"You know that a movie wows an audience when nobody stirs during the closing credits. That's what happened at the end of Sweeney Todd tonight at the first critics' screening in Manhattan." So reports Tom O'Neil in his LATimes.com blog, Gold Derby. While he's not yet able to give a full review of the movie this far in advance of its December 21 release, he does have a few words to say about Sweeney, which he calls "the most important movie of 2007."

Argentine composer and pianist Fernando Otero will release his Nonesuch debut, Pagina de Buenos Aires, on January 15, 2008, and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel staff writer David Cázares says the album "captures the spirit and style of tango, one of the world's most intriguing dances." But more than simply repeating what's already been done, "Otero fuses the genre with classical music and jazz ... His music is demanding and expressive ..."

The Zenon Dance Company, based in Minnesota's Twin Cities, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a series of performances beginning tonight and running through Sunday. The Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages previews the shows and lists among the program's highlights classic pieces like Bebe Miller's Sanctuary, set to music by Marianne Faithfull, and two new works, including the Midwestern premiere of Doug Varone's Of the Earth Far Below set to Steve Reich's Triple Quartet.

The 2008 Tanglewood season has been announced, and Kronos Quartet is among the Guest Artists taking the stage at the Lenox, Massachusetts, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Kronos' Thursday, August 14, program will include John Zorn's Dead Man, Flugufrelsarinn by Sigur Rós, and Steve Reich's Triple Quartet, which the composer wrote for the Quartet in 1998. Tickets go on sale to the public February 17. 

This week, New England Conservatory held a mini-festival celebrating the music of Steve Reich, with four free concerts held over Wednesday and Thursday nights. In today's Boston Globe, correspondent Kevin Lowenthal reports from Wednesday's concerts, which featured Piano Phases, Different Trains, Six Pianos, and, as the closing piece, Music for 18 Musicians. About the last, Lowenthal writes that "More than 30 years since its debut, the piece remains fresh. It evokes a blazing night sky observed to the sound of crickets, then moves beyond that to the mind's imaginative journey through the infinity of space."

Making its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival will be the TV adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, starring the leads of the 2004 Broadway revival, Audra McDonald, Sean Combs, and Phylicia Rashad. The New York Post says the film will be "the cultural high point" of the TV season when it airs on ABC February 25.

Good news for fans of The Magnetic Fields unable to make one of their three sold-out shows at New York City's Town Hall in February: a fourth show has been added! On Sunday, February 24, 2008, the group will play one more night in NYC before heading to San Francisco for their next tour dates. Tickets for the newly added show will be available beginning today at 12 PM EST.

When you've signed on to play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, chances are good you'll be wielding razor blades every now and then. And when you've played Edward Scissorhands, one would expect you'd be comfortable with that sort of thing. But in an interview with the Glasgow Daily Record, Johnny Depp admits to having some trepidation when it came to lathering up his co-star in the film version of Sweeney Todd, Alan Rickman.

Condé Nast's Portfolio magazine gives an in-depth look at Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, There Will Be Blood—from the writer/director's initial decision to adapt Upton Sinclair's novel Oil! for the screen right down to the "bravura camera moves" he chose for the finished creation. In the article, Portfolio's Fred Schruers lauds the "genius" in the performance of the film's star, Daniel Day-Lewis, and points to "Jonny Greenwood's smartly intrusive score that riddles ominous tones with industrial-strength percussion."

After kicking off the California leg his of US tour last night in Santa Cruz, Youssou N'Dour will make two more stops in northern California before heading down to Los Angeles this Saturday. Gearing up for the concert at UCLA's Royce Hall, the Los Angeles Times praises Youssou's "inimitable vocals, with their seductive timbral span" and argues that "a pretty convincing case could be made for N'Dour as one of the world's most visible and successful international artists."

Wired magazine's pop-culture blog, Underwire, reports on, well, The Wire. For those not yet wired in, writer Erik Malinowski previews the soon-to-be-released official series soundtrack from Nonesuch Records that "fans have been clamoring for years for." He recognizes the praise the series has gotten, saying that "few people will argue that The Wire is the best show on television. By far."

The New Music Collective out of Charleston, South Carolina, begins its season this Sunday with a program called New Music, New Charleston, which will include a performance of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint by area guitarist David Linaburg, along with two world premieres of works by local composers.