PORTLAND – PCA Great Performances will present performances by an internationally renowned dance troupe, a prestigious pianist and a Grammy-nominated and popular Cape Breton fiddler this month at Merrill Auditorium.

MOMIX dance troupe will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 24. Pianist Krystian Zimerman will play at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25. And fiddler Natalie MacMaster and her band will play at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 28.

Tickets are available through PortTix, the box office at Merrill Auditorium; or call PortTix at (207) 842-0800. To order tickets online or obtain more information, visit www.pcaGreatPerformances.org.

MOMIX dance troupe

Respected for presenting work of exceptional inventiveness and physical beauty, MOMIX is a company of dancer-illusionists under the artistic direction of Moses Pendleton. For 20 years, MOMIX has been celebrated for its ability to conjure up a world of surrealistic images using props, light, shadow, humor and the human body.

The dance troupe’s show, “Opus Cactus” presents a vivid recreation of the colorful plant and animal life that exists in the American Southwest desert. Bringing desert landscapes to life, the dancers twist and contort themselves into tumbleweeds, cacti and Gila monsters.

A reviewer for The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Few theater artists today can achieve the level of visual splendor and theatrical magic that Mr. Pendleton call conjure from essentially the sparest of means.”

Tickets are $25, $34 and $40. Ticket-holders are invited to stay after the performance to meet some of the cast in the terrace seating section at Merrill.

Krystian Zimmerman

At age 7, Zimerman began 14 years of lessons at the music conservatory in Katowice, Poland. After his graduation, he won the highest prizes at several prestigious competitions devoted to Russian and Polish music and to the works of Prokofiev and Beethoven.

For 10 years, Zimerman’s unique passion has been performing music in the place and culture of its origin: French works in Paris; Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert in Vienna; Brahms in Hamburg; American music played in New York and, in one notable instance, conducted by the composer himself, Leonard Bernstein.

During his 25-year collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon, Zimerman has made 22 records, for which he has won the most prestigious record awards. He lives with his wife and two children in Switzerland.

For the April 25 program he will perform pieces composed by Frederic Chopin, Maurice Ravel and Leopold Codowski.

Tickets are $36 and $44.

Natalie MacMaster

The daughter of two musicians and niece of the legendary Buddy MacMaster, Natalie MacMaster started playing the fiddle at age 9, performed her first public concert at age 10 and made her first recording at age 11.

Now, at 30, she is acknowledged internationally as the foremost representative of the brand of Celtic music that originates in Cape Breton, Nova Scocia.

MacMaster, who still lives in Nova Scotia, has shared the live performance stage with acts including Carlos Santana, the Chieftains, Paul Simon, the Dixie Chicks, Allison Krauss, Luciano Pavarotti and dozens of world-class symphony orchestras. Headlining her six-member band, which this season includes bagpipe and whistles, MacMaster tells stories, dances and generally dazzles her audience.

“She may be the only fiddler who can twirl across a stage while playing six notes a second and never missing a beat,” wrote a reviewer for the Houston Chronicle.

Laura Scott, Cape Breton step dance teacher, and fiddler Ed Pearlman will give a free precurtain lecture and demonstation.

The public is invited to learn more about the roots of MacMaster’s music and cultural heritage. The lecture/demonstration will be from 6 to 7 p.m. in the rehearsal hall at Merrill.