The Acht Brücken festival, unfolding in Köln in early May, promises dizzyingly rich programming day and night. Some highlights: Xenakis's Persepolis, BA Zimmermann's Requiem, a GF Haas elaboration of Scelsi, Lisa Streich's new AGNEL, a Benedict Mason program, all kinds of avant DJ activity.... On April 4, the University Music Society, in Ann Arbor, undertakes the monumental task of presenting Milhaud's trilogy of operas based on Paul Claudel's translation of the Oresteia: Agamemnon, Les Choéphores (with its visionary writing for percussion), and Les Euménides. The project fulfills a longtime dream of William Bolcom, Milhaud's most faithful student and a longtime Michigan professor. More than 450 student performers will take part.... Bavarian Radio has streaming audio of a memorable War Requiem from Munich, with Mark Padmore and Christian Gerhaher especially riveting in the "Strange Meeting" (via ionarts).... On April 6, Camerata Notturna celebrates the Britten centennial with an offbeat program centered on the luminous viola of Kim Kashkashian.... Composer and sound artist Bruce Odland is seeking to preserve the Tank, a Colorado water tank that has an astounding forty-second reverberation time.... Hannah Lash's Violations project, which I mentioned a while back on the blog, will have its première at Yale on March 28.... The main attraction of New York City Opera's 2013-14 season is Mark-Anthony Turnage's virtuosic "reality opera" Anna Nicole, playing at BAM next September. The Met's only modern offering will be Nico Muhly's Two Boys, on Oct. 21.... Gesualdines, take heed: the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center celebrates the dark prince on April 4, with a lecture by the historian Glenn Watkins the preceding day.
