There are many Cinco de Mayo celebrations this weekend. Here’s more on Mariachis in the Plaza in Fort Worth – which happens rain or shine – and other celebrations. Enjoy!

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll celebrate a famous ballad singer who also blended honky-tonk with early rockabilly.

It’s festival time in North Texas, and there is most definitely something for everyone. May is always chock full of festivals ranging from Cinco de Mayo celebrations to the African Cultural Festival.

“Eurotrash” describes a certain kind of operatic production, fashionable across the Atlantic, that aggressively mocks the vision of the opera’s original creators. But not every unusual or even bizarre production is Eurotrash – and the Houston Grand Opera’s current “Queen of Spades” is a beautiful example of new ideas that work.

In the Houston Chronicle’s quick safari through everything that’s gone up and is going down in the Arts District, arts writer Molly Glentzer says the area doesn’t yet have a smidgen of the lively street scene it’s gonna need.

Got a note from Michelle Houran at the Heard Museum in McKinney today. She’s looking for help creating some classy-looking butterflies for an upcoming exhibition. And she suggests a trade for your services.  She’s been on the job two weeks. Help a gal out. Email  mhouran@heardmuseum.org Here’s more from Michelle: The Heard Museum in McKinney [...]

Guest blogger Ellen Chenoweth is an arts writer and administrator based in Washington, DC.  She maintains a blog at Widening the I and received her M.A. in Dance from Texas Woman’s University in 2009. Contemporary dance has a hard time with happy.  Sometimes you’ll see movement that could be cheery, but the dancers are performing [...]

Is everyone racing to get things announced before May 1? Theatre 3, AT&T PAC, the DTC, the DCT: Is there some deadline I don’t know about? Anyhoo, it’s the Children’s Theater’s 27th season, and it’s got two world premieres, two regional premieres and a festival  And there are puppets!! Interestingly enough, one of the world [...]

On Wednesday, the AT&T PAC announced the line-ups for three of its series — the Jazz Roots, the Brinker International Forum and, of course, TITAS. Now the PAC has added something new: a series of free outdoor concerts — starting next week. Patio Sessions, as the weekly, Thursday-night series is called, will take place in [...]

All three Texan nominees for the Edgar Awards got shut out.