At TEDxSMU, audio professor Scott Douglas will talk about how new software makes lip-synching old hat. Is this a wonderful new bag of tricks or another music biz gimmick? It may depend on what you see as the performer’s job.

What other gallery has some 6,700 works by area artists for sale — displayed in 1,001 rooms? What’s more, the Omni acts like an agent for the painters and photographers.

It’s the first survey of Mark Bradford’s meteoric career. In only 10 years, he’s had a solo show at the Whitney in New York and won the ‘genius’ grant. Bradford scavenges his LA neighborhood for scraps of paper — and turns them into archeological maps, abstract expressionist swirls, murals as ephemeral as newspapers, as corroded as Roman wall paintings.

The Fahari Arts Institute is only three years old, but it has already become North Texas’ only black, gay arts organization to offer a full roster of year-round programming: dance, lecture, films, gallery shows and readings. Fouinder-director Harold Steward says it all happened because people kept asking him for help in finding artists.

It’s ‘The Ordination’ – and something of a coup for the Kimbell. Part of a set of masterpieces painted by Nicolas Poussin in the 1630s, it was bought from the Duke of Rutland, who needed money to work on his family estate, a little place called Belvoir Castle.

A new Audubon Center opens this weekend in Dogwood Canyon in Cedar Hill. This makes Dallas County the only one in the US with two Audubon Centers. The reason? The canyon has one of the most unusual ecosystems in the state.

Seven universities in Texas are shooting for Tier One status — and the state funding goodies that it’ll provide. Mostly, the competition is in high-cost research and increasing endowments. But there are other ways to upgrade – like in creative writing.

The were children when they suffered a brutal, forced exile — trekking across the Sahara with many dying along the way. They survived a refugee camp in Kenya. Then they came to North Texas. Now four of the famous ‘lost boys of Sudan’ are grown up — and appear in a graphic novel.

Miroslav Penkov teaches creative writing at UNT, and his debut story collection, ‘East of the West,’ has been getting excited reviews. He’s a long way from reading under-the-counter American novels in Bulgaria — and trying to imitate Stephen King.

In Fort Worth Opera’s production of Handel’s ‘Julius Caesar,’ there are three roles originally written for castrati — including Caesar himself. When Handel’s Italian operas became popular again in the 20th century, that presented an awkward problem. Welcome back – the countertenor.