Annunciation + Visitation, a unique musical performance exploring two vastly different expressions of female sexuality, stretches the boundaries of what defines opera.

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra returns to Bloomington Sunday, Oct. 11, at 3 p.m. for the inaugural Indiana University President's Concert in the Musical Arts Center. The concert, offered free by the university to the campus and Bloomington community, will be conducted by renowned maestro Juanjo Mena and will feature Jacobs School of Music Professor Alexander Kerr in a performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. Kerr is also the principal guest concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Additional works on the program include Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 and IU composer and Jacobs Professor Claude Baker's "Aus Schwanengesang."

Brendan Kelley Faegre was standing in his kitchen, talking to his roommate, when his cell phone rang. Caller ID showed the number as "unavailable," and he assumed it was probably a telemarketer but picked up anyway. The master's student in music composition at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music soon learned that the unidentified caller was actually Ralph Jackson, president of the BMI Foundation. He was calling to give Faegre good news.

Indiana University Professor of Composition Jeffrey Hass was recently awarded a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship to live and work at the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humanities on the Mediterranean coast south of Genoa, Italy. Hass, who also serves as director of the Center for Electronic and Computer Music at the Jacobs School of Music, will begin the fellowship in September 2009. The fellowship announcement follows three other honors for Hass, including a $17,000 IU New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities grant; first prize and an orchestral commission for a work for the 2009 Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake City; and having a piece accepted for performance at the 2009 conference of the International Computer Music Association in Montreal this August.

The Indiana University Bloomington Contemporary Dance Program and Jacobs School of Music Student Composer Association have teamed up for the fourth year in a row to create the "Hammer and Nail" concert. This year's event will feature 14 new works created by a group of 30 student artists.

The Indiana University Bloomington Contemporary Dance Program and Jacobs School of Music Student Composer Association have teamed up for the fourth year in a row to create the "Hammer and Nail" concert. This year's event will feature 14 new works created by a group of 30 student artists.

The Orion String Quartet, the resident quartet at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, will be premiering a new work by Jacobs Professor and Composition Department Chair David Dzubay in a free concert on Monday, April 13, at 8 p.m. in Auer Hall.

The collaboration between Kelly McCormick Bangs and Gabriel Lubell began last semester with a form of speed dating, when Indiana University choreographers and composers came together in search of their like-minded counterpart. Rather than dinner and a movie, the creative pairings resulted in 15 new and robust dance/music works that will be performed this weekend at the third annual "Hammer and Nail" concert in Bloomington.

Modern dance performers at Indiana University will perform seminal works of modern dance icons as well as original faculty creations featuring cutting edge technology during the IU Contemporary Dance Program's annual guest artist and faculty concert on Jan. 11-12 on the Bloomington campus.

The Indiana University New Music Ensemble (NME) will break musical boundaries with its new season that will feature some of the most imaginative and adventurous electronica ever heard, with a unique twist -- it will be arranged for chamber ensemble. The NME season opens on Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. in the Jacobs School of Music's Auer Hall.

The Jacobs School of Music congratulates Professor David Dzubay, composer and chair of the composition department, who was recently named a 2007 Guggenheim Fellow. The prestigious award is one of the most affirming research awards worldwide for artists, humanists, and scientists.

IU Jacobs School of Music Professor of Composition Claude Baker has received two of Indiana University's most distinguished accolades. This spring, Baker was appointed to the rank of Chancellor's Professor and, this fall, he will receive the Indiana University 2007 Tracey M. Sonneborn Award.

Four of this year's Guggenheim Fellows are professors at Indiana University Bloomington. The election of IUB science historian Domenico Bertoloni-Meli, composer David Dzubay, Near Eastern languages and cultures Professor John Walbridge, and sociologist Pamela Barnhouse Walters brings IU's total of Guggenheim Fellows to 123.

Featuring 20 musicians who deftly glide through new solo, chamber and large ensemble works from composers around the world, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble expects to make a sizeable impact on the East Coast music scene next month when it tours the area with a concert titled "New Music from Indiana."

How do you improve upon something that's already so perfect? That was the challenge Arri Simon confronted when, during his freshman year at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, his music composition master class was assigned to set a segment of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legendary "I Have a Dream" speech to music. In what would be a dream scenario for many composers, Simon's resulting piece, written to complement the magical nature of King's words, will be performed by two-time Grammy Award-winning soprano Sylvia McNair on Tuesday (Feb. 20) in Atlanta.

The School of Music congratulates composer and Professor of Music Don Freund who was recently named a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow.

Four of this year's Guggenheim Fellows are professors at Indiana University Bloomington. The election of IUB biologists Lynda Delph and Jeffrey Palmer, composer Don Freund and historian Michael Grossberg brings IU's total of Guggenheim Fellows to 117.

The following tip sheet provides information about music news and events happening at the Indiana University School of Music. This issue we feature an 85th birthday celebration in honor of Juan Orrego-Salas, founder of IU's Latin American Music Center and champion of Latin American classical music; the U.S. premiere by IU's New Music Ensemble of a composition by famed British composer Harrison Birtwistle; and a glimpse of a "not so ordinary" The Nutcracker as performed by students of IU's Ballet Theater.

Indiana University Bloomington rock and roll historian Glenn Gass is available to discuss the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' invasion of America.