Tan Dun

Globalization, a hot-button issue known to send thousands of protesters into the streets, can also bring people into a concert hall for a totally peaceful, compelling experience. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's first Explorer Series program of the season provides a welcome example of cultural fusion, with the help of Tan Dun. The Chinese-born composer, perhaps most widely known for his multiple award-winning film score Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has a rare gift for bringing together East and West in his work to often astounding effect.

SATURDAY Free kids' show Don't miss the kids' show Cantare Muchas Melodias, which features Latina musicians Patricia Vergara and Cecilia Esquivel, who play Latin-American music in this bilingual show, which runs from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Creative Alliance at the Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave. Tickets are free. Call 410-276-1651 or go to creativealliance.org. Family fun fair Head to the family-friendly event "Keep Your Cool Family Fun Fair" in Druid Hill Park, off Druid Park Drive, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, and enjoy rides, games, moon bounces, climbing walls, relay races and lots more.

Those possibly eternal opposites, East and West, have met again in The First Emperor, a visually spectacular, often engaging, and not entirely successful opera by Tan Dun. This new work by the winner of an Academy Award and a Grammy for his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon film score is a hot ticket at New York's Metropolitan Opera, which commissioned the piece a decade ago. Although a few seats were available for last Thursday's opening night, the eight...

The Internet, which connects people every millisecond in one way or another, has generated an entire orchestra from a cyber pool of strangers - aspiring players from 70 countries on six continents who uploaded more than 3,000 audition videos. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which bows April 15 in New York's famed Carnegie Hall with a concert led by esteemed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, began online in December with an open invitation to players of all levels to try out for the ensemble.

Of all the mind-boggling ideas that exploded during the 20th century, those about music by John Cage rank among the most provocative - and encouraging. "Until I die there will be sounds," he wrote in 1961. "And they will continue following after my death. One need not fear about the future of music." Cage heard music everywhere and in everything. A lot of folks won't ever be able to go that far, but those who gathered at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall Monday night got a jolting reminder of his philosophy from remarkable Chinese composer Tan Dun and the New York-based Eos Orchestra.

Romance and excitement are included in the price of your ticket at the Arabian Nights concert of the Columbia Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Jim Rouse Theatre at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia., The two pieces on the program -- Rimsky-Korsakov's popular Scheherazade and Tan Dun's Paper Concerto for Paper Percussion and Orchestra -- share the ability to create a variety of moods, and, to a certain extent, share the moods they create. Scheherazade, based on the tales of the Arabian Nights, is the story of a very clever young woman who becomes the wife of a powerful sultan.

The sounds seem simultaneously familiar and alien -- slippery, wispy, metallic, slithery, crunchy, bell-like. But there's something else in the mix, too, something more fundamental, something tinkly, dribbling, gurgling. Something wet. Welcome to the aural world of Tan Dun's Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra -- In Memory of Toru Takemitsu, an extraordinarily inventive work that will have its local premiere this week by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It's on the ensemble's final "Symphony With a Twist" program of the season, and it couldn't provide much more of a twist.

The Internet, which connects people every millisecond in one way or another, has generated an entire orchestra from a cyber pool of strangers - aspiring players from 70 countries on six continents who uploaded more than 3,000 audition videos. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra, which bows April 15 in New York's famed Carnegie Hall with a concert led by esteemed conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, began online in December with an open invitation to players of all levels to try out for the ensemble.

THEATER SHOW IS CUT ABOVE Catch a performance of the Tony Award-winning musical Hairspray when it returns to Baltimore on Tuesday. Set in 1962 Baltimore, the play follows Tracy Turnblad, the big-haired, big-hearted and self-described "pleasantly plump" high schooler, as she pursues her one and only passion -- to dance. After winning a spot on the local TV dance program, The Corny Collins Show, Tracy is transformed from an unpopular outsider into a teen celebrity. But with her newfound stardom, Tracy is introduced to the civil injustices present in Baltimore's education system and TV station.

SATURDAY Free kids' show Don't miss the kids' show Cantare Muchas Melodias, which features Latina musicians Patricia Vergara and Cecilia Esquivel, who play Latin-American music in this bilingual show, which runs from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Creative Alliance at the Patterson, 3134 Eastern Ave. Tickets are free. Call 410-276-1651 or go to creativealliance.org. Family fun fair Head to the family-friendly event "Keep Your Cool Family Fun Fair" in Druid Hill Park, off Druid Park Drive, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, and enjoy rides, games, moon bounces, climbing walls, relay races and lots more.

If you thought YouTube was just for cheap audio/visual kicks, many of them along the lines of the people-falling-down, pets-going-nutty stuff that turns up on tacky home-video TV shows, think again. This week, an ambitious, very 21st-century project called the YouTube Symphony Orchestra was launched, creating an online community of aspiring musicians. YouTube and parent company Google put together this cyber ensemble, which has no less than eminent conductor Michael Tilson Thomas as artistic director.

Globalization, a hot-button issue known to send thousands of protesters into the streets, can also bring people into a concert hall for a totally peaceful, compelling experience. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's first Explorer Series program of the season provides a welcome example of cultural fusion, with the help of Tan Dun. The Chinese-born composer, perhaps most widely known for his multiple award-winning film score Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has a rare gift for bringing together East and West in his work to often astounding effect.

THEATER SHOW IS CUT ABOVE Catch a performance of the Tony Award-winning musical Hairspray when it returns to Baltimore on Tuesday. Set in 1962 Baltimore, the play follows Tracy Turnblad, the big-haired, big-hearted and self-described "pleasantly plump" high schooler, as she pursues her one and only passion -- to dance. After winning a spot on the local TV dance program, The Corny Collins Show, Tracy is transformed from an unpopular outsider into a teen celebrity. But with her newfound stardom, Tracy is introduced to the civil injustices present in Baltimore's education system and TV station.

Those possibly eternal opposites, East and West, have met again in The First Emperor, a visually spectacular, often engaging, and not entirely successful opera by Tan Dun. This new work by the winner of an Academy Award and a Grammy for his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon film score is a hot ticket at New York's Metropolitan Opera, which commissioned the piece a decade ago. Although a few seats were available for last Thursday's opening night, the eight...

Romance and excitement are included in the price of your ticket at the Arabian Nights concert of the Columbia Orchestra at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Jim Rouse Theatre at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia., The two pieces on the program -- Rimsky-Korsakov's popular Scheherazade and Tan Dun's Paper Concerto for Paper Percussion and Orchestra -- share the ability to create a variety of moods, and, to a certain extent, share the moods they create. Scheherazade, based on the tales of the Arabian Nights, is the story of a very clever young woman who becomes the wife of a powerful sultan.

The sounds seem simultaneously familiar and alien -- slippery, wispy, metallic, slithery, crunchy, bell-like. But there's something else in the mix, too, something more fundamental, something tinkly, dribbling, gurgling. Something wet. Welcome to the aural world of Tan Dun's Concerto for Water Percussion and Orchestra -- In Memory of Toru Takemitsu, an extraordinarily inventive work that will have its local premiere this week by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It's on the ensemble's final "Symphony With a Twist" program of the season, and it couldn't provide much more of a twist.

Guitar Sharon Isbin, guitarist. Concertos by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun. Gulbenkian Orchestra; Muhai Tang, conductor. (Teldec 8573-81830-2) Sharon Isbin has an enviable track record of commissioning and championing new works for classical guitar; with this compact disc, recorded live in Lisbon, she documents another two worthy additions to that record. Baltimore-born Christopher Rouse's "Concert de Gaudi for Guitar and Orchestra" from 1999 takes as its starting point the fanciful Spanish architecture of Antoni Gaudi, who died in 1926.

If you thought YouTube was just for cheap audio/visual kicks, many of them along the lines of the people-falling-down, pets-going-nutty stuff that turns up on tacky home-video TV shows, think again. This week, an ambitious, very 21st-century project called the YouTube Symphony Orchestra was launched, creating an online community of aspiring musicians. YouTube and parent company Google put together this cyber ensemble, which has no less than eminent conductor Michael Tilson Thomas as artistic director.

The choice is yours. You could stroll the grounds of Monticello hoping to commune with the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, then head farther south to walk in the footsteps of Scarlett O'Hara or dance to the joyous sounds of zydeco music in Louisiana. From there, you could jet to Scotland to be stirred by the call of bagpipes, head on to Ireland for Celtic songs, and proceed to France's Chartres Cathedral to join the faithful who gather to bask in the spiritual glow of medieval chant. Or, for $15, you can call off your trip and celebrate New Year's Eve in Maryland's capital city, where First Night Annapolis has arranged for you to experience all of these things and more.

The choice is yours. You could stroll the grounds of Monticello hoping to commune with the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, then head farther south to walk in the footsteps of Scarlett O'Hara or dance to the joyous sounds of zydeco music in Louisiana. From there, you could jet to Scotland to be stirred by the call of bagpipes, head on to Ireland for Celtic songs, and proceed to France's Chartres Cathedral to join the faithful who gather to bask in the spiritual glow of medieval chant. Or, for $15, you can call off your trip and celebrate New Year's Eve in Maryland's capital city, where First Night Annapolis has arranged for you to experience all of these things and more.