Tune in to the Sundance Channel tonight at 9 PM to catch David Byrne on the latest episode of the show Big Ideas for a Small Planet, titled "Transport." Byrne, a longtime advocate of urban bike use, will be part of a segment focusing on efforts to make cities more bike friendly. There's also word on his collaboration with Dirty Projectors for the forthcoming edition of the Red Hot compilation album to benefit AIDS research. Also on the album are Feist, Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, Sharon Jones, The Decemberists, and The National, whose Bryce Dessner is producing the collection.

Steve Reich selected Japanese composer Yuichi Matsumoto as the first-prize winner in this year's Toru Takemitsu Composition Award this past Sunday. It was the culminating event in Composium 2008, a several day affair at Tokyo Opera City featuring works by Reich, including the Japanese premiere of Daniel Variations and a performance of Music for 18 Musicians with the composer as guest artist.

Fresh off a three-day swing in the Punch Brothers' Punch tour that brought the band to the first-ever Delfest on Sunday, celebrating the musical legacy of the legendary Del McCoury, Chris Thile is back in New York City to perform in The Unnamed Music and Comedy Show at the 13th Street Repertory theater. The show is written, directed, and hosted by New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee and will feature live music from Chris, stand-up comedy from Roger Hailes, and some as-yet-undisclosed special extras.

k.d. lang has returned to Canada for several dates on her Watershed tour, including tonight's performance at Centennial Hall in London, Ontario. Across the Atlantic, in the elder London, k.d. was the subject of a feature profile in the Mail on Sunday this past weekend. She talks at length with the Mail's Liz Jones about life, love, religion, and her career. Jones prefaces the discussion by admitting: "I love the new album, Watershed, which is turning out to be her best performing album in the UK in a decade and, in fact, one of the best performers of her 25-year career."

Steve Reich is the featured composer for Tokyo Opera City's Composium 2008, part of the Contemporary Music Festival beginning today and running through Sunday. Ensemble Modern and Synergy Vocals perform in two sold-out, all-Reich concerts at the Opera's Concert Hall, with Brad Lubman conducting, including the Japanese premiere of Daniel Variations as well as a performance of the seminal work Music for 18 Musicians featuring the composer as guest performer. The event also includes a discussion with the composer and the selection of the 2008 Toru Takemitsu Composition Award.

David Byrne, in an op-ed contribution in today's New York Times, reflects on the life of the acclaimed American artist Robert Rauschenberg, who died Monday at the age of 82, recounting his own personal experiences with the man he knew as a friend, a colleague, and an inspiration.

John Adams's latest opera, A Flowering Tree, received its Midwest premiere last night in Chicago's Millennium Park, with the composer conducting. The Chicago Opera Theater production stars Natasha Jouhl as Kumudha, a young girl with the power to turn herself into a flowering tree; Noah Stewart as the Prince; and Sanford Sylvan, who has previously originated leading roles in two Adams operas, as the Storyteller.

John Adams's opera A Flowering Tree receives its Midwest premiere tonight in the Chicago Opera Theater performance at the Harris Theater in Millenium Park. The composer will conduct the opening night performance as well as the second performance, this Saturday. Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein says the piece offers "the light of hope and renewal" and concludes: "Nobody who loves contemporary opera and music theater can afford to miss it ... Adams' music is luminously beautiful, the entire opera a glorious multicultural paean to the ecology of the soul."