Music

The Silopanna Music Festival will not return this year, according to a press release. Details are vague as to why the relatively new festival would not make "a run in 2013. " The release states "the stars didn't align this year to put together a lineup that we could stand behind. " There is no mention of future Silopanna festivals. Last August, the Silopanna Music Festival brought Cake, J. Roddy Walston & the Business and more to the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds. The inaugural event was scheduled for the summer of 2011, but was canceled because of Hurricane Irene.

Michael Mayer knows a thing or two about coming of age. The Maryland-born director won a Tony Award for his work guiding the 2006 Broadway hit "Spring Awakening," which chronicles teens getting a grip on their budding sexuality. In 2010, he directed "American Idiot," a punk rock musical based on the Green Day album of that name, which follows a group of cynical, spent youths as they seek excitement in a big city. Mayer didn't just direct the latter, but collaborated on the book with Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong.

Weekends are wonderfully musical around here, offering, more often than not, too many events for any one listener to take in, without benefit of helicopter or cloning. The choices I made last weekend paid handsome dividends. On Saturday night at the Gordon Center, which boasts some of the most satisfying acoustics around, the Concert Artists of Baltimore, led by Edward Polochick, delivered a typically diverse program in typically dynamic fashion. When it comes to our local professional orchestras, the Baltimore Symphony rightly holds pride of place; it's one of America's finest, after all. To my ears, the next ensemble in any Baltimore-area ranking would have to be Concert Artists, which, more often than not, plays way beyond its pay scale and produces a sound much richer than its size would suggest.

For at least a generation of pop-culture consumers, the soundtrack of their lives has included themes from the likes of Mega Man and Super Mario. As they've grown up, the music of video games has branched out - to solo piano, to rock concerts and to symphonic performances. Among the developments is the University of Maryland's Gamer Symphony Orchestra, whose 100-plus members will take to the stage at College Park's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 4. "The quality of video-game music has grown exponentially over the years," says Joel Guttman, president-elect of the group, which specializes in arranging and performing pieces taken from the background music on video games such as Halo, Sonic the Hedgehog and Final Fantasy.

Eight years ago, Barry Manilow was shocked to hear that a friend's daughter was futilely searching for a saxophone. The student wanted to try something new, but her school didn't have the instrument. Manilow, the veteran singer and composer with more than 80 million records sold worldwide, was dumbfounded. But after surveying the country's school-funding issues as a whole, Manilow soon realized his friend's daughter shared the same problem with kids across the country. The issue resonated with him. "I went to a dump of a high school in Brooklyn, [N.Y.]

Great music has been happening at the Parkville Senior Center. On April 3, members were treated to a wonderful concert when tenor Rodrigo Garciarroyo and pianist Richard Dowling presented well-known opera and stage musical selections in the center's dining room This hourlong program, sponsored by the Baltimore County Department of Aging, was made possible by the Piatigorsky Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is...

Outkast remains arguably the greatest rap duo of all time, even though its members - Antwan "Big Boi" Patton and Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 - haven't released an album together since 2006's "Idlewild" soundtrack. While Big Boi continues to release solo albums, Andre has mostly flirted with hip-hop, appearing on guest verses with high-profile artists when he pleases. Last November, Andre made headlines for his contribution to T.I.'s self-reflecting "Sorry. " On it, Andre apologizes to his longtime partner for slowing Outkast down, declining tours and, subsequently, walking away from significant paydays.

Submitting sports notices The deadline for submitting sports copy is 9 a.m. on Monday. We prefer email (howardcountysports@patuxent.com). Running Reservoir High School will hold its sixth annual Musical Madness 5k and 1k kids' fun run May 18 in Maple Lawn. The race starts at 8 a.m. and the post-race festival will include food and prizes from race sponsors and musical performances by Reservoir students. Musical Madness is a fundraiser for the Reservoir music program. Go to musicalmadness.wikispaces.com for details.

There's something about "Les Miserables" that keeps me coming back. It's not that "Les Miz," running through Sunday at the Hippodrome Theatre , is my favorite musical. Far from it. It's all too easy to point out the technical flaws in Claude-Michel Schonberg's melodies (bombastic) and Herbert Kretzmer's lyrics (unsurprising). The critics have been making these arguments for the past 27 years, and for the past 27 years, audiences have been ignoring the critics. Producer Cameron Mackintosh's much-hyped new staging incorporates brighter costumes and screen projections to simulate such effects as Paris' underground sewers.

Wine growlers are coming to Maryland and the music at Merriweather Post Pavilion can play at the usual volume under Howard County-based legislation adopted in the 2013 General Assembly session. The Howard legislative delegation got just about everything it asked for in the session, which ended this week, either by having bills passed, folded into statewide legislation or included in the state's capital budget. The legislature approved bills to allow the county to create a property tax credit to encourage improvement of certain neighborhoods and give library employees the right to form a union.