Music

In an annual rite known as Upfront Week, NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, and the CW just presented their lineups for the 2012-13 TV season to advertisers in New York. The ceremonies took place in some of the city's most august concert Halls (Carnegie, Avery Fisher, Radio City Music) over four days. The broadcast companies introduced only 20 new series for the fall (down from 27 last season). NBC led the pack with six new shows. Fox and the CW had half that many. Like it or not, an awful lot of familiar faces will be returning in the fall.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - Luxury appointments abound in the 7,000-square-foot, 12-year-old Victorian-style mansion overlooking Great Bay, such as a marble fireplace that once graced a Biddle estate mansion, a crystal chandelier that at the touch of a button lowers from the 30-foot foyer ceiling for cleaning, and boat slips big enough to berth a pair of yachts. A "smart house" system controls window treatments, lighting, heating, air-conditioning, and music. Slate-covered turrets, little secret gardens, and gingerbread-laden porches make the exterior look more like Cape May than Ocean City.

THIS YEAR'S CONCERT SEASON, called the "Essence of Entertainment," will run from July 7 to Aug. 25. The 2011 Dell summer concert series is as follows: July 7: Angie Stone and Joe July 14: Stephanie Mills and Keith Washington July 21: The Delfonics, Jerry Butler, Jean Carne, the Jones Girls, Russell Thompkins and the Stylistics July 28: Ginuwine, Tank and Avant Aug. 4: Fred Hammond and Martha Munizzi Aug.11: Jeffrey...

How is a two-day concert on the Parkway gonna charge for tickets and keep people from just standing around watching free? We're still waiting for the city and concert promoter Live Nation to answer this one. But Monday morning, Jay-Z joined Mayor Nutter atop the Art Museum steps to announce what we reported Saturday at PhillyGossip.com and had in print Monday, that the Budweiser Made in America festival will take place Sept. 1 and 2. Tickets are $99 for a two-day pass and are on sale May 23 at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.com.

The program's musical scheme - plotted like some arching Japanese bridge - was almost as intriguing as the playing of it yesterday when Philadelphia Orchestra members performed at the Academy of Music ballroom. As laid out, the program began and ended with Brahms. At the apex was a tumultuous Bartok trio preceded and followed by two rare pieces for trombone choir. Planning that assemblage's shape must have provided a reward like that of solving Rubik's Cube. Trombones are members of a minority in much of musical thinking, yet their history is long and their voices, through much of it, dedicated to religious expression.

Artistic brinkmanship is hardly expected or advisable at a Carnegie Hall debut. The Curtis Institute of Music's latest candidate for classical-music stardom, 18-year-old Chinese pianist Lang Lang, took such chances in his Thursday performance with the excellent Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and there was no predicting what the audience would make of this hyper-expressive teenager. The tuneful but still somewhat unfashionable Grieg Piano Concerto became Lang Lang's personal inner monologue, with each phrase stretched toward the breaking point to make more exclamatory, declamatory musical statements than I ever expected to hear outside of a 78-r.

Few voices have ever been so pervasive on the classical music landscape as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's — but even fewer singers disappeared so far into art as to leave minimal personal footprints. In the wake of his death Friday at 86, one can't help but stand back, amid his warmer vocal descendants, and ask: Who was this tall, contained, controlled man who emerged from the ruins of World War II with Olympian vocal perfection that seemed to transcend even his own humanity? "His audience — a large one — received the songs as if they were divine truth," wrote Inquirer music critic Daniel Webster, Fischer-Dieskau's 1974 recital at the Academy of Music, one of many he gave here from the mid-1950s into the '80s.

It was almost like a real concert at a real concert hall, with dozens of fans lingering out front and scalpers playing the crowd like pickpockets in Rome. Welcome to the Chestnut Cabaret, the legendary nightclub with the misleading address of 3801 Chestnut St. The brick building is really on a street with no sign, between Chestnut and Market. And as for the name, the cavernous room hardly confirms the coffehouse image of a cabaret, what with its prominent stage lights and its dozen color TV monitors overhead.

"Father" John D'Amico - the former Philadelphia priest turned jazz performer - said it best. "I like the idea of the collaboration of the arts, not a separation," said the electric piano player following a performance at Quincy's at the Gaslight Inn in Mount Holly last Thursday. And representational artist Tom Williams, whose paintings will adorn Quincy's walls for the next month, said, "It's a good melding of jazz and paintings about jazz. It shows a love for music and the art within the music.

No wonder the title has an exclamation point! Loud and colorful and wildly energetic, the bio-musical Fela! , about the Nigerian revolutionary and musician, has electrified audiences all over the world. With a sensational band onstage playing Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's music, direction and choreography by Bill T. Jones (who won a 2009 Tony Award for this show), and a big cast of dancers spectacularly costumed, it's a vigorous reinvention of musical theater, inspired by Stephen Hendel.

IT HAPPENS every May: The broadcast networks announce their schedules for the following season and it's as if we're seeing double. It usually takes three to declare a trend, but TV seasons tend to get filled like Noah's Ark, with new (or recycled) ideas arriving in pairs. A year ago, it was '60s dramas — NBC's "Playboy Club" and ABC's "Pan Am" — and shows in which fairy tales turned out to be true — NBC's "Grimm" and ABC's "Once Upon a Time. " If there was any surprise, it wasn't that the "Mad Men" wannabes didn't make it to Season 2, but that the other two did. (And that CBS ordered its own '60s drama, "Vegas," for this fall.)

BEBE NEUWIRTH doesn't do the fluffy stuff. Neuwirth's stance makes sense to anyone who only knows her as Lilith, the icy, monotone psychiatrist and eventual wife of Kelsey Grammer's Frasier Crane — the iconic role that made Neuwirth famous on the beloved sitcom "Cheers. " But it means something different when it comes to compiling songs for her cabaret-style shows, like the one which Neuwirth will perform tonight at the Prince Music Theater, "Stories with Piano #3. " For those shows, the fluffy stuff means the songs that Neuwirth doesn't deem emotionally hefty enough.

The Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas Sunday night was a feast of celebrities, emotions and various degrees of clothing. The most touching moment came moments before Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of Whitney Houston, received an award on behalf of her late mother, who died in February. Just before the presentation, Brown began crying as singer Jordin Sparks sang the Houston megahit "I Will Always Love You. " In less poignant news, Katy Perry wore a shimmering lilac gown by Blumarine while Miley Cyrus' white, low-cut blazer and mini-mini skirt by designer Jean Paul Gaultier fell considerably above her knees.

CANNES, France — After the success of Bridesmaids, the actor Chris O'Dowd was mostly getting scripts for mediocre romantic comedies — "bad versions of Bridesmaids," he says. "I figured I should go and do something very different, otherwise I'll kind of get stuck," O'Dowd said in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival this week. "So an Aboriginal musical made sense. " And that could well be the first time such a sentence has been uttered. In the genre of Aboriginal musicals there is but one entry: The Sapphires, which premiered in Cannes to a lengthy standing ovation and eager debate over whether it was this year's out-of-left-field success story at the festival.

Few voices have ever been so pervasive on the classical music landscape as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's — but even fewer singers disappeared so far into art as to leave minimal personal footprints. In the wake of his death Friday at 86, one can't help but stand back, amid his warmer vocal descendants, and ask: Who was this tall, contained, controlled man who emerged from the ruins of World War II with Olympian vocal perfection that seemed to transcend even his own humanity? "His audience — a large one — received the songs as if they were divine truth," wrote Inquirer music critic Daniel Webster, Fischer-Dieskau's 1974 recital at the Academy of Music, one of many he gave here from the mid-1950s into the '80s.

Chuck Brown, 75, who styled a unique mix of funk, soul, and Latin party sounds to create go-go music in the nation's capital, has died after suffering from pneumonia. Mr. Brown, widely acclaimed as the "Godfather of go-go" for his pioneering sound, died Wednesday at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore after a hospital stay that began April 18. Thanks to Mr. Brown and his deep, gravelly voice, go-go music was uniquely identified with Washington. That's where he continued to play the city's club circuit to a loyal audience late in life.

Theater 1812 Productions: Boston Marriage David Mamet comedy about 2 women whose romantic entanglements lead to trouble. Closes 5/20. Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey St.; 215-592-9560. www.1812productions.org . $20-$36. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way ot the Forum A slave in ancient Rome tries to win a beautiful courtesan's hand for his master. Closes 5/19. Ritz Theatre Company, 915 White Horse Pike, Oaklyn; 856-858-5230. $25-$35. A Grand Night for Singing Tribute to the composing team of Rodgers & Hammerstein.

IT'S BEEN QUITE a week for gays: "The New Normal" was picked up by NBC; the "E! True Hollywood Story" for Joan and Melissa Rivers aired on Mother's Day; the president came out in favor of gay marriage; and Ellen DeGeneres was named the winner of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Ellen is being honored for her stand-up work, daytime show, activism and books. According to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in D.C., recipients of the Mark Twain Prize are "people who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens.

With Mayor Nutter as his opening act, hip-hop mogul and rapper Jay-Z stood atop the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps. His theme: Made in America, the music festival - announced Monday morning - that will take over the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Labor Day weekend. Jay-Z, whose given name is Shawn Carter, was saying he embarks on a venture only if it has potential to be great. Just then, a fan shouted, "You're the best, Hov!", a shortening of "Jayhova," one of the MC's noms de rap. Without missing a beat, Jay-Z answered back: "I agree.