Thanksgiving Miscellany

On Saturday night, the fetchingly named Le Train Bleu, an eclectic new group under the direction of Ransom Wilson, will perform John Luther Adams's songbirdsongs at Galapagos. It's an old-yet-new JLA piece, here presented for the first time in a large-scale version for eight piccolists and six percussionists.... Both John Adamses figure in the program of the Ojai Festival next June. The schedule, devised by Leif Ove Andsnes, also includes Marc-André Hamelin playing the Concord Sonata, Barbara Sukowa singing Reinbert de Leeuw's Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, and Martin Fröst essaying all manner of clarinet music.... Michael Lorenz, writing in Acta Mozartiana, reveals the existence of a previously unknown godson of Mozart: Wolfgang Amade Nebe (1787-1839), who later became a Viennese civil servant.... The schedule for "After the End of Music History," a February symposium celebrating Richard Taruskin, has been announced.... Richard Dyer assesses James Levine's tenure in Boston and considers some of his possible successors.... There's been a welcome uptick of activity at Sedgwick Clark's Musical America blog.... On Nov. 30, Sotheby's will auction off another big batch of music manuscripts and rare books. The lot includes Schumann's composing manuscript for Szenen aus Goethes "Faust," the autograph of Schnittke's Peer Gynt, various Britten materials, and a Mozart sketch-leaf with bawdy canons ("Difficile lectu mihi Mars" and "Bona nox! bist a rechta Ox"), not to mention an inscribed typescript of Paul Celan's "Todesfuge."