Harvard scores papers related to Norman Mailer's sex life three years after the author sold his official archives to UT. Yo-Yo Ma will play with the Austin Symphony later this year; maybe some of the parking issues evident this Sunday will have been dealt with by then. Burnet Road Farmer's Market land for sale (again). Hope you didn't try to bribe a fake cop downtown earlier this month. Infant asphyxiation deaths at an increase this year in Travis County, Austin's Center for Child Protection reports....

The Austin Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Austin: Handel’s MessiahDecember 4, 2007 at 8:00 p.m.4214 N. Capitol of Texas Highway (4214 N. Capitol of Texas Highway)Riverbend Centre[info] | [tickets] Sir Thomas Beecham wrote of Handel in his memoirs, "Since his time mankind has heard no music written for voices which can even feebly rival his for grandeur of build and tone, nobility and tenderness of melody, scholastic skill and ingenuity and inexhaustible variety of effect…Handel…is......

At the regal Riverbend Centre on Saturday night, Joanna Newsom proved why she’s one of today’s most iconoclastic and oddly appealing musicians: not only did she mesh shockingly well with the ultra-classy Austin Symphony Orchestra, but she also managed to get in trouble for hauling a bottle of Maker’s Mark onto stage. And it’s in this almost-accidental appeal to both sides of the concert-going spectrum—as well as an almost embarrassing wealth of talent—that she......

Five years ago you never would have believed it, but it’s true: the harp is so in. And evidence of that is most acute in that elfin goddess of harpsterism, Joanna Newsom, who will be toting her really big harp—and the lilting wordplay that comes along with it—right on down to Austin this Saturday night. And no, it won’t just be her alone lighting up the stage and the eyes of adoring boys at Riverbend......

UPDATE: We called Frontgate this morning, and were informed that the tickets will indeed be general seated admission. Tickets will be $35 with a $5.50 service fee. As promised, here are the specifics (as many as we have) on the Joanna Newsom performance with the Austin Symphonic Orchestra in October we mentioned earlier this week. Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning (August 30) at 10:00 a.m., through Frontgate Tickets, and they are $35 a pop.......

We've just confirmed that Joanna Newsom will be giving a special performance at the Riverbend Centre in October. This will be the first time all of us regular folks stateside will have a chance to experience the whole shebang that audiences in the UK had last year, as she toured Europe in support of Ys. The performance will feature the orchestral arrangements of Van Dyke Parks, who assisted Newsom on the album, and previous......

To continue Austin's year-long celebration of Shostakovich's centennial, pianist Melissa Marse and Russian bass Nikita Storojev will be joining the Austin Symphony Orchestra for two nights of the twentieth-century Russian composer's works. The ASO will start off with selections from Shostakovich's score for Ovod (The Gadfly). Melissa Marse will then perform the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Shostakovich with the ASO. This concerto leans towards Romanticism (most evident in the second movement), while still......

What a possible travesty! Might the Texas Commission on the Arts -- provider of grants, information, and technical assistance to artists and arts organizations in visual arts, theatre, dance, music, media and literature -- be destroyed? The organization, which has been the primary source of governmental funding of the arts in Texas for over forty years, was under the Sunset review this year, a process all state agencies undergo every 12 years to determine whether......

Tonight, Dionysium's debate will be resolve whether or not movies should be released in theaters and on DVD simultaneously and will feature The Reel Deal host Korey Coleman vs. Burnt Orange Productions DVD producer Byron Sebock. This looks like it will be a fascinating evening with the following program to accompany the debate: A PRESENTATION "GOD IS A TERRORIST : TALES OF A PENTECOSTAL HERETIC IN THE AMERICAN HEARTLAND" by Journalist Russ Cobb, fresh......

As part of his Symphony Tour, Declan McManus aka Elvis Costello will be visiting Austin for one night only at the UTPAC's Bass Concert Hall and will be performing with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Costello and longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve team up with the Austin Symphony in a performance that features two unforgettable sets. The first, a suite from Il Sogno (The Dream), Costello's celebrated full-length orchestral work based on Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream.......

Austin took a big leap forward earlier this week in its goal to become a major performing arts powerhouse before the next decade. The ambitious Long Center - which when completed in 2008 will consolidate the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Austin, and Austin Lyric Opera as well as serve as an exhibition space for hundreds of local artists and organizations - received $500,000 from the Dallas-based Meadows Foundation. This brings the total level of......