Every weekday morning we'll be featuring a photo (or two) from our readers. Please feel free to submit your photos (min 600px width) by adding them to the Austinist Flickr Group. Hartman Concert Park at the Long Center BY SONICPENGUIN......

The Austin Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Austin: Handel’s MessiahDecember 4, 2007 at 8:00 p.m.4214 N. Capitol of Texas Highway (4214 N. Capitol of Texas Highway)Riverbend Centre[info] | [tickets] Sir Thomas Beecham wrote of Handel in his memoirs, "Since his time mankind has heard no music written for voices which can even feebly rival his for grandeur of build and tone, nobility and tenderness of melody, scholastic skill and ingenuity and inexhaustible variety of effect…Handel…is......

At the regal Riverbend Centre on Saturday night, Joanna Newsom proved why she’s one of today’s most iconoclastic and oddly appealing musicians: not only did she mesh shockingly well with the ultra-classy Austin Symphony Orchestra, but she also managed to get in trouble for hauling a bottle of Maker’s Mark onto stage. And it’s in this almost-accidental appeal to both sides of the concert-going spectrum—as well as an almost embarrassing wealth of talent—that she......

Five years ago you never would have believed it, but it’s true: the harp is so in. And evidence of that is most acute in that elfin goddess of harpsterism, Joanna Newsom, who will be toting her really big harp—and the lilting wordplay that comes along with it—right on down to Austin this Saturday night. And no, it won’t just be her alone lighting up the stage and the eyes of adoring boys at Riverbend......

The Austin Symphony announced last week that Christopher Theofanidis has been commissioned to write a work for the opening of the Long Center next year. Theofanidis, a native Texan, is the composer of Rainbow Body, one of the most-performed new orchestral works of the last decade. This Masterprize-winning piece was inspired by a Hildegard von Bingen chant. You may have heard Rainbow Body if you attended the Austin Symphony's series-opening concert in 2005. Theofanidis' work......

UPDATE: We called Frontgate this morning, and were informed that the tickets will indeed be general seated admission. Tickets will be $35 with a $5.50 service fee. As promised, here are the specifics (as many as we have) on the Joanna Newsom performance with the Austin Symphonic Orchestra in October we mentioned earlier this week. Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning (August 30) at 10:00 a.m., through Frontgate Tickets, and they are $35 a pop.......

We've just confirmed that Joanna Newsom will be giving a special performance at the Riverbend Centre in October. This will be the first time all of us regular folks stateside will have a chance to experience the whole shebang that audiences in the UK had last year, as she toured Europe in support of Ys. The performance will feature the orchestral arrangements of Van Dyke Parks, who assisted Newsom on the album, and previous......

Just like last year, Austin's in for another rainy July 4th. With Lake Travis still hovering around 700 feet above sea level and an estimated 2-4 inches of rain on the way, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) is keeping all area lakes closed for boating, including Lake Austin and Town Lake. "Debris and high water from floodwaters make the lakes unsafe," reads the news bulletin post to LCRA's site this afternoon. "LCRA will......

To continue Austin's year-long celebration of Shostakovich's centennial, pianist Melissa Marse and Russian bass Nikita Storojev will be joining the Austin Symphony Orchestra for two nights of the twentieth-century Russian composer's works. The ASO will start off with selections from Shostakovich's score for Ovod (The Gadfly). Melissa Marse will then perform the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Shostakovich with the ASO. This concerto leans towards Romanticism (most evident in the second movement), while still......

While it may only be two thirds as tittilating as the panty raid party at Beauty Bar happening shortly thereafter, the Austin Symphony opens its 96th season tomorrow night at Bass Concert Hall, with a program featuring Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell and works by William Schuman, Beethoven, and Brahms. Bell, who plays a 1713 Stradivarius Gibson ex Huberman valued somewhere in the millions, has garnered accolades and recognition far too numerous to list. From......

MONDAY [3] [film] Sergeant York at Paramount Theatre (7pm) (link) [film] Hands on a Hard Body at Rounders Pizzeria (8pm, FREE) (link) [film] Swingers at Austin Java (8pm, FREE) (link) [film] Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill at Café Mundi (8pm, FREE) (link) [film] Pride of the Yankees at Paramount Theatre (9:20pm) (link) [music] Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Pong, Harry Merry at Emo's (link) [music] Mendoza Line at Hole in the Wall (link) [music] Black Crowes......

MONDAY [10][karaoke] Monday Karaoke at Beerland (Free, 9pm) (link) [film] Monday Movies al fresco, with 'Heavenly Creatures" and "Welcome to the Dollhouse" at Sidebar (link) [comedy/books] David Sedaris at Bass Concert Hall (8pm) (link) [music] Elizabeth McQueen at Theadgill's (Free, 8pm) (link) [film/drinking] FUSEBOX Happy Hour at Blue Theater (6pm, $5, screening of short films by Austin's Zellner Brothers as part of the ongoing FUSEBOX Festival) (link) [theatre] "Durang/Durang" at Mary Mood Northern Theatre (8pm,......

What a possible travesty! Might the Texas Commission on the Arts -- provider of grants, information, and technical assistance to artists and arts organizations in visual arts, theatre, dance, music, media and literature -- be destroyed? The organization, which has been the primary source of governmental funding of the arts in Texas for over forty years, was under the Sunset review this year, a process all state agencies undergo every 12 years to determine whether......

Tonight, Dionysium's debate will be resolve whether or not movies should be released in theaters and on DVD simultaneously and will feature The Reel Deal host Korey Coleman vs. Burnt Orange Productions DVD producer Byron Sebock. This looks like it will be a fascinating evening with the following program to accompany the debate: A PRESENTATION "GOD IS A TERRORIST : TALES OF A PENTECOSTAL HERETIC IN THE AMERICAN HEARTLAND" by Journalist Russ Cobb, fresh......

As part of his Symphony Tour, Declan McManus aka Elvis Costello will be visiting Austin for one night only at the UTPAC's Bass Concert Hall and will be performing with the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Costello and longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve team up with the Austin Symphony in a performance that features two unforgettable sets. The first, a suite from Il Sogno (The Dream), Costello's celebrated full-length orchestral work based on Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream.......

From tonight through July 23, the Austin Chamber Music Center hosts its annual ACMC Festival, with near-daily concerts featuring works by Beethoven, Ravel, Schubert, Brahms, and plenty more. They're kicking off the month-long engagement tonight with a concert at the Driskill Hotel, featuring Austin Symphony Music Director Peter Bay along with several ACMC musicians. They'll be performing works by Beethoven, Gounod, and Dvorak; we suspect this will be one of the livelier performances of......

As always, Austin is providing a lovely fireworks display with the city skyline in the background for Independence Day, complete with cannon-fire. The H-E-B Austin Symphony July 4th Concert & Fireworks When: Monday, July 4, 2002 - 8:30 pm Where: NorthEast Triangle of Zilker Park What: Fireworks with a symphony soundtrack for free! More Info Or, if you’re looking for something different on the 4th, you could head on over to Tambaleo for an......

Austin took a big leap forward earlier this week in its goal to become a major performing arts powerhouse before the next decade. The ambitious Long Center - which when completed in 2008 will consolidate the Austin Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Austin, and Austin Lyric Opera as well as serve as an exhibition space for hundreds of local artists and organizations - received $500,000 from the Dallas-based Meadows Foundation. This brings the total level of......