Brahms, Schumann and Hartke

Department of Music faculty members will perform with Wendy Richman (viola), Richard Faria (clarinet) and visiting composer Stephen Hartke in a chamber music concert in Barnes Hall on April 10 at 8 p.m. The program: Richman and pianist Miri Yampolsky, Schumann's "Märchenbilder" ("Fairy Tales"); Xak Bjerken, three movements from Hartke's "Post Modern Homages: Sonatinas for George Rochberg and Donald Crockett"; Professor Emeritus Malcolm Bilson, two intermezzi and a rhapsody by Johannes Brahms; and a performance of Hartke's 2007 sextet "Meanwhile: Incidental Music to Imaginary Puppet Plays." Free and open to the public.

The cinematic city

The symposium "Mean Streets: Violence and the Cinematic City," April 10-11 at the Schwartz Center and Cornell Cinema's Willard Straight Theatre, features films by Cornell faculty members; panel discussions with scholars and filmmakers; and free screenings of "Manda Bala" (2007) with filmmaker Jason Kohn; and "New (Improved) Delhi" (2003/2006), a short film by Vani Subramanian about destruction of urban villages and displacement of their inhabitants. Free and open to the public. Schedule: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/theatrearts/CTA/meanstreets.asp.

The art of work

A reception for the opening of the photo exhibition "Unseenamerica New York State: Pictures of Working Lives Taken by Working Hands" will be held April 14 in the second-floor lobby of the ILR Conference Center from 4:30 to 6 p.m. The exhibition consists of 60 black-and-white images of daily life taken by workers from across the state, accompanied by brief explanations from the photographers. Free and open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays through July 18. Part of ILR Union Days.

Evidence for education

Trudy Banta, professor of higher education and senior adviser to the chancellor for academic planning and evaluation at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, will conduct a symposium on evidence-based improvement of teaching and learning April 14 at 4 p.m. in Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall.

John Cleese returns

Actor and comedian John Cleese, the Provost's Visiting Professor, will be interviewed by Professor Beta Mannix, followed by a question-and-answer session, April 19 at 4:30 p.m. in Statler Auditorium. Free tickets will be available April 13 at 9 a.m. in the Willard Straight Hall lobby; limit 2 per person.

Sounds of China

The Society for the Humanities presents Yang Chun-Wei playing the gu-qin (seven-string zither, Tang dynasty) and Guan Chang-Xin, piano, April 14 at 4:30 p.m. in the A.D. White House. This is the first event of a weeklong residency of four Chinese musicians who play ancient Chinese instruments and traditional Western instruments; they will perform and hold open forums. Schedule: http://www.music.cornell.edu/calendar.

Following DNA's roadmap

Spencer Wells, explorer-in-residence and director of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project, will speak on "Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project" April 15 at 5 p.m. in Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall. Wells is a geneticist, author and filmmaker. The Genographic Project is a partnership between the National Geographic Society and IBM that brings the science of genetic analysis of human ancestry to the public.

The Straight story

Gossa Tsegaye, assistant professor at Ithaca College, will screen his film about the April 1969 Willard Straight Takeover, "Vision of the Struggle," April 16 at 2 p.m. at the Africana Studies and Research Center's Multipurpose Room.

The insecurity of war

"Accumulating Insecurity, Securing Accumulation: Militarizing Everyday Life," the final event of a three-part colloquium, will be presented by University Lecturer Michael Geyer (pictured) of the University of Chicago April 17 at 4:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. Geyer's keynote address is titled "Millennial Militarism: Sovereignty Panics in the Contemporary United States."