Provided

Cocoons by Cornell artist-in-residence Natalie Tyler are part of the "LUX" exhibition.

Jazz festival

Cornell's 21st Annual Jazz Festival, April 20-22, will feature bassist/composer Rufus Reid as artist-in-residence and showcase student and professional musicians in three venues. Free and open to the public.

April 20 at the Carriage House Café in Collegetown, Mwata Boden's Low End Theory presents "Concert and Conversation" at 5 p.m. Small groups perform at 8 p.m., including three Cornell jazz combos, the Guitar Ensemble and festival director Paul Merrill's quartet.

April 21 in Barnes Hall, guest artist Joe Salzano gives a lecture on Charlie Parker at 2 p.m., "Bird, the Legend"; and leads the Super Sax group at 3 p.m. At 8 p.m., the Joel Forrester Trio and Bissett Jazz Sextet perform.

April 22 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall, Merrill directs the Cornell University Jazz Band, with guest artist Reid on bass. Information: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/jazz. Presented by the Department of Music.

Light as inspiration

Renowned international artists and scientists will discuss and demonstrate how light inspires them to create and innovate, April 21, 3 to 5 p.m. in Milstein Auditorium.

The event is in conjunction with the visually stunning "LUX" exhibition, April 20 to May 11 in Milstein Hall Gallery and the Willard Straight Hall Art Gallery and Garden Room. An opening reception is April 20, 5-7 p.m. in Milstein Hall, moving to the Willard Straight Gallery for a dance performance from 7-9 p.m.

Chemist Roald Hoffmann and photonics researcher Michal Lipson will present talks and physicist Philip Krasicky will give interactive demonstrations of light and light technology. Correll artists and scientists also include artist-in-residence Natalie Tyler, who created giant glowing cocoons; entomologist Cole Gilbert on bioluminescence; professor of ecology and evolutionary biology James Morin, with his National Geographic video on luminescent animals; and physics researcher Moti Fridman on time cloaking and redirecting light. Presented by the Department of Art and Department of Physics.

Information: http://ow.ly/amRPA.

Collaborative spirit

The Department of Theatre, Film and Dance Performance Laboratory Series presents collaborative installations by students, April 20-22 at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

With video, sound, light, costume and performance works, the installations directed by Subashiny Gengarthan '13 showcase the collaborative and creative efforts of students throughout the department. Tickets are $4. Information: http://theatrefilmdance.cornell.edu/events/ or e-mail ctaevents@cornell.edu.

Also, popular German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig offers 81 humorous vignettes of love in "Long Ago in May," directed by assistant professor Melanie Dreyer-Lude and presented in five different languages with subtitles, April 26-27, May 2, 3 and 5 at 7:30 p.m., and April 28 at 2 p.m.in Kiplinger Theatre. Tickets are $12, $10 for students and seniors, at the box office 12:30-4 p.m. weekdays, or by calling 607-254-ARTS. Information: http://www.theatrefilmdance.cornell.edu.

Sound the drum

Yamatai gives its only concert of the year, "Pulse," featuring collaborations with Cornell Bhangra and renowned violinst Ryu Goto, April 21 at 7 p.m. in Bailey Hall. Tickets are limited; $6 in advance from Yamatai members or online at http://baileytickets.com; $9 at the door.

The student group is devoted to the art of taiko, a form of traditional Japanese drumming. Founded in 2006 with only one drum, Yamatai currently has more than 20 taiko drums and 17 members, performing traditional and original repertoire in Ithaca and beyond.

Silent Sweden

Celebrated Swedish composer/musician Matti Bye will accompany the classic 1917 silent film "Terje Vigen (A Man There Was)" on amplified piano, glockenspiel and electronic devices, on Sunday, April 22 at 7 p.m. at Cornell Cinema.

Bye wrote the score for Jan Troell's 2008 Academy Award nominee "Everlasting Moments" and Stig Björkman's Ingmar Bergman documentary "Scenes from a Playhouse," as well as a series of innovative scores for several early Swedish silent included on a six-DVD box set released by Svensk Filmindustri.

He describes Victor Sjöström's "Terje Vigen," based on an epic poem by Henrik Ibsen, as "a very Scandinavian film, dark and beautiful, with nature, and man's place in it, as the main focus of the story."

Cornell Cinema also welcomes filmmaker Kimi Takesue to introduce "Where Are You Taking Me?" -- her 2011 meditation on "seeing and being seen" in a documentary chronicling daily life in Uganda -- on April 24 at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are $8 general, $6 for students.

Old-time fiddler

The Cornell Folk Song Society presents Bruce Molsky in concert, April 21, 8 p.m. in 165 McGraw Hall. Molksy also gives an old-time fiddle workshop, 3-5 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Music Room.

Molsky blends Appalachian, Celtic, Scandinavian, Eastern European and other traditional music into a unique sound, with what Mark O'Connor calls "a mystical awareness of how to bring out the new in something that is old."

Tickets $15 advance, $17 door ($3 off for for CFSS members, seniors, teens); Cornell students $10/$12, children 12 and under free. Information, ticket outlets: 607-351-1845 or http://www.cornellfolksong.org/.

The fiddle workshop is limited to 25 participants and costs $25, $15 for students. (Workshop plus concert: $35, $20 for students.) E-mail Laura Taylor at lbt1@cornell.edu to pre-register.

Konvitz Lecture

First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams '56 will deliver the 2012 Milton Konvitz Memorial Lecture on April 23, 4 p.m. in 105 Ives Hall.

Abrams' talk, "The Citizens United Case: Dissenting from the Dissenters," also will be webcast live. Information: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/events/KonvitzLecture.html.

Indelible images

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art hosts "Memory and the Photographic Image" April 20-21, a symposium exploring changing ideas of memory and the photographic image and how images contribute to the construction of history, identity, self-expression, politics and memory.

Geoffrey Batchen, a writer, curator and educator whose work focuses on the history of photography, gives a keynote address April 20 at 5:15 p.m. Speakers April 21 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. include artists Carrie Mae Weems and Shimon Attie, and Jennifer Blessing, senior curator of photography for the Guggenheim Museum.

Admission is free but seating is limited; to reserve a seat contact eas8@cornell.edu. Information: http://museum.cornell.edu. The symposium is funded by the Atkinson Foundation.