You might recall that Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum played two nights at St. John's 2640 Space in 2011. Well, he must have liked the venue a bunch, because it appears NMH will be kicking off its North American tour at 2640 on October 11th. All of Pitchfork nation will be turning out for this one, and tickets go on sale this Friday at noon (at Red Emma's, Charmington's Cafe, and through missiontix.com). Elf Power opens. I see local legends Half Japanese will be opening a handful of other dates, including an October 25 show in Asheville with Daniel Johnston. Wow.  

Fresh off last week's rapturous homecoming gig at the Lyric, Beach House has confirmed a June 6th show at D.C.'s 9:30 Club. The Lyric concert was perfect in every way, from Lower Dens' and Yo La Tengo's lively opening sets to Beach House's sublime show and pitch-perfect song selection. They get extra points for the artful lighting, designed by guitarist Alex Scally.

MICA President Fred Lazarus has announced that he’ll be retiring next year after 35 years on the job. During that time, Lazarus has utterly transformed the school, upping its national stature and developing strong community ties at home. Under Lazarus, the school expanded significantly and turned the Station North area into a hub of artistic activity with great commercial potential.

In a memo to colleagues, Lazarus said that when he became president in 1978, he promised to stay for three to five years, a stint he exceeded by three decades. He also thanked the college for “taking a risk” on someone who wasn’t an artist and had no previous experience in higher education. “I am even color blind,” he noted.

Longtime MICA Trustee George Bunting, Jr. praised Lazarus’s visionary leadership. "My association with Fred goes back to 1978 when I chaired the search committee that selected him as MICA's president, and it was one of the best decisions in which I ever have participated," Bunting said in a press release. "Since then, Fred's vision, energy, and talents have transformed MICA into a national leader in arts education, a world-class institution, and one of Baltimore's true jewels. His leadership has inspired me, and...

On a recent afternoon, Baltimore School for the Arts [BSA] director Chris Ford walks the halls pointing out student work related to this week’s Appalachian Spring Festival. The BSA is the first high school given permission by the Martha Graham Center to produce the classic ballet, and they’ve used the opportunity to foster a variety of cross-disciplinary collaborations. There’s evocative and sculptural artwork, storyboards for an animation project, stereo equipment playing a remix of Aaron Copland’s score, and panels of text about American multiculturalism. Ford also notes that a group of students has been researching Appalachian Spring at the Library of Congress, where Graham debuted the piece in 1944. 

“This is the first project to engage so many students from across the school,” says Ford, who’s led BSA for the past two years. “It was a goal of mine to have a piece that involves everybody and crosses disciplines, because, nowadays, artists work across disciplines. And the important aspect of all this is the collaborative nature of it. It pushes us forward using the people who should be pushing us forward—the kids.”