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'Hair'

A youthfully exuberant cast of 40 delivers a tsunami of good vibrations in The Conservatory Theatre Company of Point Park University's production of "Hair".

These talented youngsters animate Gerome Ragni, James Rado and Galt MacDermot's 1968 American tribal love-rock musical with the innocent optimism, outrage and subversive anti-establishment humor that made it an icon of the late 1960s era of war and civil rights protest.

Michael Essad's vibrant back wall mural and his set of steel scaffolding create a supportive environment for Zeva Barzell's spirited choreography, John Amplas's direction and Pei-Chi Su's colorful costumes.

A band of 11 musicians directed by Tom Earley often overwhelms the students' ability to deliver lyrics clearly and some will surely be offended by profanity, attitudes and one dimly-lit scene of group nudity.

"Hair" continues through Sunday at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Pittsburgh Playhouse of Point Park University, 222 Craft Ave., Oakland. Admission: $12-$14.

Details: 412-621-4445 or www.pittsburghplayhouse.com.

-- Alice T. Carter

'Beyond the Rocks'

Thursday night, the Three Rivers Film Festival began with a glimpse into the fading past of filmmaking -- revealing the fragility of this still-quite-young art form.

For decades, "Beyond the Rocks" (1922) existed only as a fragment, even though it marked the rare intersection of the two biggest stars of the day, Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino. Then a full print was discovered in a number of rusty film cans owned by a deceased Dutch collector, and "Beyond the Rocks" saw life yet again.

Even Dr. Philip Carli, who performed the soundtrack live on the piano, was only seeing the film for the second time.

The crowd at the Byham frequently burst into laughter to the film's overblown, manipulative melodramatics. But the performances were fascinating, especially Swanson's.

It's curious see her as the innocent, decorous daughter, willfully submitting to marry a man she doesn't love -- just because she's so strongly identified with her performance as the aging, delusional harpy Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard."

-- Michael Machosky

'X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes'

It might be a far cry from the sun-baked streets of Cannes, but I'll take a Rust Belt film festival any day if it has programming like this.

Saturday night at the packed Regent Square Theater, Cleveland's legendary avant-punk rock avatars Pere Ubu willingly stepped into the background to provide a live soundtrack to a movie they love, Roger Corman's "X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes" (1963).

It's a gleefully low-budget slice of paranoid, Atomic Age sci-fi, with Ray Milland as an eye doctor who has created a serum that enables him to see through clothes, walls, flesh, and more. But to see through the surfaces of things -- to find the ineffable reality lurking underneath -- that way lies madness.

Pere Ubu mostly stuck to the background -- churning out tense, eerie soundscapes of dissonant guitar and theremin, played over the movie's regular soundtrack.But then Dr. Xavier walks into a penthouse full of partygoers furiously doing the twist, blinks, and suddenly, they're all naked. Then, Peru Ubu pounded out a loud, woozy pattern of psychedelic drum and guitars, perfectly underscoring Dr. X's wacky double-take.

-- Michael Machosky

Nathan Davis

Nathan Davis's lineup for Saturday's concert at the University of Pittsburgh Jazz Seminar had so much energy it almost needed two drummers. And it had them.

Pitt's director of jazz studies called stickman Winard Harper when he heard Idris Muhammad was not feeling well. But Muhammad felt good enough to show, so Harper sat in on a few numbers.

The two of them gave tunes such as "Sweet Peaches" and "Down Under" a percussive power that drove the front line of five horns and a flute.

But the gentle work of players such as trumpeter Nicholas Payton and pianist Renee Rosnes gave breadth to the concert at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. She did a beautiful version of "In a Sentimental Mood."

The night was a wonderful close to the annual seminar and also included the induction of Chet Baker and James Moody, who was present, into the Pitt Jazz Hall of Fame.

>-- Bob Karlovits

River City Brass Band

Singer Katy Shackleton-Williams commits a grand felony the way she steals the show in the current concerts of the River City Brass Band.

In the "American Dream" series, the soprano from the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh does two medleys that show her wonderful voice and the sense of humor of a showperson.

She does wonderful versions of five selections from Aaron Copland's "Old American Songs." She also sings three George Gershwin, Tin-Pan-Alley songs, giving "My Cousin From Milwaukee" a great -- and appropriate -- humorous squawkiness.

The band, meanwhile, presents music that celebrates the Thanksgiving and Veterans' Day holidays. Music director Denis Colwell has put together a special look at four works by Leroy Anderson and also sprinkles light-hearted marches throughout.

But no treat stands out as much as Shackleton-Williams.

The concert will be repeated 8 p.m. today at Upper St. Clair Theater; 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Heinz Hall, Downtown; and 3 p.m. Sunday at Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center, Johnstown, Cambria County.

Details: 412-322-7222.

-- Bob Karlovits

Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra

The world premiere of David Stock's Clarinet Concerto was a triumph for all at Saturday afternoon's Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra concert.

Stock's new four-movement concerto is a rewarding listening experience. The orchestral swirls and sharply contrasted solo part of the opening movements is followed by a jaunty, almost swinging section and a cadenza that showed soloist Richard Stoltzman's technique and reliability are as winning as his energy and lyrical sensitivity.

It was wonderful to see an orchestra of young people, some as young as 13 years old, so successfully meeting the challenges of contemporary music. They sang beautifully in the third movement, and brought full rhythmic vitality to the finale.

The young players rotated solo chairs from composition to composition with always impressive results.

-- Mark Kanny

Renaissance Baroque Society

The authentic sounds of natural horns and organic strings made Saturday's evening's Renaissance Baroque Society concert a special treat.

The large audience at Synod Hall heard the kinds of sonorities composers Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach expected. Moreover, the placement of the musicians on stage produced a wonderful collective sound, with a strong bass line from the especially admirable continuo section of Anne Trout, double bass, John Moran cello and Dongsok Shin, harpsichord.

Hornists Wilhelm Bruns and Jean-Sebastien Salm played with stunning command, while the string and woodwind playing -- especially by bassoonist Andrew Schwartz -- was full of personality. The performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 had the most technical problems, especially pitch, but the rest of the concert was baroque music at its most delightful.

-- Mark Kanny

Bach Choir of Pittsburgh

Artistic director Thomas Wesley Douglas appears to be taking the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh "Beyond Borders," as the title of the season suggests.

The opening concerts of the season, "Opera Obsessions," put the choir in a new setting for a show, the lobby of the Purnell Center for the Arts at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland.

And the choir on Friday looked in a fairly new direction, too: at opera arias and choruses from the classics of Giuseppi Verdi and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to the 1955 work, "Susannah," by Carlisle Floyd.

As an ensemble, it performed convincingly under Douglas's direction. But the most remarkable work came from soprano Andrea Jones-Sojola, a guest soloist from Dayton, Ohio, whose "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess" was heartfelt.

Mezzo soprano Jennifer S. Neslund did a great job with "Habanera" from "Carmen" and bass-baritone Richard Teaster was musically dramatic in his work from "Susannah."

-- Bob Karlovits

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