Christopher Shih, a 35-year-old gastroenterologist from Maryland, has won the first YouTube Contest for amateur pianists sponsored by the Van Cliburn Foundation. He will receive automatic entry into the sixth International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, which will be held in Fort Worth in the spring of 2011.
Shih, who received a B.A. in biochemistry from [...]

Cathey Miller’s interplanetary folk art first grabbed me when I saw one of her elaborate DIFFA jackets. Now is a good time to discover or catch up with the Pop-influenced artist, whose paintings of empowered ancient/futuristic women are endearingly funny and politically subtle. Miller’s part of a three-gal show that opens tomorrow night at Tractor [...]

The team of Sergio Garcia, Luke Harnden and Mark Nelson won the second annual Re*Co*Ver mural competition in Deep Ellum over the weekend. Cindy at Fine Line has a video of the finalists’ work and footage of the awards show.

There’s a listening party tonight at the Barley House for the new album by I Love [...]

I realize mashups are so 2003, but I had to share in honor of the dark skies and rain in the North Texas area today.
From Bay Area studio wizard Party Ben comes this cheery combination of 1984’s “Tenderness” by General Public (which featured former members of the English Beat and Dexy’s Midnight Runners) with the [...]

With three down and one to go, it’s not premature to say that the Fort Worth Opera has a winning season. Even if Of Mice and Men slips — and there’s no reason to think it will — the company has marshaled impressive resources for its first three operas: Angels in America, Turandot and Lucia [...]

Siegmund Nissel, the second violinist of the Amadeus Quartet, one of the world’s most prestigious chamber-music ensembles, has died in Britain at age 86. The quartet was highly unusual in playing without a change of personnel over a period of 40 years, from 1947 until it disbanded in 1987. The quartet had an extensive recorded [...]

Photo by The Dallas Morning News
Jeff Koons’ Michael Jackson and Bubbles made me laugh when I saw it at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, that’s all. It was a one-joke sculpture, all shiny surface, no depth. That’s the neo-Pop artist’s point. You may have the same reaction to his Balloon Flower (Magenta), shown [...]

He’s baaaaack in Rockwall.
American Idol finalist Jason Castro is to be honored Thursday in his hometown. Castro, his family, Mayor Bill Cecil, “groupies” — Castro’s not the mayor’s — dreadlocked buses and the Chick-Fil-A Cow will participate in a parade at 5:30 p.m., followed by Cecil giving Castro the key to the city and a [...]

Artspace 111 in Fort Worth has the “Methodical Markings” exhibition, Alejandro Escobedo plays the House of Blues and the Pocket Sandwich Theatre is staging the farce, Tom, Dick and Harry.
 [Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Lee Trull is everywhere. Now the 28-year-old playwright, theater administrator, and actor with membership in two companies is here, too — Kitchen Dog Theater’s New Works Festival, which stages a reading of Trull’s play, Tall Thin Walls of Regret, set in Cold War-era Dallas, along with six others next month. The festival also includes a [...]