutch” Tilders, plus originals.

Heart of Gold Short Film Festival Highlights

Oscar-winning short drama The Phone Call – about a shy helpline worker who receives a call from a mystery man – is among the Heart of Gold International Short Film Festival Highlights screening this evening at the Mercury Cinema. Heart of Gold seeks to showcase “well-crafted nourishing and uplifting films”, with the highlights also including new Australian short Super Sounds. There will be live entertainment by country band The Sloe Ruin.

Reasons to be Pretty

This comedy, the third in a trilogy of plays by Neil LaBute exploring male-female relationships, confronts society’s obsession with physical beauty. Reasons to be Pretty centres on four friends who are about to find out if their relationships can survive some harsh truths. Directed by Joh Hartog, the production is playing at the Bakehouse Theatre in Angas Street until June 27.

Science & Art: 12 Years of the Waterhouse Prize

This free retrospective exhibition at the South Australian Museum displays all the overall winners of the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize since it launched in 2002. Each work is paired with material from the museum’s own and other collections to further explore the science behind the art.

Karumapuli exhibition – Tandanya

South Australian artist Jacob Stengle’s solo exhibition is titled Karumapuli, the Ngarrindjeri word for Boobook Owl, which was the totem of his maternal grandfather Milerum (Clarence Long).  Showing at Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute until July 18, the exhibition includes large-scale paintings and drawings inspired by the artist’s personal and cultural history.

On screen

See InDaily’s reviews of the latest films screening in Adelaide:

Love and Mercy
Far From the Madding Crowd
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Jurassic World
Partisan
Tomorrowland
Touch
Mad Max: Fury Road