Topic: The Juilliard School

Why play's the thing

While discipline and practice are crucial in life, we need play time to let creativity bloom, to imagine the impossible, to ask the 'what if' questions.

Classics in technicolor

A thoroughly modern opera: Robots enter a new frontier

Tod Machover's futuristic opera, 'Death and the Powers,' features robots and puts technology in the leading role.

Top picks: TV series 'Slings and Arrows' on DVD, Charles Schulz's 'The Peanuts Collection,' Rock Band 3, and more

Award-winning Canadian TV series 'Slings and Arrows' on DVD, 'The Peanuts Collection: Treasures from the World's Most Beloved Comic' by Charles Schulz and Nat Gertler, Rock Band 3 with new features, and more recommendations.

Review: 'The Soloist'

Based on the true story of a journalist who befriends a schizophrenic homeless man with a prodigious musical talent, movie doesn't resonate as deeply as it should.

DVDs and CDs for the elementary crowd

From fairies to pandas and penguins, with a little Beethoven thrown in, these movies and music will keep children watching again and again ... and again.

Schickele gets Bach to P.D.Q.

On his first album in a decade, Professor Peter Schickele (and his alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach) create cadenzas of laughter in classical music.