Music Features

This week, we listen back to four recent features from the CultureFiles section at GoPhila.com. We'll discover a little of the history of the Curtis Institute of Music and take a walk through the James A. Michener Art Museum, while Susan Lewis visits the Rosenbach Museum & Library and explores the Fairmount Water Works.

This week, a visit from one of today's most exciting new artists-guitarist Jason Vieaux. A 1992 winner of the Guitar Foundation of America's international competition, and a top prize winner in the 1996 Naumburg competition, Vieaux was honored as an artistic ambassador for the US to Southeast Asia in 1995. He was also an NPR "Young Artist-in-Residence" for 2002. He currently holds the position of chair of the guitar department at the Cleveland Institute, and continues to perform with orchestras world-wide to critical acclaim.

A major Andrew Wyeth retrospective opens this week at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's one of three current local Wyeth Exhibitions. We'll take a look at the painter who, despite being ignored by the art world for much of his seven decade career, has remained true to his own artistic vision. Albert Stumm looks into how artists and arts organizations are helping local economic revitalization. Jason Peifer previews A Skull in Connemara by Martin McDonagh at the Iron Age Theatre in Norristown, PA.

Jill's guest will be the internationally renowned soprano Sylvia McNair. For over twenty years, McNair has been gracing the stages of opera houses the world over. But recently she's been exploring music from the Great American Songbook, performing to intimate audiences across the country.

This week, a conversation with baritone William Stone. The newly appointed Temple University professor will, this weekend, lead students in a Kimmel Center performance of a work for which he has won a Grammy award. The Philadelphia Museum of Art moves ahead with its largest expansion ever. Susan Lewis has an update on progress. Jason Peifer watches the national production of Wicked load-in at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. There's been a marked increase in incidents of major art theft in the past years.