I went to see Bill Morrison's film The Miners' Hymns, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Voiceless, almost textless, only fifty-two minutes long, it is a beautiful and devastating work, having the weight of tragedy. There's one more showing at Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.... Spring for Music, Tom Morris's festival of inventive orchestral programming at Carnegie Hall, begins on May 6. On Thursday, Spring for Music hosts an online chat with composer Steven Stucky, whose concert drama August 4, 1964 will be played by the Dallas Symphony on May 11.... The Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, an ethnically diverse group under the direction of Jeri Lynne Johnson, presents a "jazz hot" program in Philadelphia on April 28: music of Milhaud and Stravinsky. Over the weekend comes the premiere of Paul Moravec's short opera Danse Russe, a comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring, with a libretto by our old friend the Hon. Terry Teachout.... Make Music New York has announced some events for the 2011 edition of its midsummer musical jamboree: John Luther Adams's Inuksuit in Morningside Park, a participatory iPhone work by Aaron Siegel, and a rendition of Louis Andriessen's Hoketus on the outdoor balconies of the New York Stock Exchange.... There's a XenakisFest this week in Tempe, Arizona.... Starting on May 1, the Cleveland Orchestra will present three all-Italian programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Modern fare includes Scelsi, Dallapiccola, Berio, and the American premiere of Stefano Scodanibbio’s fourth string quartet.... Congratulations to the magnificent Manny Ax, who on Thursday will play his hundredth concert with the New York Philharmonic.
