There's no doubt about what New York Post writer Adam Buckman will be doing on February 25: watching ABC's TV-movie version of A Raisin in the Sun, starring Audra McDonald and her co-stars from the play's 2004 Broadway revival: Sean "Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Sanaa Lathan. Buckman calls the movie "so rewarding that it figures to be the cultural high point of the current TV season." After attending a private screening of the film, Buckman was "blown away," calling the performances "top-drawer."

The Music Box review of the new Robert Plant / Alison Krauss collaboration, Raising Sand, saves his highest praise for the album's producer, T Bone Burnett. The review expects that fans of Burnett's work on Sam Phillips’s A Boot and a Shoe will appreciate Burnett's efforts on the new record. Included among the tracks is Philips's "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us," which "is delivered as a moody hallucination that comes in the wake of crushing heartache." Her own version of the song will appear on her new album, Don't Do Anything, due early next year on Nonesuch. Burnett's own record is also slated for release next spring.

Just announced: Glenn Kotche will be opening for Andrew Bird, left, at New York's Beacon Theatre on Friday, November 30. Glenn will be performing the world premiere of his Anomaly with Kronos Quartet at the San Francisco Jazz Festival this Thursday, October 25.

Earlier this month, David Byrne joined Young @ Heart Chorus, a group of "gyrating geriatrics" (according to Time and the choir's own website), at their gig in NYC's Paris Bar. Byrne, by far the youngest person on stage (chorus members range in age from 72 to 88), joined in on the Talking Heads's "Heaven" and a new Byrne-penned tune, "One Fine Day." He reports on his blog that "the hipsters at the Paris Bar were completely won over, I think."

In the October 18 episode of NPR's All Songs Considered, host Bob Boilen opens the show by recalling the first time he heard David Byrne's Knee Plays on cassette, back in 1985. He remembers driving around in his car listening to it—"I played it constantly"—until giving it away as a thank-you gift. He's been waiting 20-plus years for the CD release to replace the missing cassette, and, he says, "It's such a thrill to hear it again." Hear the episode here.

The LA Opera production of Brecht/Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which starred Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone and ran through February 2007, will air December 17 as part of the Great Performances series on New York's PBS station Thirteen/WNET. It will be available on DVD the following day. The production was directed by John Doyle, who also helmed the recent Broadway revivals of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (starring LuPone) and Company.

David Byrne will be among 140 artists contributing to The Seed Project, in which participants create works of art starting with a humble bag of grass seeds, in an effort to promote sustainability. The resulting works will be on display in New York City for five weeks, opening Thursday, October 25, at the Winkleman Gallery.

The unbeatable pairing of Broadway heavy hitters Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin—both Tony winners for their roles in the original Broadway production of Evita—is back for one week at Philadelphia's Prince Music Theater, October 23–29, in An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. The show, choreographed by fellow Broadway legend Ann Reinking, will include songs by Stephen Sondheim and Richard Rodgers among many others.

Lincoln Center has announced the 2008 season of its popular American Songbook series, with tickets on sale to the public Thursday, October 25. Highlights of the season include three nights with k.d. lang, February 26–28, and an evening with Punch Brothers on February 20. Also featured are two shows on January 26 with Broadway star Kelli O'Hara, who earned a Tony nomination for her performance in Adam Guettel's Light in the Piazza .

American Ballet Theatre will give the world premiere of C. to C. (Close to Chuck), created by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, at New York City Center on October 27. The piece was inspired by Philip Glass's A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close, which the composer wrote for pianist Bruce Levingston in 2005. Glass is "the most inventive and innovative composer of my adult life," Close tells the New York Sun. The addition of Elo's choreography reminds him of those earlier collaborative days in the 1960s: "To get a good choreographer and composer and visual artist together," he tells the Sun, "it's like old home week!"

In a sprawling interview with pitchforkmedia.com, folk rocker Devendra Banhart talks about everything from colonial American history to making his new record using an authentic Nicolai Tesla–made microphone. Banhart, who appeared earlier this year at a David Byrne–curated concert at Carnegie Hall, also recalls what he says is the "best review" he's ever gotten; it was from Caetano Veloso.

On October 20, at the seventh annual World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent, Belgium, composer Clint Mansell picked up two awards for his score to The Fountain, performed by Kronos Quartet and Mogwai. Mansell received both the award for the year's Best Original Soundtrack and the Public Choice Award.