Stop. Look. Listen.

Thinking about Funky Friday! Yes, the WXPN show is coming to the Village, along with a host of other acts for the LAUNCH Music Conference. It starts tonight and continues through Saturday.

Elsewhere …

“A summit conference, a Scout Jamboree with elements of speed-dating:” Michael Tilson Thomas on the YouTube Symphony. 

But those critics!

Classical music in the club? Well, why not?

Two events of interest at Millersville University Tuesday, April 14: Gretchen Steidle Wallace will discuss her work with refugees from Darfur and the film “The Devil Came on Horseback” will be shown. 6 p.m., Bolger Conference Center.

Also, Laura Korach Howell will perform the one-woman show, “A Play of One’s Own,” based on the life of Virginia Woolf, at 7 p.m. in the Rafters Theatre, Dutcher Hall.

For visitors center fans … there’s a new one at Monticello, opening Wednesday, April 15. Details here. 

“Do we fear the ones we love? Does love drive out fear?” These are the heavy questions tackled in a week-long exhibit at MJ’s Coffeehouse in Annville opening Monday, April 13 and running through Friday, April 17. A crew from the Invisible Children Organization, which is working to raise awareness of and help for thousands of children who were abducted and forced to become soldiers, will screen its newest film, “The Rescue of Joseph Kony’s Child Soldiers” at the Allan Theatre Monday at 6 p.m. A poetry reading will take place Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. at the coffeehouse.

Lancaster County Art Association Garden Show winners listed here; shown here is “Cutwork Study #11″ by Marcia Miller, first-prize winner. The Garden Show runs until April 30.

OK, the rain’s cleared up and I’m hopeful it will stay that way, because it’s First Friday and time to check out what the galleries have in store. As always, LancasterArts has its First Friday guide here. A few highlights: Live 1940s pin-up girls at Annex 24, 24 W. Walnut St. … Youth art, dance and music from HeadsUp.org at the Keppel Building, 329 N. Queen St. … jewelry featuring beads and hand-bound miniature books by Roberta Little, Chestnut Hill Cafe, 532 W. Chestnut St. (You can also see examples of her assemblages at the Red Raven Art Company, 138 N. Prince St.) … DreamsCollide, 7 S. Prince St., celebrates its first anniversary … F&M students at Gallery 141, 113 N. Water St. … “Out there” at the Infantree, 21 N. Prince St. … If you haven’t checked out Progressive Galleries yet (scenes from March opening at right) this would be a great time to do it … Recycled art at Queue Studio, 218 N. Duke St. … New works from My Aunt Debbie at Mommalicious/Smilin’ Gal, 310 N. Queen St. … D.R.E.A.M.S. at Neighborhood Services, 134 S. Prince St. … Abby Rudisill at Lancaster Galleries, 34 N. Water St. … Millersville Students at the Lancaster Museum of Art Annex, 215 N. Queen St. Connie de Alva Higgins at Cosas Gallery, 257 W. King St. … That’s just a beginning. (See yesterday’s post as well)

The Pennsylvania Academy of Music joins the First Friday lineup again for April, with its first community open house since its opening last June. The open house will take place 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and feature tours of the Philip Johnson-designed building, informal performances by student ensembles from the piano, voice, wind, string and guitar departments, and refreshments in the enclosed rooftop atrium. A concert by the Newstead Trio will follow at 8 p.m., featuring works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and a world premiere of Adrienne Albert’s “Musescapes.”  Tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for students and free for children three and under.

The Lancaster Quilt & Textile Museum will also offer free admission after 5 p.m. on Friday, and a reception for its new “Rainbow Yarn” exhibit of Navajo weavings as well.

The Millersville University Chorale will present “Songs of Children” by Robert Convery, a musical setting of poems written by children in the Terezin concentration camp, Thursday (April 2) at 7:30 p.m. The chorus will be accompanied by Jonathan Lefever, piano; MaryLee Yerger, violin; Madeleine Darmiento, viola, and Steven Lavender, cello. The composer will speak before the concert. Tickets are $10. More information here.

The Colorado Quartet presented a very meditative, moving conclusion to the Gretna Music’s 2008-2009 season at Elizabethtown College Sunday evening with Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Seven Last Words of Our Savior on the Cross.” The work is framed by an introduction and a dramatic finale, and four local clergymen — Father David Danneker, Pastor William N. Jackson, Pastor Greg Davidson Laszakovits and Pastor David Martin — provided short meditations on the words before the seven sections.

Haydn’s music illuminates the words of the dying Jesus with the subtlest of harmonic touches and “hushed, heartbeat pulsations” (as Carl Kane put it in his program notes). Emotional high points were the harmonic twists and turns in section 1, “Father, forgive them;” the plaintive “calling” notes in section III, “Dear woman, here is your son;” the yearning melody of section IV, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the interplay of the violins in section VI, “It is finished.” Section VII, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” a summation and conclusion to the previous sections, conveyed an atmosphere of deep peace.  The quartet’s performance emphasised the silences as well as the notes, echoing the slowing breaths of a dying man and opening up the texture. Into these gaps pour our attention, our thoughts, our prayers. The finale, “The Earthquake,” was all the more devastating by comparison, harsh, loud, sudden, jerking the listener back into the world.

With the conclusion of this year’s series, attention turns to the summer festival, Music at Gretna 2009. The series, which starts July 31, runs through August and concludes Sept. 6, will have a certain folk inflection, with performances by the Mose Allison Trio, the Duquesne Tamburitzans, Le Vent du Nord playing traditional music from Quebec, and Leon Redbone on the roster. Classical performers include the Wister Quartet, with violist Kerri Ryan and guitarist Allen Krantz in separate concerts; the Chestnut Brass Company; the Momenta String Quartetl; the Trio Solisti; the Audubon Quartet, with flutist Carl Ellenberger, clarinetist James Campbell and harpist Jude Mollenhauer in one concert and bassist Emilio Gravagno in an all-Dvorak program. A performance of Pergolesi’s opera “La Serva Padrona” is also scheduled. Jazz performers will include the New Black Eagle Jazz Band, drummer Rob Henderson and the Karenda Devroop Trio, the Cedar Walton Trio, the Phil Giordano Jazz Orchestra, singers Claudia Acuna and Hilary Kole.

Looking even further ahead, Gretna Music’s 2009-2010 season at Elizabethtown College includes duo pianists Marcantonio Barone and Charles Abramovic, the Raleigh Ringers (the pre-eminent handbell choir in the U.S., according to Gretna Music), the Vienna Boys Choir, Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with cellist Truls Mørk.

The new Rosa Rosa Late Jazz club held a preview Thursday — here are a few scenes, featuring Mayor Rick Gray getting ready to cut the ribbon and the Max Puglia Quartet in performance. The club will open to the public tonight (Friday, March 27), with the Tim Warfield Band performing at 10:30 and Max Puglia at 12:30. (More information here.)According to Rosa Rosa partner Adriano Isernia, the club will provide a much-needed showcase for jazz, a place to simply go have a drink and listen to music without having to have dinner, and in a different atmosphere from that of a restaurant. While the club is a part of the Rosa Rosa Ristorante Italiano, it will have a new face for after hours — a new logo, new lighting, new uniforms for the staff, Isernia says.