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Carlo Gesualdo was a prince and landholder in Venosa in southeastern Italy. Around 1588 his wife began an affair with a gentleman in the vicinity. In 1590 Gesualdo, found the pair in bed together, stabbed them both, and hung their corpses in front of his castle for all to see. The story was retold repeatedly by poets of the day in a sixteenth-century equivalent of headline news. Was Gesualdo really a renegade as well as a murderer? Was he even a “modernist” of his time?

UMS is presenting the Chamber Ensemble of the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra on February 10. They perform on the zheng, dizi, erhu, pipa, and other Chinese instruments seldom featured in the West. Learn about and listen to these instruments below the fold.

Next month, the Royal Shakespeare Company will visit Ann Arbor for its 2012 creative residency. During three previous, extensive residencies, presented by UMS, the RSC performed 3 history plays, a world premiere stage adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children,” and “Antony and Cleopatra” and “The Tempest” starring Patrick Stewart. This residency is a working residency and a collaboration with U-M, during which the RSC will share and discuss two plays it hopes to produce during its next season. Check out these open to the public events.

Dr. Justin O’Dell, Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Michigan State University, writes about his experiences having Trio di Clarone member Wolfgang Meyer as his post-graduate teacher.

French composer Olivier Messiaen is famous for his love of nature, particularly birds and bird songs. His work From The Canyons To The Stars — which will be performed in Hill Auditorium this Sunday, January 29 by the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jeffrey Tate — shows a much grander side of Messiaen’s wondrous admiration of the natural world.

Leslie Stainton on Sunday’s Saturday Morning Physics event featuring physicists Sean Carroll and Michael S. Turner, and composer Philip Glass.

Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars), commissioned to commemorate America’s bicentennial, was inspired the by the American West. Conductor Jeffrey Tate and the Hamburg Symphony, in collaboration with Israeli filmmaker Daniel Landau, bring the piece alive in a new cinematic installation, where images of man’s impact on the environment create a counterpoint to sounds of untouched nature. UMS’s video producer and filmmaker Sophia Kruz interviewed Daniel Landau over Skype.

On January 29, UMS will present the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra who will perform French composer Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars). From the Canyons to the Stars was inspired by the natural wonder Messiaen found in the landscapes of the American West. We put together a playlist of other music we love which was inspired by nature. Take a listen.

Excitement is brewing this week in Ann Arbor and seems about ready to burst. Einstein on the Beach is officially beginning again, for the first time in twenty years, and after much anticipation….tomorrow. All of our preview performances this weekend are sold out, and we’ve been told that people are coming from 30 different states to see what we have created. The thought is thrilling, humbling, and sobering all at once.