This week

• Folk music icon Arlo Guthrie brings his “Journey On” tour to the Center for the Performing Arts at Newton Hall, Kents Hill School, Readfield. Guthrie will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

Additional Photos

Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein performs on Wednesday at Merrill Auditorium in Portland in a concert presented by Portland Ovations. Courtesy Portland Ovations

The concert will be the second in the Aleigh Mills Concert Series, which supports the Aleigh Mills Scholarship Fund. The scholarship was the vision of her parents, Tim and Donna Mills, in memory of Aleigh, who was a member of the class of 2006 at Kents Hill School.

Tickets cost $55, and are available through the Kents Hill School Development office online at www.kentshill.org/concertseries, or by calling 685-4914.

• Portland Ovations presents multi-award-winning, Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Merrill Auditorium, Portland. The concert includes works by Bach, Chopin, Czerny and Liszt, as well as a commissioned work by contemporary composer Oliver Knussen.

Gerstein is the sixth and most recent recipient of the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award. He followed this grand achievement with a second major triumph: being named the winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant. Gerstein follows a tradition of Gilmore Artist winners presented by Portland Ovations, including Ingrid Fliter and Piotr Anderszewski.

Ovations Offstage offers a free pre-performance lecture in the Merrill Auditorium Green Room at 6 p.m. Wednesday, preceding the concert. The lecture will be presented by Seth Warner, a musicologist and manager of the Olin Arts Center at Bates College.

A master class with Gerstein is also available to piano students at the University of Southern Maine from 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesday. The master class, in Corthell Concert Hall at USM’s Gorham campus, is open to the public.

Concert tickets cost $38 ($10 for full-time students). Call 842-0800 or visit www.porttix.com.

Coming up

• The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance hosts its annual holiday book sale from noon to 6 p.m. Nov. 26 at Rines Auditorium at Portland Public Library.

A host of Maine writers will sign books, including Charlotte Agell, Adrian Blevins, Jane Brox, Richard Cohen, Ron Currie Jr., Gail Donovan, Sandra Dutton, James Hayman, Phillip Hoose, Lily King, Elizabeth Kirschner, Wesley McNair, Lincoln Peirce, Susan Hand Shetterly, Betsy Sholl, Jeffrey Thomson, Colin Woodward and Greg A. Zielinski.

For information, call 228-8263 or visit www.mainewriters.org.