Thursday: Sky Ferreira at the Fillmore 

Sky Ferreira brings her brand of synthy, grungy dance to the Fillmore tonight (Thursday). Her music is a wonderful contradiction, both grimy and sparkly, like waking up after a long, sweaty night out covered in glitter and smeared makeup, with some already half-forgotten memories dancing in your head. She has only released one full-length album—in addition to a few EPs during her early MySpace popularity—Night Time, My Time (2013). The album’s release was delayed two years but was included on many “best of” lists that year including Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Stereogum, and more. The murky synth, fuzzy guitars, and dark lyrics all nod to Siouxsie Sioux, but Ferreira’s bright vocals and the danceable beats recall early Madonna. She’s been teasing her sophomore album for almost a decade, but creative differences with her label and her own perfectionism are often cited as reasons for the delays. Luckily, she has released two singles from the long-awaited Masochism so far—the lushly vampiric “Downhill Lullaby,” with shuddering strings and drowning vocals, and the synth-rock confection “Don’t Forget,” a Pat Benatar-esque ode to revenge. Together, they show how the 30-year-old Ferreira has aced her music history homework. She has fully embraced the full spectrum of 1980s musical excesses. If your kink is waiting forever for a full-length album release, then the two promising tracks from Masochism should bring just enough pleasure in the meantime. Skye Ferreira plays at 8 p.m. on June 29 at the Fillmore Silver Spring, 8656 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. livenation.com. $29.50–$46.50. —Colleen Kennedy 

Starting today: Smithsonian Folklife Festival 

The 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, taking place June 29 through July 9 near the National Mall, has two programs: The Ozarks: Faces and Facets of a Region and Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S. The festival will present and expand on the titles of those programs through food preparation, music, talk, and craft. The Ozarks portion will focus on people living in a region named by the Illini that has come to include Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. Demonstrations will include the Arkansas moonshine-making process, First Nation Native American dance, Hmong American farmers’ plant-based medicine practices, and chef Rafael Ríos—behind the Arkansas restaurant Yeyo’s El Alma de Mexico—will make mole estofado. The show will also feature veteran Ozarks musicians including Pam Setser playing mountain dulcimer folk, and Melissa Carpe, of the genre-bending folk band Sad Daddy, and Ozark storyteller and musician Marideth Sisco offering twangy, old-timey folk. The Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S. program will offer an expansive definition of spirituality with the Buddhist Nen Daiko drummers, Puerto Rican percussionists Bomba Yemayá, Afro Brazilian Candomble music and dance with Egbe Omo Alairá, plus Chinese New Year dumpling making, and the creation of Guatemalan flower and sawdust carpets—called alfombras de aserrín. Sometimes the two programs will crossover, as when the Brockwell Gospel Music School in Arkansas and the Hampden Mennonite Church in Maryland harmonize and sing together on July 3 at 2 p.m. Most nights there will be evening concerts including early 1970s rock hitmakers the Ozark Mountain Devils of “Jackie Blue” fame on the Fourth of July. A very impressive gospel bill Friday, June 30, at 6 p.m. features sacred steel guitarist Fran “Lady Strings” Grace, the Kingdom Fellowship AME Church choir, and longtime Richmond-based powerhouse vocalists Legendary Ingramettes. Smithsonian Folklife Festival runs June 29 to July 4 and July 6 to July 9 on the National Mall, between 7th and 12th streets NW. Daytime programming runs 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily; evening events begin shortly after, usually at 6 p.m. festival.si.edu. Free. —Steve Kiviat  

Friday and Saturday: Natalie Merchant at the Kennedy Center

Driving through western New York recently, I decided to make my soundtrack some of the classic albums by 10,000 Maniacs, the pop-folk band originally from nearby Jamestown, New York, that I had listened to in heavy rotation during the late 1980s. I was pleased to discover that they held up well, both musically and substantively. By now, the band’s then-lead vocalist, Natalie Merchant, is long gone; she announced a solo career in 1993 that lasted twice as long as her tenure with 10,000 Maniacs. As a solo artist, Merchant has released nine studio albums, though most didn’t come close to the mass market sales of her early, pop-friendlier work. (Always committed to social causes, Merchant has also taken detours from her solo career to direct a documentary about domestic violence and to teach music to preschoolers in a Head Start program.) Merchant hadn’t released an album with all-original material in almost a decade until April’s Keep Your Courage. The album features serious-minded, atmospheric baroque pop, backed by violins and other orchestral-style instrumentations and a focus on feminine figures such as Aphrodite and Joan of Arc, a statue of whom graces the cover. Merchant’s throaty vocal style has aged gracefully (as has her now-gray hair), though a few understated numbers make the album drag at times. (Going solo has given her this freedom; the songs on Keep Your Courage average a minute and a half longer than those from her 10,000 Maniacs days.) Two duets with Abena Koomson–Davis of the Resistance Revival Chorus impress; elsewhere, Merchant experiments with jazz, Celtic, and pop piano themes. The album was written during the pandemic, but the bigger influence was likely Merchant’s own medical scare a few years ago: a degenerative spinal disease that required a six-hour surgery that involved moving her vocal cords aside to allow the removal of three bones from her spine. Initially, she couldn’t sing. “It took me to a place of panic,” she told the Guardian in April. “It made me wish I had made more records.” Now fully recovered, she’s ready to perform songs from Keep Your Courage (and other albums) this Friday and Saturday at the Kennedy Center along with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Bagwell. The concerts start at 8 p.m. on June 30 and July 1 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. kennedy-center.org. $49–$129. —Louis Jacobson

Through July 9: Alan Sislen at Multiple Exposures Gallery

Alan Sislen, a Maryland-based photographer, failed to heed the “show, don’t tell” rule when he chose the title Amazing Aspens for his new exhibit at Multiple Exposures Gallery. The visual merits of the quaking aspen would come across just fine without the hype. The tree that Sislen documents is anchored by a silvery, cylindrical trunk and decorated with bright yellow leaves; its unusual system of aggressively sprouting “clone” shoots, at a short distance, tends to produce sprawling splotches of gold amid the greenery of landscapes in the American West. Sislen offers a few black-and-white images, including one of bare trunks that echoes the ghostly arboreal images of fellow gallery member Sarah Hood Salomon. But the payoff comes with the color images, which offer enough intricate details to warrant pushing your nose right up to the glass. An underappreciated factor in Sislen’s images is the sky, which varies from cumulus-laden clarity to a looming fog that carries a whiff of unease. (Could it be an encroaching wildfire?) One image, “Leaf Shadows,” offers a reminder that Sislen was wise to mostly park himself at a distance: In this close-up, the aspens’ leaves are plainly pocked with jarring brown spots. The far more pleasing image, “Zorro Was Here,” depicts the aspen canopy as if it had the texture of velvet. Alan Sislen’s Amazing Aspens runs through July 9 at Multiple Exposures Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, Suite 312, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. multipleexposuresgallery.com. Free. —Louis Jacobson

Next Thursday: Lido Pimienta at the Kennedy Center

“Me siento ein sof” is a refrain Lido Pimienta repeats on her latest release, the ethereal “EIN SOF, Infinito.” Half in Spanish and half in Hebrew (the song was written for Ein Sof, a film by the Colombian Israeli director Orly Anan), the phrase translates to “I feel infinite.” It’s a good motto for Pimienta, whose range feels never-ending. Born to an Afro Colombian and Indigenous family in Barranquilla, Colombia, Pimienta relocated to Canada as a teenager, but she never lost touch with her roots. Her music—which includes her 2010 debut, Color, 2016’s La Papessa, and 2020’s Miss Colombia—is firmly grounded in Afro Colombian genres such as cumbia and bullerengue. Pimienta uses those traditions as building blocks to create modern soundscapes that flirt with synth-pop, over which her emotive voice tells stories about immigration, identity, discrimination, and empowerment. Take Miss Colombia’s “Pelo Cucu,” a disarmingly sweet-sounding tune that calls out colorism in Latin America through the perspective of a young Brown girl straightening her hair to impress a White boy. Whether it’s in her lyrics, on stage, on her CBC variety show, or on Twitter, Pimienta has no issue calling out racists, TERFs, or trolls. Recently, she used the latter platform to speak about experiencing discrimination in airports, a factor that’s pushing her to leave touring—and a career in the music industry—behind for good. “One more album and that’s it,” she tweeted. “No more tours.” Spend an evening getting lost in Pimienta’s spellbinding musical fusions while you can. Lido Pimienta plays at 6 p.m. on July 6 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. kennedy-center.org. Free. —Ella Feldman

Through Aug. 20: Da Vinci Exhibition at MLK Library 

D.C. boasts the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci exhibited in the United States. The exquisite portrait of the Florentine beauty Ginevra de’ Benci is proudly displayed at the National Gallery of Art. But this summer, more of da Vinci’s works will be on view at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. In the exhibition Imagining the Future–Leonardo da Vinci: In the Mind of an Italian Genius, 12 of his original drawings will allow visitors to engage with da Vinci’s singular genius as an artist, inventor, engineer, mathematician, and scientist. The sketches and notes are marvels of da Vinci’s mind, showing how his 15th-century designs have inspired many modern inventions from submarines and helicopters to innovations that have improved the textile, architectural, and construction industries, as well as water and air quality management. The dozen works are only a fraction of the 1,200 pages of da Vinci’s notes, drawings, and diagrams (c. 1478–1519) archived at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, Italy. The exhibit is brought to the U.S. by Confindustria (the largest business association representing manufacturing and service companies in Italy), Italian industrial partners, the Embassy of Italy, and the Italian Cultural Institute. Imagining the Future is curated by Monsignor Alberto Rocca, a leading world expert on da Vinci and the director of the Art Gallery of Biblioteca Ambrosiana. This is the first time that these rare works are coming to the U.S., and the library is creating more opportunities for engagement and discovery with “Leonardo’s Lab,” an all-ages space for testing da Vinci’s designs, as well as a collection of books and resources—again, for all ages—focused on da Vinci. It’s pretty popular though, so visitors may encounter a wait to enter. Imagining the Future–Leonardo da Vinci: In the Mind of an Italian Genius runs through Aug. 20 at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW. dclibrary.org. Free. —Colleen Kennedy