Today is the baptismal anniversary of composer Carl Stamitz, who would have been 268 years old and a day today if he had succeeded in the last act of his amazingly productive but wholly disappointing life. You see, in addition to being a brilliant creator of music, Stamitz studied alchemy as death approached.

First some background as Stamitz isn't one of the best-known names to the casual music listener. Born in Germany in 1745, he was the son of an equally badass musical genius, Johann Stamitz. He rose quickly through the world as a composer of symphonies, operas and a really spectacular series of clarinet concertos. That's the No. 3 up there in the video, and it's an objectively powerful piece of music that remains a standard repertoire work even today. Think of Stamitz as like a somewhat underground version of Haydn...minus the corpse desecration.

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Rebel scum.

News broke last week that John Williams, the prolific film score composer who's one of maybe three film score composers you've ever heard of, will almost definitely lend his talents to the all-new, all-Disney Star Wars film set to be directed by J.J. Abrams.

It was Abrams himself who threw out some strong hints as to Williams' involvement, but it would have been a pretty safe assumption even if he hadn't. Williams' "Main Title" theme and "Imperial March" from the original trilogy are among the best-loved music in film history, and Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without him.

The soundtrack to George Lucas' space opera is only one of many blockbuster feathers in Williams' cap, of course. He's equally well-known for the memorable scores to epics like Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Superman: The Movie and even the Harry Potter flicks. Chances are, if you can hum the theme music to a billion-dollar film franchise, Williams penned it.

Despite his towering homeruns, however, he ain't exactly batting 1.000. Williams has written the music for dozens and dozens of films in his long career, including more than a few turds you've likely long since flushed from your memory. Just for fun, let's break out the toilet snake and dredge a few back up, shall we?

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Along with the new name of "Mercury - The Orchestra Redefined," the circa 1999 group (formerly known as Mercury Baroque) is revamping its image with an updated logo and website.

Of late, this has been the trend for classical-music organizations that have expanded the repertoire outside of their namesakes. For instance, in 2008, the Phoenix Bach Choir, which stuck heavily to performing Bach madrigals, changed its name to the Phoenix Chorale and outfitted itself with a hip new insignia and website.

Mercury artistic director Antoine Plante says a similar thinking went into its realignment.

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Photo by Peter Miller

Hilary Hahn

Violinist Hilary Hahn has a special regard for Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1, which she'll be playing with the Houston Symphony during a four-day stint at the end of March; as a young man, her teacher, Jascha Brodsky had performed the then new concerto in a competition and subsequently met Prokofiev. "I really, really love this piece," Hahn told Art Attack. "It's a nice reminder of how things connect through the generations."

The concerto has several sudden swings in mood. "There's lots of lyricism, lots of delicate details. It has these ethereal moments and then these wild, really brash moments, and then back," says Hahn. "It's fun to play because it stops all of the sudden. Not the sound, but the momentum. As a player, it feels like that Olympic sport where they ski and then they shoot. They're going, going, going and then suddenly they have to lie still and control their breathing. In certain parts, it's so exciting to play. My heartbeat goes up and then I have to play something soft right after that and I'm thinking, 'Okay, control the right arm, control the right arm.' It's really interesting for me, I just really get caught up in the momentum and the surprises that the music has."

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If it was in question before, Ola Gjeilo is now officially a rising star, thanks to the release of the album Northern Lights: Choral Works by Ola Gjeilo.

Over the past few years, the 33-year-old, Norwegian-born Gjeilo (pronounced Yay-lo) has been a constant presence in classical music, ranging from performances in more than 30 countries to numerous commissioned and published works.

Locally, Houston audiences were hipped to the Juilliard-schooled composer last May during Cantare Houston's one-night-only presentation of Introducing Ola Gjeilo at Houston Baptist University's Dunham Theater. (His Texas premiere of "Across the Vast, Eternal Sky" will be sung by Cantare on March 6 and 10 during the group's Remembrance concerts.)

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Kingwood's First Presbyterian Church, a.k.a. the scene for classical-music rock stars on Saturday.

He's only 13, but Edis Levent is basically a rock star in classical music.

Raised in New York City, Edis is the only American soloist in the Vienna Boys' Choir, known as one of the best singing ensembles in the world. He's been with the group, which features close to 100 choristers (most of them Austrian), since he was nine years old, living in Austria and attending the Vienna Boys' Choir boarding school.

When he's not rehearsing music for two hours a day as part of his curriculum, Edis and his singing mates are traveling for three months of the year, presenting concerts all over Europe, Latin America and the States.

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Photo by Eric Kabik

Joshua Bell

It was Brahms and bad manners Friday night at the Joshua Bell and Sam Haywood concert. We'll get to the bad manners in a bit, so let's start with the Brahms: It was glorious. Thanks to Bell, we fell in love with Brahms all over again. Bell, who still has a boyish mop of hair that he tosses around as he plays, found the dramatic dynamics of the piece and played a wonderfully stormy Allegro; the Adagio was full of longing and yet, wasn't mournful; Bell gave the audience a triumphant Presto agitato.

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Chances are you've heard of Bach's "Brandenburg" Concerto No. 5, but what about Janitsch's Quadro "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden"? Ars Lyrica Houston brings those and two other rarely performed works to the stage for Musical Alchemy this weekend.

The ALH musicians perform on baroque period instruments, making this "Brandenburg" 5 different from any other you might have heard. "These are unusual instruments," Matthew Dirst, ALH's artistic director, tells us. "They're kind of exotic; the music, the sounds they make, are quite enticing."

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Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn co-created several humorous and hip versions of the various movements from Tchaikovsky's suite.

Is Western Classical music dead? If yes, when did it die? Was there a funeral? Writer Joseph Horowitz describes in his book Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall a "culture of performance" that began in the early part of the 20th century, possibly as the result of some kind of extraterrestrial mind control experiment, which defined itself by instigating repeated and "immaculate performances" of 18th and 19th century European classics. For reasons that were dubious to begin with, this culture of music directors, conductors, and orchestras decided that playing Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor over and over and over again, year after year after year was not only a healthy thing for the arts, but a monetary guarantee. Time has proved that neither is true.

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The 5 Browns: Siblings were born in Houston.

Update: Keith Brown pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of first-degree felony sodomy and two counts of second-degree felony sexual abuse says a report from the Salt Lake Tribune. According to Brown's lawyer, he first confessed to a religious leader from his Mormon church before going to the authorities.

We talked to Karen Watassek, public relations manager for Houston's Society for the Performing Arts, who worked with the Browns on two separate occasions when the musical group performed in Houston. Her comments after the jump.

The Five Browns, siblings Desirae, Deondra, Gregory, Melody and Ryan, are usually in the news for their musical abilities, but today they're in the headlines for a very different reason: Keith Brown, their father, has been charged with one count first-degree felony sodomy of a child and two counts of second-degree felony sodomy of a child. While court records didn't identify the victims, Gawker.com and other news sources are naming the three Brown daughters as the abused children. Court documents listed the offenses took place between 1990 and 1997. In 1990, Desirae, the oldest daughter was 11-years-old, while Deondra and Melody were 10 and six-years-old, respectively.

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