There’s lots of arts to experience this week if HELEN MUSA’s Artsweek column is any guide. And it is!

Grammy award-winning artist Macy Gray, with her sultry take on R&B, is playing at The Playhouse, July 11. The concert is a celebration of the 25th anniversary of her 1999 debut, triple-platinum album, On How Life Is. 

In a new lecture for ArtsNational Molonglo Plains, What Have the Huguenots Done for Us? Vivienne Laws, from the UK, discusses the mass migration of French Protestant Huguenots in the 16th and 17th centuries. C3 Auditorium, Crawford Street, Queanbeyan, July 11.

After months of refurbishment work on campus, Friends of the ANU Classics Museum volunteer guides are conducting a presentation, Highlights of the Museum, looking at a variety of objects, July 15.

Sandie Docker, author of The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir, will be joined by Abra Pressler and Pocket Dimension Quartet when she discusses her new book The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir. Dickson Library, July 13.

Stage

• Worlds collide when two old mates, tenor David Hobson and Colin Lane, of comedy duo Lano and Woodley, team up for a song-and-dance show called In Tails. The Playhouse, July 12.
• The Grandparents’ Club, a comedy musical scripted by comedian Wendy Harmer, is at The Playhouse, July 13-14.
• Elvis tribute artist Ben Portsmouth will be at Southern Cross Club, Woden, on July 17.

Concerts

• Jewels in the Crown sees Kathryn Selby with virtuoso violinist Natalie Chee, and clarinettist Lloyd Van’t Hoff, perform  sonatas and trio repertoire by Beethoven, Bartok and Brahms. NGA James Fairfax Theatre, July 12.
• Coro Chamber Choir makes returns to perform Fauré, Duruflé and more under the baton of David Mackay at Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest, July 14.
• Young musicians of the Wesley Music Scholars present their Winter Recital, Wesley Music Centre, July 14.
• The next Merry Muse concert has feature act Fred Pilcher, Gary Luck and George Breu performing a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot and a blackboard. Canberra Irish Club, Weston, July 14.

Galleries

• Collections is a group exhibition exploring the environment at Canberra Potters, Watson, July 11-August 4.
• Unkempt Cognition, by Ella Barclay, presents new work developed while on residency at ZK/U The Centre for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin, in 2024. Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Lakeside, Parkes, opens July 12.
• Strathnairn Arts’ annual competition, Squares is back and open to everyone – amateurs to professionals, pre-schoolers to pensioners. Registration closes August 4. Details at strathnairn.com.au
• Emotional Landscapes I, by Jenny Adams, Julie Delves, Eva van Gorsel and Delene White, explores the philosophical idea of humanity’s place within the natural world. ANCA Gallery, Dickson, July 17-August 4.