Janice Berman

American Ballet Theatre, fresh from its fall season in New York City, brought two programs of mixed repertory to Zellerbach Hall last week, presented by Cal Performances. This was in itself reason for celebration. That the ballets were set to richly varied music proved to be the icing on the cake.

Edward Villella was new to the New York City Ballet when Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine were in the studio with the dancers, making Agon. It was 1957. "Neither of them talked much to us — it wasn't what they did,” Villella said Sunday, after Miami City Ballet, where he's artistic director, ended its visit to Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks, who wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, is an M.D. and plays a Bechstein. His newest book, Musicophilia, will be published this month by Random House. The impact of music on the human brain, Sacks writes, cannot be overstated. It's as important as language.

Mozart Dances, which finally arrived here via Cal Performances last Thursday, achieved the impossible by exceeding its rapturous reviews. Jane Glover, conducting the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and joined by Garrick Ohlsson and Yoko Nazaki on piano, gave a performance of warm dynamics and perfect unity.

Mark Morris, whose association with Cal Performances spans more than a decade, is bringing something completely different to Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley this week.Mozart Dances, unlike last year's King Arthur, and of course also unlike The Hard Nut, which returns in December

Newcomers to the job market often quickly become aware of the Catch-22 phenomenon: You can't embark upon your dream career unless you're experienced, and you can't become experienced unless you can get experience. Nowhere is this truer or more impossible than among aspiring conductors. You not only have to have the chops to conduct the orchestra, you have to have the orchestra.

Newcomers to the job market often quickly become aware of the Catch-22 phenomenon: You can't embark upon your dream career unless you're experienced, and you can't become experienced unless you can get experience. Nowhere is this truer or more impossible than among aspiring conductors. You not only have to have the chops to conduct the orchestra, you have to have the orchestra.

There's an art to making an art song. Just ask Jake Heggie or Ricky Ian Gordon. Having each scored notable successes as opera composers, they'll share the bill on April 29, when Cal Performances presents "Theater in Song" at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.