Kronos Quartet's Jeffrey Zeigler is featured in a documentary that will be shown as part of a centennial celebration of the Elationsists—an early 20th-century art movement from San Francisco that found hope in art after the devastation caused by the city's 1906 earthquake. San Francisco's Foundation for the Preservation of Fantastic Possibilities presents a weeklong exhibition beginning tonight that honors the movement's contribution through art, film, photography, poetry, music, and even a signature chocolate drink.

Earlier this week, we brought you news that the Metheny Music Foundation would be holding a concert with the Pat Metheny Trio and Pat's brother, Mike, to raise funds for the Foundation's scholarship program. The Kansas City Star has more of the details on the organization's backstory and its dual goals of supporting music education in the Methenys hometown of Lee's Summit, Missouri, and honoring the family's dedication to that town.

"In many ways, a collaboration between [David] Byrne and [Robert] Wilson was perfect," says Pitchfork's review of The Knee Plays. Bringing the material to CD for the first time, with previously unreleased bonus tracks, the Nonesuch reissue includes "a dense recollection of the pair's mind-meld by Byrne himself." And yet, even "extracted from its theatrical roots, Byrne's score holds up remarkably well."

Stephin Merritt will be DJing at the George & Dragon pub in London on December 10. He's been a regular at NYC’s Beauty Bar night "The Phantastic Invisible Tentacle" and a co-host of the Nowhere Bar’s "Runt" party. This marks his return to the London venue, where he'll be spinning his eclectic mix of late '60s and early '70s bubblegum and psychedelic pop songs. Distortion, the forthcoming The Magnetic Fields album, was featured on BBC 6 Music's Roundtable and scored high on the show's rating scale.

Yes, 'tis the season for year-end "Best of" lists from music critics, and the Nonesuch Journal is sure to let you know about the occasional one or two over the next few weeks. But SF Weekly has decided against the usual critics' list and offers instead "MyTunes"—lists of the year's best according to Bay Area luminaries. Among those weighing in: Kronos Quartet's David Harrington.

The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has just announced the nominees for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, including Nonesuch releases from Wilco, Ry Cooder, Joshua Redman, Stephen Sondheim, and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Judith Sherman is up for Classical Producer of the Year, including for Kronos Quartet's recording of Górecki's String Quartet No. 3.

Jonny Greenwood is featured among the "pitch perfect" film composers showcased in the Los Angeles Times. In the paper, Dennis Lim writes that Greenwood's score for Paul Thomas Anderson's new film, There Will Be Blood, marks an even greater role for the already major part music plays in Anderson's films. "In Paul Thomas Anderson's films, music is not just significant," writes Lim, "it's often front and center, impossible to ignore ... and his use of music reaches new heights of inspiration in There Will Be Blood."

Toronto's new Luminato Festival, which earlier this year, in its inaugural run, presented the world premiere of Philip Glass's Book of Longing, has unveiled its 2008 program, and the Globe and Mail calls it "an ambitious agenda of dance, music, theatre, film, and visual arts." On the bill for the June 6–15 event are the Canadian premieres of Nunavut by Kronos Quartet and Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq, and Laurie Anderson's Homeland. 

On tonight's New Sounds program on WNYC, New York Public Radio, the music of Sérgio Assad will be among the works featured in New American Voices VI, an exploration of the music of Latin America. It's part of WNYC's series The New Americans, which focuses on musicians from around the globe working in the US. 

Alarm Will Sound gave the world premiere performance of John Adams's Son of Chamber Symphony last weekend at Stanford University, and the reviews continue to roll in. The San Francisco Chronicle, calls the new piece “vivacious,” writing that it “bursts with the technical prowess and cogent wit of the composer's finest efforts.” The Financial Times points to the group's prowess in pulling off the "dangerously exhilarating" piece with aplomb. The San Jose Mercury News praises "the crackerjack new-music ensemble."

The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures has unveiled the winners of its awards for the best in film for 2007, and on its list of the Top Ten Films of the Year: Sweeney Todd. The film also garnered an award for Best Director, Tim Burton. The awards will be handed out at a special gala event on Tuesday, January 15, in New York City. Congratulations to Tim and the entire Sweeney cast and crew!

Fans of The Wire: Ever wonder how Prop Joe's earliest deals went down? Want to watch the very first McNulty-and-Bunk all-night bender? See Omar's first heist? The show's creator, David Simon, has produced three prequel shorts you can now catch on Amazon.com's page for the newly released fourth-season DVDs.