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. 

Lee's Summit, Missouri, Pat Metheny's hometown, is also the home and inspiration for the new Metheny Music Foundation, which awards scholarships for local high school students to attend the University of Missouri—Kansas City Jazz Improv Camp. On Friday, March 7, the Foundation will hold a fundraising concert at the nearby Unity Village Activities Center featuring student musicians from Lee's Summit schools along with the Pat Metheny Trio and Pat's brother, trumpeter Mike Metheny.

The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced that Daniel Day-Lewis, star of the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson film There Will Be Blood, will be presented the Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Festival's January 5 gala event, reports the Palm Springs Desert Sun. The Festival includes screenings of over 200 films as well as special events, seminars, and runs January 3-14.

When Sérgio and Odair Assad joined the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for two concerts at the Adelaide Guitar Festival in Australia this past weekend, the performance was "one of the most exhilarating on record" for the ASO, according to the Adelaide Advertiser. The program featured Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole, which showcased the syncopated rhythms "the Brazilian brothers have in their blood, along with a sense of lyricism rare among their kind." Also on the program were selections from Sérgio's arrangement of Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, which, complementing the orchestra's strings and winds, was "drawn even further into the Argentinian ambiance by the warmth and clarity of the two guitars."

Fans of the The Wire residing north of the 49th parallel will be able to catch the show's fifth and final season Sunday, January 6, the same day it debuts on HBO in the US. Viewers in western Canada can tune in on Movie Central at 8 PM PT and those in the eastern part of the country can watch on The Movie Network at 9 PM ET. The soundtrack will be available from Nonesuch two days later.