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Adam Guettel to Perform at Van Cliburn Foundation Event Tonight

Composer Adam Guettel performs at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth tonight for a sold-out show and conversation, as part of the Van Cliburn Foundation's Clibern at the Modern series. He will perform songs from his works Floyd Collins, Myths and Hymns, and the Tony Award-winning The Light in the Piazza, and will be joined for the occasion---his first time singing in three years---by singers from nearby Southern Methodist University.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Mark Lowry calls Guettel's work "terrific" and says the composer "has deservedly won wide acclaim in the past 15 years, probably because his three musicals are uniquely different, from each other and from anything else by contemporary composers." The two spoke about Guettel's career and just what inspires him to write about such a broad range of topics. Says Guettel:

You get that ache in your throat---you feel like you might cry. When I meet a story that gives me that feeling, I know that's an important sign. By the time I commit to something, it's on that throat-ache level. That can often translate very purely to what one can sing, as well. To sing about it will not be unnatural.

To read the interview, visit star-telegram.com.

New York Magazine Celebrates 40 Years of New York Culture

New York magazine is celebrating its 40th year with a special anniversary issue. In it, the magazine's culture critics give their take on the most essential New York works of art since the publication's inception, creating "The New York Canon: 1968-2008."

The classical music list, written by Justin Davidson, offers a wide range of artists and events, from Steve Reich's Drumming, which premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971, to the John Adams-curated opening-week festival of Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in 2003. Among the other quintessential New York moments in between are Laurie Anderson's United States I-V, the epic, two-night event in 1983 from that "great American raconteuse"; the US premiere of Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1991, which, despite the surrounding controversy, "contained ravishing music"; and Audra McDonald's 1998 debut solo album, Way Back to Paradise, with music by emerging songwriters like Adam Guettel, and the "killer concert at Joe's Pub" that launched it.

Listen to Audra perform "The Allure of Silence" (Adam Guettel / Lindy Robbins) from Way Back to Paradise:

Included in the theater canon, according to New York magazine's Jeremy McCarter, is the arrival of Stephen Sondheim's Company in 1970, which "brought new complexity and darker shadows to Broadway" ("Even now," McCarter writes, "other songwriters are struggling to catch up."), and the 2005 revival of the composer's 1979 work Sweeney Todd.

On the pop music list, by Hugo Lindgren and Ben Williams, is Talking Heads' 1980 album Remain in Light, on which David Byrne and Brian Eno create a sound that would inspire for decades to come, and The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs, "a distinctly New York masterpiece."

To read the complete list from New York magazine, visit nymag.com.

2008 American Songbook Series to Feature k.d. lang, Punch Brothers

Lincoln Center has announced the 2008 season of its popular American Songbook series, with tickets on sale to the public Thursday, October 25. Highlights of the season include three nights with k.d. lang, February 26–28, and an evening with Punch Brothers on February 20. Also featured are two shows on January 26 with Broadway star Kelli O'Hara, who earned a Tony nomination for her performance in Adam Guettel's Light in the Piazza .

For more information on these events and the complete American Songbook series, visit lincolncenter.org.