FROM THE ANGELLS

Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater has announced a pledge of $50,000 from the Los Angeles–based Angell Foundation. This organization is the legacy of David and Lynn Angell, long-time Chatham residents and supporters of WHAT who met on Cape Cod and got married in 1979. Eventually they moved to the West Coast; one of the episodes David wrote for Cheers won an Emmy (the first of eight he was to win), and with his partners David Lee and Peter Casey he went on to create Wings and Frasier. David and Lynn were passengers on the American Airlines Flight 11 that took off from Boston on September 11, 2001, and crashed into the World Trade Center’s north tower. The $50,000 grant will be matched by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and will go toward funding WHAT’s children’s-theater series.

JAZZ WITH JOANNE

In case you hadn’t heard, composer and pianist Joanne Brackeen is the Kayden Visiting Artist at Harvard University this year, and next weekend she’ll be featured in a piano master class, and "public conversation," and a concert with the Harvard Jazz Band. The master class with take place at 4:30 p.m. next Thursday, December 12, at the corner of Kirkland and Oxford Streets in Harvard Square. Moderated by Quincy Jones professor of African-American music Ingrid Monson, the "public conversation" will take place Friday December 13 at 3:30 p.m. in the Reid Tonkens Room at Winthrop House, 32 Mill Street (at Holyoke Street) in Harvard Square. Both events are free; for more information, call (617) 495-8676 or visit www.fas.harvard.edu/~ofa/. The concert will take place next Saturday, December 14, at 8 p.m. in Lowell Hall. Tickets are $10, $5 for students and seniors; go to the Harvard box office, at 1350 Holyoke Center in Harvard Square, or call (617) 496-2222.

RECEPTION FOR RIGOBERTO

Cuba’s "Special Period," the era after 1989 during which it adapted to crushing hardships stemming from the demise of the Soviet bloc, was "special" in some pretty unpleasant ways. Fuel, food, and other provisions were in critically short supply, and the period of profound transition weighed heavily on the national psyche. Another big change, the introduction of the American dollar as legal tender, only exacerbated the gap between rich and poor.

Cuba’s art scene at this time was divided between traditional painting styles and more-modern installation pieces. That’s where Rigoberto Mena Santana comes in. Working at Havana’s Experimental Graphics Workshop, he churned out muscular and expressive mixed-media works in which robust shapes swim in stews of muddy colors. Although his tumultuous lines, chaotic geometric forms, and encroaching murky shadows might be interpreted as a reflection the national mood, Mena Santana swears he deals strictly with personal turmoil. His works have been instrumental in rejuvenating the abstract expressionist ethos that flourished in the pre-Castro ’50s.

Mena Santana is visiting America for just the second time, and there’ll be a reception in his honor this Tuesday, December 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Marran Lounge, at the corner of Mellen and Oxford Streets in Cambridge. Then on Wednesday, December 11, at 6:30 p.m., he’ll talk at Lesley’s Art Institute of Boston, 700 Beacon Street. Call (617) 349-8579 for information about the reception and (617) 585-6652 for the lecture.

THE GIFT THAT GIVES I

Holiday shopping got you down and you haven’t even started yet? Consider giving a membership to your favorite arts organization. Membership at the Museum of Fine Arts, for example, will bring with it a year of free admission to the MFA’s regular collections; discounts on programs, dining, shopping, and parking; a subscription to the MFA’s bi-monthly Preview magazine; and tickets to the special exhibitions. Which this coming year include "Impressions of Light: The French Landscape from Corot to Monet" (it opens a week from Sunday, December 15); "Thomas Gainsborough," with "high-style portraits of England’s aristocracy by one of the greatest portrait painters of all time"; and "Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman,

Etcher," which the museum describes as "one of the most important exhibitions to focus on Rembrandt ever mounted in the United States." An individual membership is $70 and includes one complimentary ticket to each major exhibition; dual/family membership is $95 and includes two complimentary tickets; family-plus membership is $160 and includes four complimentary tickets as well as special family events and a passport program for children. Best of all, you can drop in free any time you want. To purchase an MFA membership, visit the museum’s Members Room or call (617) 369-3395.

THE GIFT THAT GIVES II

Here’s another thought for what to give that person on your list who already has it all: maybe he or she would like to be remembered to someone who has little or nothing. This holiday season, if you make a donation to the Women’s Lunch Place, a day shelter for poor and homeless women in the Back Bay, the WLP will send an original-block-print card to the honoree of your choice with a description of the shelter’s work; the card, the envelope, and any message you’d like to include will all be hand-written. Just go on-line at www.womenslunchplace.org or call (617) 267-1722.

‘I SHOP THEREFORE I AM’?

You might not recognize Barbara Kruger when she comes to talk at Harvard this Monday, but you’ve probably experienced that uncomfortable moment when you look at a Barbara Kruger image and wonder whether you’re the one being spoken at, or spoken for. You’ve seen her images on buses, billboards, handbags, and coffee cups and at the Whitney. Kruger takes black-and-white photographs from the ’40s and ’50s and brands them with red bands of text. "Your body is a battleground," reads one. "You are not yourself," is another. "You delight in the loss of others," "I shop therefore I am," "Memory is your image of perfection," "We don’t need another hero." Her posters, photographs, and installations deconstruct notions of power, control, feminism, classicism, and consumerism, using the same language with which these notions have been constructed.

Kruger’s background is in graphic design, and she’s worked as the art director for Mademoiselle. But her terse slogans, pithy, aggressive text, and eye-catching visuals advertise ideas, not products. If the commercialism of the season is getting you down, and you’re up for an intellectual challenge and some one-on-one confrontation, drop in to her talk this Monday, December 9, at 5 p.m. at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street in Harvard Square. It’s free; call (617) 495-3251.

AND LOOKING AHEAD

Those who are already wondering what arts goodies await beyond the holidays might want to circle a few dates on their calendars. On January 5, tickets for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s "Degas and the Dance" blockbuster will go on sale. Opening February 12 and running through May 11, this comprehensive exhibition will include 135 works by Degas, along with costume designs, stage sets, and photographs of dancers. Currently it’s up at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Philadelphia will be its only other stop. It is, however, a big enough deal that the press lunch was held in Lincoln Center last May. And Philadelphia isn’t so far away: you can hop on an early-morning train, walk from the station to the museum, get in two or three hours of viewing plus lunch, and still get back to Boston in time for a late super. Tickets are $20 for adults, $17 for seniors and students, $10 for children; call (215) 235-7469 or go to www.philamuseum.org.

Or if you don’t like to travel, consider that directors from some of the great museums of Europe will be coming to you over the next few months courtesy of the Harvard University Art Museums. On February 13, you can hear from Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, director of the Uffizi in Florence — the world’s greatest repository of Renaissance Italian art. March 13 it’ll be Peter-Klaus Schuster, director of the Nationalgalerie and director of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin (you might not think of Berlin as a great art capital, but you’d be wrong). April 17 we get Henri Loyette, president and director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris — talk about a museum that needs no introduction. Finally, on May 22, we’ll hear from Charles Saumarez Smith, director of the National Gallery in London — no need to say more about that one, either. All four talks will take place at 6 p.m. in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, and complimentary parking will be available in the nearby Broadway Garage; call (617) 495-9400 or visit www.atmuseums.harvard.edu.

Meanwhile, the BSO winter season kicks off with a bang when the orchestra’s music director designate, James Levine, comes up from New York for a weekend of concerts. On the program: the Roger Sessions Piano Concerto, with Robert Taub; John Harbison’s Symphony No. 3, and Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 1. That’ll be January 9 at 8 p.m., January 10 at 1:30, and January 11 at 8; call (617) 266-1200. On January 24 at 8 p.m. and January 26 at 3 p.m., David Hoose and the Cantata Singers will perform Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, with Jennifer Foster, William Hite, David Kravitz, Janice Felty, Frank Kelley, and Mark Andrew Cleveland. That’s at Jordan Hall, and tickets are $16 to $44 ($5 off for students and seniors); call (617) 267-6502 or go to www,cantatasingers.org. And on March 1, the Boston Secession, which already has created live accompaniments for Wim Wenders’s Der Himmel über Berlin/Wings of Desire and Josef von Sternberg’s Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel, will be taking on Ingmar Bergman’s Det sjunde inseglet — better known as The Seventh Seal. "Who knew a game of chess could be a life-and-death matter?", as the press release puts it. That’ll be at the Somerville Theatre; we’ll let you know when tickets go on sale.