Best of the week: Miranda Lambert, Ariana Grande, '24-Hour Plays,' Juicy J, Nikki Lane, more

Miranda Lambert is one of Nashville's truth tellers, a singer-songwriter who isn't afraid to be vulnerable and resilient, tender and tough. She demonstrated that once again on last year's double album, "The Weight of These Wings," which was named best album of 2016 in a nationwide critics poll. It was one of the year's best in any genre. And Lambert has five previous albums filled with such gems as "Kerosene" and "The House That Built Me" to provide high-quality material for an entire evening.JON BREAM

7 p.m. Fri. Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul. $27-$53, ticketmaster.com

What separates Ariana Grande from the current parade of pop princesses is what she emphasizes in concert. It's about her voice, not about the spectacle. To be sure, there are dancers and costume changes but in the end, the concert is about Grande's stratospheric voice. Expect the 23-year-old former Nickelodeon star to draw heavily from her 2016 album, "Dangerous Woman," and also deliver her earlier hits, including "Problem" and "Bang Bang."

JON BREAM

7:30 p.m. Thu. Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul. $29.95-$199.95, ticketmaster.com

Six playwrights, six directors and 24 actors have 24 hours to create half a dozen new plays from scratch. What could go wrong? But then again, what could go right? "The 24-Hour Plays" is a fundraising event for Spotlight Education and UMD theater scholarships. Actors who have signed up include "Little House" alum Melissa Gilbert (above), local veteran Warren Bowles and UMD alum and "A Prairie Home Companion" newbie Serena Brook.

REBECCA RITZEL

A decade after he made it to the Oscars with his former group Three 6 Mafia's "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," Memphis rapper Juicy J has been pimping himself out on other people's hit singles, including Katy Perry's "Dark Horses" and Usher's "I Don't Mind." He's pushing to make a name for himself again with "Rubba Band," his first album in four years, which he's previewing on tour with support from his brother, Project Pat, and Belly of "Might Not" notoriety.

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

8:30 p.m. Thu., Myth, Maplewood. $32-$115, ticketmaster.com

Ten years ago Norwegian trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth was watching a string orchestra concert with three of her trumpet-playing girlfriends. They started wondering whether the same style of performance might work with brass instruments. The result was tenThing, an all-female band of 10 brass players specializing in crafty arrangements of familiar repertoire. Think Grieg, Vivaldi and Handel, with a dash of Copland and Bernstein added for this occasion.

TERRY BLAIN

Paint the Twin Cities green next weekend with a variety of St. Patrick's Day celebrations. Landmark Center hosts a family day with local and regional Irish music on four stages, seminars and traditional Irish foods and beer. Next Sunday highlights the fancy footwork of Irish Dance with live music and workshops. Both Minneapolis and St. Paul will have parades.

MELISSA WALKER

St. Patrick's Day Celebration: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri. $4-$7. Irish Day of Dance: 11 a.m. next Sun. $5-$7. Landmark Center, 75 W. 5th St., St. Paul. irishmusicanddanceassociation.org.

Modern dance may not be coming to an Imax anytime soon, but a 3-D dance performance is coming to Walker Art Center this week. Silas Riener and Rashaun Mitchell, two of choreographer Merce Cunningham's former dancers, have joined forces with experimental filmmaker Charles Atlas — a former Cunningham collaborator himself — to create an evening-length work that will somehow begin as a 3-D film and gradually, mysteriously morph into a live performance.

REBECCA RITZEL

After working with Black Keys auteur producer Dan Auerbach last time around, Nikki Lane is more in the country than Americana lane on this year's "Highway Queen." There's a snarl to the opening "700,000 Rednecks" and a sadness to the closing pedal steel-soaked ballad, "Forever Lasts Forever," about a failed marriage, and the key line "forever lasts forever until forever becomes never again." Lane is the kind of soul Nashville needs.

JON BREAM

9 p.m. Tue. Turf Club, St. Paul, sold out

Carl Heinrich Graun was a contemporary of Bach and Handel, but his music is seldom heard nowadays. Back in the 18th century, however, Graun's oratorio "Der Tod Jesu (The Death of Jesus)" was more popular than either Handel's "Messiah" or Bach's "St. Matthew Passion." Lyra Baroque joins the Grinnell Singers of Iowa and some Twin Cities soloists for a rare concert performance of "Der Tod Jesu."

TERRY BLAIN