The event, an annual fund-raiser for the Berkeley Buddhist Temple, will be held from 4-9pm Saturday, May 16, and from noon to 7pm Sunday, May 17, at the temple, located at 2121 Channing Way. The entertainers will perform from noon to 4pm on Sunday, May 17.

Brown, a percussionist, composer, educator and ethnomusicologist, is a seminal figure in the contemporary California creative music scene, directing the Asian American Orchestra in addition to performing with some of the leading musicians in jazz today. His orchestra's recording of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's "Far East Suite," received a 2000 Grammy nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance.

Aoki, along with her husband, composer-musician Mark Izu, create and compose original music and monodrama. They will perform Aoki's ghost story, "Mermaid Meat."

"Mermaid Meat" tells a story about a young girl, who feasts on the flesh of a mermaid with dire consequences. The story has been performed in, among other places, the Kennedy Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of Art in New York; the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.; East West Center in Honolulu, HI; Duke University in Durham, N.C.; and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. more …