NY Times music critic Allan Kozinn's review of Present Music's Kimmo Hakola concert in New York appeared today. Interesting take on the music and nice action pic of your MMM host.

I had intended to do a post with one person's suggested "itinerary" for the entire eleven days of the Columbia Festival of the Arts, which begins Thursday...but blogging time has been rare in the lead up to tomorrow night's concert in New York and my big Kimmo Hakola solo piece. On Wednesday it's back home to Columbia and I hope to get to several of the Festival events, though I'll be on the road again from May 1 on.

In any case, if I could have limitless time to attend Festival events, this would be my plan for the first few days:

The first event isn't even really part of the Festival: Thursday night the 26th is the last day of the run at the Nickelodeon Theatre for this year's Oscar-nominated short documentaries. Among these is "Two Hands," the 18-minute film about my former teacher Leon Fleisher.

Friday the 27th get your Festival-going off to a Great Classics start, with Theatre South Carolina's 8 PM performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It." (If you want to drop $125 for the opening Gala on the Horseshoe which starts at 6:30,  be my guest...you can still duck out after an hour for the Shakespeare).

Saturday the 28th I would take advantage of what I would hope would be good weather in the daytime for Artista Vista, taking place that day from 11 to 3. The vibrancy of the visual arts scene in Columbia is one of the things that struck me after living here only a very short time, and it's gratifying to see that the visual arts are being featured so prominently as part of the CFA. Maybe stretch the afternoon out with drinks and dinner in the Vista, and then drift further westward, across the mighty Congaree, over to Bill's Pickin' Parlor in West Columbia for the concert at 8 PM featuring the house band, Bill Wells himself and the Blue Ridge Mountain Grass.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon at 3 PM, I'll be at the Keenan High School theatre for Opera USC's spring production, Dominick Argento's "Postcard from Morocco." The season began in the Baroque for the opera students with Handel, then moved on into late-19th/early-20th century French opera with Bizet and Debussy, now culminating in this American opera from 1971. The Opera USC page links to lots more information about Argento and this work.

This is just stuff that piques my interest; if you go to the Columbia Festival of the Arts website, you could come up with an entirely different itinerary. Have a great week.

Pat Berman's cover story on digital technology in cinemas (in yesterday's Life and Arts section of The State) mentioned Regal Cinema's live concert broadcasts of shows by Rod Stewart and Korn, but did not mention the Metropolitan Opera's groundbreaking live performance broadcasts into digitally-equipped movie houses, begun this season.

That may be because those shows, which have been making such an impact nationally, are not yet being broadcast in the Columbia area. There are still some rebroadcasts of earlier performances done this season; the next one is Puccini's "Il Trittico," scheduled for April 28. The nearest places to Columbia to view that on the big screen in digital high-definition technology are Augusta, Charlotte, and Greenville.

Berman's article mentions Carmike 14 in Irmo, Wynnsong 10 in Forest Acres, and Regal Sandhill Stadium 16 in Northeast Richland as local cinemas that have gone digital. Call the managers and owners of these cinemas and ask them to consider joining the network of theaters broadcasting the Metropolitan Opera live performances.