>> Tonight, head over to Twins Jazz to check out New York's Mark Feldman (violin) and Sylvie Courvoisier (piano) as they team up for an evening of experimental jazz. Feldman has recorded with artists as diverse as John Zorn and They Might Be Giants while Courvoisier has worked with a number of notable European artists. Call 202-234-0072 for set time and cover information. >> Most of you will be stuffing your faces with Turkey Day......

>> Tonight, The Alfred Mojica Band, a latin-jazz ensemble, performs at The Bossa Bistro & Lounge. Call 202-667-0088 for details. >> On Thursday, guitarist Robben Ford (pictured), an alum of Miles Davis' band, takes the stage for a four night stand at Blues Alley. Tickets to the daily 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. sets are available here. $35 + $10 food/drink minimum. >> HR-57 has some cool things going on this weekend. On Friday, saxophonist......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It was good that the lunch keynote didn’t last any longer; I was ready to hand Jim Abdo a check. Those of us on the academic side of the development industry aren’t used to such raw displays of enthusiasm. After following Abdo through his slide presentation on the history of his business and the mammoth project he’s begun on New York Avenue......

This one has been covered already by a few of our fellow bloggers, but it's almost too good to pass up. Yesterday Wonkette reported that departing White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was looking to get even with some students at American University who had the tenacity to show him their asses. See, back in April Rove gave a speech before the university's College Republicans, meeting with some feisty protestors as he made......

On Friday, we noticed for the first time that someone has painted over the second half of this famous Shaw neighborhood sign on 9th Street NW between Q and Rhode Island Ave. In its entirety, it used to read "Bienvenue a Shaw, Slum Historique." We still haven't been able to determine who painted over the "Slum Historique" part. The mural was originally painted by long time neighborhood resident and rabble rouser Ray Milefsky, who......

For all you liberal/progressive internet/Netroots types in town who are heading to Chicago later this week for the behemoth 2nd annual YearlyKos Convention — and we know there are more than just a few of you — allow us to recommend some programming. On Friday, August 3 from 9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., the panel you'll want to make sure not to miss is Taxation Without Representation: Alive and Well in the Nation's Capital, which......

One of our favorite questions to ask local musicians is what they think of the local music scene — is there a community here? On Friday night, as we spotted Hamilton Leithauser and Ian Svenonius in the crowd, it was refreshingly clear that no matter where your music career takes you, D.C. bands come back to support one another. Two bands with deep local roots were taking the stage. The Childballads, led by the......

At this week's concerts, the National Symphony Orchestra premiered the new harp concerto that it commissioned from Mark Adamo. Adamo dedicated Four Angels to conductor Leonard Slatkin, who helped make the commission happen, and the NSO's principal harpist, Dotian Levalier, for whom the solo part was created. On Friday night at the Kennedy Center, Slatkin led the NSO through a sensitive reading of this rather traditional but hauntingly lovely score. The first movement is named......

Opera is a serious musical genre, the summa of high dramatic art. For some serious thoughts about the season just concluded by Washington National Opera, you could read the Opera Season in Review from last week. In a less exalted but equally important way, opera is about ostentation, and in that vein, there is one more glittering event that always makes the end of the season final in Washington, and that is the annual Opera......

On Friday night The Hershey Bears were torn apart by Bulldogs in an embarrassing 3-0 home loss in game one of the Calder Cup Finals. After putting on a convincing impression of "the big bad wolf" in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Bears got burned at the beginning of the big dance by reclusive nineteen year old named Carey. Of course, the night's events did not warp into a Stephen King novel. The Bears faced......

Memorial Day has come and gone, and we are now officially in the summer hiatus of the Classical Music Agenda. Here are some highlights for this week: in a week or two, this feature will take a well-deserved rest until Labor Day, when the classical concert schedule returns to full power. TOPS THIS WEEK: >> On Wednesday night, the excellent NPR radio program From the Top will be recorded in front of a live audience......

With apologies to a certain antacid maker, this is how the Nats spell relief: S-E-R-I-E-S-S-W-E-E-P. Coming on the heels of an agonizing road trip and an eight-game losing streak, there was no better cure for the ailing Nats than coming home to RFK to face the streaky Marlins. By the end of the weekend, the Nats had picked up the three game sweep (which was actually their first series win of the year), as well......

On Friday the Washington Post ran a story about the city's plans to step up their graffiti removal tasks after a recent rash of tagging in Wards 1, 2 and 4. The graffiti began appearing six to eight weeks ago, stretching from the Logan and Shaw neighborhoods to communities in upper Northwest along Georgia Avenue and 13th and 14th streets. Banneker Community Center near Howard University, under renovation, was among the places hit. But the......

On Friday, Deborah Jeane Palfrey made her much-hyped prime time television debut on 20/20, chatting with Brian Ross about her D.C. escort business but saying her "gals" didn't engage in illegal activities. Ross was a bit incredulous that she actually believed no sex was taking place, but Palfrey quickly confirmed that said face was indeed straight, pointing to a contract her escorts signed saying they would be fired if any criminal activity took place. While......

Just when we were looing hope in the alleged D.C. Madam's ability to deliver a home-grown sex scandal, two glorious things happened. First, Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, resigned after admitting he was a client. Then, we tore the ribbon off this gift from the front page of Sunday's Post. Deborah Jeane Palfrey, known to clients as Pamela Martin, and......

Czech conductor Jiří Bĕlohlávek led this weekend's National Symphony Orchestra concerts at the Kennedy Center. This heralds the opening of a Czech mini-season in Washington, with a program of symphonic music from his homeland. Next month, Bĕlohlávek will conduct the much-anticipated production of Janáček’s Jenůfa at Washington National Opera. On Friday night the three short programmatic works under Bĕlohlávek's baton were welcome obscurities. A Mozart concerto and a perennial favorite, Smetana's tone poem Moldau, provided......

We hope you had a relaxing, if not warm, holiday weekend, Washington. Mixed in with the egg decorating and good cheer, we sure noticed a lot of grumbling about the ongoing cold snap (along with those flurries on Friday night), so let's get right down to the all-important question: When will this misery end? CapitalWeather.com is breaking it down like so: Most of this week will still see cold temps in the morning, with......

Yikes. Someone just forwarded us a disturbing e-mail from Commander Diane Groomes of the MPD's First District. Anyone who walks around the Eastern Market area in the morning hours, or really probably at any hour, will want to know about it. On Friday morning at 0645 hours -- a male citizen was walking to Navy Yard when he saw a male dancing in the street -- he walked by and then felt a burning sensation......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. The timing was impeccable. On Friday morning, newspapers across the country ran versions of a story highlighting increases in violent crime in cities nationwide -- but not, as it turned out, in Washington, where for over a decade crime has trended in one direction only. Hours later, the D.C. Circuit lowered its boom on behalf of six gun-desiring Washingtonians and the libertarian......

This time of year, with so many concerts on the schedule, it is sometimes hard to separate what is essential from the rest. If we had to pick this week — and we do have to pick, every week — it would be as follows. >> Last week's stellar concerts from the National Symphony, with Osmo Vänskä and Leonidas Kavakos, were scandalously underattended. If you like good music but were unable to hear the Finnish......

So much is happening in classical music this week, much of it already sold out. Here are a few things for which tickets are still available and that should be of interest. JUST VISITING: >> The award for best free concert of the week goes to the Hilliard Ensemble, one of the best choral groups in the world, visiting the Freer Gallery of Art on Wednesday (January 24, 7:30 p.m.). Their program includes music by......

Can it get any better for Gilbert Arenas right now? The Wiz may have lost at Toronto yesterday, but if you've been paying attention, that was almost inevitable after the week Gilbert (and the team) just had. It started early last week when Arenas was named Player of the Month for December. It continued on Wednesday when Agent Hibachi scored the game winner as the buzzer sounded against budding rival Milwaukee. On Friday he......

We are well into the season of seasonal concerts at this point. If you are looking for a performance of Handel's Messiah or a Christmas or Holiday Concert, we've dealt with that. Here is what else is happening this week in classical music. NOT CHRISTMAS: >> Ironically, possibly the best performance this week also happens to be free, the latest concert in the excellent series at the Library of Congress. On Friday (December 15, 8......

This is a good week for hearing 20th-century symphonic repertoire, even though the National Symphony Orchestra is on another break. As we approach the first major event of the NSO's season, the two-week Shostakovich festival in November, we will have the chance Since the NSO Shostakovich festival in November has been cancelled (due to Mstislav Rostropovich's health problems), this week is our only chance to celebrate the Dmitri Shostakovich centenary some more. MODERN: >> On......

By DCist Contributor Morgan Hungerford. DC is not a city of sample sales and trunk shows, so when we have one fashion-related event worthy of attendance it is Very Exciting; when we have two it is a Big Deal. And three? Well, you lucky, things, let’s just say you’d better take advantage. Tonight is the Third Thursday MidCity Shopper Social; shop the U Street Corridor and 14th Street for special deals at Junction. Wild Women......

Whoooooosh! What's that giant sucking sound? Oh yeah - it's the sweet reverberation of another record store totally biting it and going out of business in this era of iTunes. In this case, we've got Tower Records bowing out of the business, a fact that, though it feels inevitable, saddens us all the same. According to an AP article that ran in the Post,On Friday, after a 29-hour auction, most of the bankrupt music retailer's......

We were dismayed to see that the Washingtonian recently dissed one of our favorite cheap eats joints in Alexandria, Café Monti, saying “the lackluster goulash, watery pastas, and stale tarts had us heading for the door.” This flip comment caused our jaws to involuntarily slacken in shock and disbelief. The NoVa DCist contingent has patronized Monti several times over the past couple of months, and the quality has only improved, and the supposed lack of......

Sure, you can grind, you can salsa, and maybe even do a little ballroom dancing, but how are you at caopeira? What about bhangra? Can you tell the swing dancers from the hand dancers? The Dance DC Festival aims to introduce us to some of the lesser-known genres of dance, as well as highlight other popular styles. On Friday, you can check out Celebrating Living Traditions at the Calvary Baptist Church, which features three Latin......

When we last heard, the crew from Gypsy Eyes Records were in the metaphorical maternity ward resting comfortably with great things ahead of them. Those great things kick off this weekend in grand fashion, and you’re all invited to join the festivities. The upstart local music collective has put together an exciting two day concert series they’ve christened as the Forever Festival and the first incarnation is almost upon us all. On Friday, head to......

On Friday night, Dex and J.R. of Death by Sexy were joined on stage by Tony Acampora of Greenland, as DxS celebrated the release of their new EP, Big Hit. Without any prior live exposure to Death by Sexy, we can say that Acampora's quality guitar playing added to the energy and mystique of the Death by Sexy's show. While neither a Josh Homme side project or the recently broken up Death From Above 1979,......