HubArts.com

Peabody Essex's Chinese house inspires Kronos Quartet premiere...

...but unfortunately, the performance is elsewhere. On Nov. 3 at Carnegie Hall, the Kronos Quartet and Chinese musician and composer WuMan will debut "A Chinese Home," a four-part work inspired by Yin Yu Tang, the 200-year-old Chinese merchant family's house moved to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem in 2003. Wu Man visited the house that year. "The home brought back many memories for me," she said in a statement provided by the museum. "I stayed in the home for quite a long while –I looked through each room, touched tables, chairs, and beds, taking in every little detail.  It reminded me of my grandma’s home and my childhood life. I didn’t want to leave until the staff came to get me.  A year later, when the Kronos Quartet and I were discussing the possibility of a new project, Yin Yu Tang of course came to mind and I mentioned it to (Kronos member) David Harrington. During the working process, we visited Yin Yu Tang at PEM, and we even took trip to a Huang village, Yin Yu Tang’s regional home in China."

Everything from folk to electronic music is involved in the 45-minute piece, played by the quartet with Wu Man on pipa. Each section evokes a different period in China's history, from the most traditional to the convulsions of the cultural revolution and the recent modernization. There are also staged and video elements, and some of the instruments are custom creations. Aside from the Carnegie Hall premiere, there are performances scheduled early next year at Stanford, the University of Illinois, the University of Maryland and Notre Dame. But as yet, not one at or near the Peabody Essex

"Genes & Jazz" at MOS

First the Smithsonian, then the Guggenheim, now the Museum of Science. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Harold Varmus (left), President of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and his son, jazz composer and trumpeter Jacob Varmus (right),  are bringing their “Genes & Jazz” program to the MOS on Nov. 4. Their gig compares cell biology to musical development through a multimedia experience featuring the Jacob Varmus Quintet. It comes in three parts: The Cell, Evolution, and Cancer.

“We both felt that there were unexplored similarities between jazz and science,” Jacob Varmus told the New Yorker. “They both involve investigating patterns and structures and how things work. Science and jazz are also both fringe communities in this country, and so we figured we could tell a parallel story.” Tix, $15, at the box office, at 617-723-2500, or at mos.org/events. Pix: PLoS (left) and his web site (right).

Rose Museum, Ewa Podles, Sack 57: PM reading

Greg Cook went to the Rose Museum for last night's opening of “The Rose at Brandeis: Works from the Collection," and notices the polite protesters and the police as well as the art. He also wonders what happened to planned trustee action. ... And here's an even juicier version of the story, with the first lady of Brandeis getting huffy. ... Stay tuned. ... The AP reviews Ewa Podles in Opera Boston's "Tancredi." ... And the Globe put the story of the city's newest movie theater - an art house at the site of the old Sack 57 - on P1.

"Sleep No More" invades our dreams

At one point during  "Sleep No More," alone in the shadowy darkness of the men's room, I broke the no-cellphones/no-photography rule and took a picture of my masked self in the mirror. The little screen displayed a ghostly image that I carefully saved, thinking I'd use it here. And just now, when I went to find it, it was gone from my phone. No doubt I simply bungled the save; the prompts were hard to see from inside the mask, in the dark. But this loss of self seems a perfect metaphor for the spooky, unsettling atmosphere created by the Punchdrunk troupe and the American Repertory Theatre for this production inside the corridors and classrooms of the vacant Old Lincoln School in Brookline.

When my wife and I finally doffed our masks and stepped outside after two hours (the experience can go on for three), we both sort of giggled with relief. It was warm in the building, hot and uncomfortable inside the white plastic masks. But I think we were just relieved to be released from the spell that this intensely strange version of "Macbeth" casts, the feeling of dislocation and foreboding, of confusion and voyeuristic guilt. Music comes and goes and seems to follow you around the building, and always there is an ominous electronic hum. I think we were relieved to be away from that, too, and in the car we discussed our occasional frustration with the self-guided production. We went to bed late, and in the morning, it turned out we had both dreamed ourselves back in those rooms and hallways. Neither one of us could remember the details of our dreams, but I am sure that I heard that ominous electronic hum all night long...

Pause for station identification

I'm half done with a magnum opus on last night's visit to the ART's "Sleep No More," one of the strangest theatrical experiences I've ever had. (The words "strobe-lit," "naked" and "mask" are involved.) But I have a Globe piece to finish first. Bear with me, it'll be worth your while, I promise.

No surprise here: Levine to miss Beethoven cycle

Thought so. When the Boston Symphony Orchestra said at the end of September that James Levine would be out for a couple of weeks for back surgery, I wrote "they're expecting Levine back to conduct Beethoven in late October, which seems mighty optimistic." Two weeks later they said he would only be back for part of the cycle, returning Oct. 28, and I wrote, "To me that still seems kind of quick, considering he had disc surgery a couple of weeks ago. " Now the Symphony sez that he'll miss the whole cycle; the Exhibitionist reports that Levine won't return to the podium here until Jan. 28. If I can figure out that four weeks is not enough time for a 66-year-old man to recover fully from disc surgery, you'd think everyone else could. The complete press release, including word on Loren Maazel filling in, is after the jump.

Conservatory soars, plus "bestiality and Smurfs"

Two must-reads in the Globe this morning. The first is Geoff's page-one takeout on the Boston New England Conservatory ramping up its adoption of the Venezuelan music-education program La Sistema. This is a smart, terrific idea to bring to the USA the program that gave life to the famous Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, whose most famous alum is new Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Then, on a very much less high-minded note, you can turn to my theater column, which is about "Valet of the Dolls," the latest pop culture massacre from the Gold Dust Orphans (right). My lede: In a conversation that touches on bestiality, the Smurfs, and giant tap-dancing hypodermic needles, the funniest thing Ryan Landry says is this: “I don’t do minimalism.’’ ... Actually I take that back. Three must-reads. Joan Anderman on the Boston Book Festival, too.

Opera Boston at Lizard Lounge? Brain freeze!

I get about a million press releases a day. (And that's just from you, Joyce!) Picking and choosing is hard, but this ought to be killer: On Nov. 18, Opera Boston celebrates National Opera Week Nov. 13-22 with another installment of its Underground cabaret series at Lizard Lounge in Cambridge. "Operatic Acrobatics: Opera Without a Net" will feature 10 young singers from the company, including Sol Kim Bentley, Brenna Wells and Julia Mintzer, performing "difficult, high-wire repertoire from the operatic canon, complete with death-defying feats." Uh, OK. And 45-minute show is listed as 21+, which is a good thing, because it sounds like you may want a drink. And here's the best part: it's FREE. No reservations, doors at 7, music at 7:30. Rockin'.

Sculpture on the waterfront

Pound for pound, Newburyport has more artists than just about anywhere in Massachusetts except maybe Provincetown. You can't swing a stick without hitting a painter or an actor or a poet, but then, why would you try? (Rimshot, please.) Random encounters with art are common, and a couple of days ago I was walking my dog by the waterfront when I ran into curator Jay Havighurst installing the 2009-2010 exhibit at the Somerby's Landing Sculpture Park by the water. Four new pieces are going in, including "Orb" by Lisa Victoria:

BSO, James Levine, Google, music, death: Morning reading

I write for them, so it's not without self-interest that I say I like it when the Globe puts an arts story on the front page. Today that's Geoff's interview with James Levine addressing the topics of the maestro's health and his demanding schedule. ... I DM'd a link to our friends over at Musicians for Music 2.0 this morning: Google is getting into the music search business. .... And finally, if you missed it yesterday, read this a fascinating little piece about a Texas reporter whose death-chamber beat is becoming lonelier than ever with the problems facing the newspaper business. Hell of a kicker, too.