The New York Times has more on that 2011 Spring into Music festival at Carnegie Hall to which the Dallas Symphony Orchestra was invited: “First made public last June, the series is intended to encourage orchestras to program imaginatively, without regard to marketing considerations. … The main idea is for the orchestras to present programs [...]

But not for two years. Spring for Music, a new independent annual festival of North American orchestras, has invited the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to perform at Carnegie Hall as part of their inaugural festival May 6-14 — in 2011. Two cool things about their appearance, though: It will be conductor Jaap van Zweden’s Carnegie debut. [...]

Now in her fourth year as University of North Texas music professor, Elizabeth McNutt has pieces written for her by contemporary music composers, and she is flown into places like Dublin, Seoul and Switzerland to debut new works. On Monday evening (April 13), Elizabeth performs with The Tornado Project in Denton – a trio for flute, clarinet and computer.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL: When you spend more than $300 million constructing a pair of buildings, there are lots of details to consider. One of them is how you are going to inform people about the building they are entering. Signage takes all forms, from the chest-thumping grandeur of a team logo on a [...]

A DEAL IS STRUCK IN RICHARDSON: The economy has made it hard out there for a theater company these days. So a pair of them in Richardson made a smart move – they joined forces. The Labyrinth Theatre and Richardson Theatre Center had already partnered to produce a recent production of The Foreigner; now they [...]

Following the embarrassment of the George Steel “era” and with only six months to go before the company opens at the Winspear Opera House, the Dallas Opera has promoted from within. Jonathan Pell, who has been with the opera for 24 years, now assumes the role of artistic director, a position last held by co-founder [...]

Alexander McCall Smith — whom most people know as the author of the best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency novels (which recently became an HBO series) — is known to Dallasites for his long relationship with our town, having taught at SMU for many years. In 1995 in Edinburgh, as a typically droll sideline, the [...]

While wandering up and down the Deep Ellum Arts Festival on Sunday, I couldn’t help but be constantly reminded of the stasis that the once-bustling, always-historic entertainment district is in. First, the crowd: It was sizeable but not huge (I easily found parallel metered parking a block away on Elm Street), and eclectic but not all [...]

SUPPORTING A LOCAL: It’s good to see the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth devote some prime space to a North Texan on the rise. Rosson Crow, who grew up in Plano before attending Yale, is the subject of the museum’s current Focus show. Her large-scale paintings remind us of a bygone era, with depictions [...]

Today’s Art&Seek Saturday Spotlight checks in on the 15th Annual Deep Ellum Arts Festival.