Heike Liss/Intakt Records

Composer-musician Fred Frith.

Beer science

Cornell is offering a one-day course on brewing science and technology, Feb. 24, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. in Jordan Hall Auditorium at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva.

The course will cover barley, malt, hops, brewing water, adjuncts, brew house operations, brewing yeast and brewery fermentations, maturation, finishing and beer styles.

Professor of food science and technology Karl Siebert will lead the course. Siebert spent more than 18 years in the brewing industry and has received multiple awards from brewing organizations. Information: Nancy Long, 315-787-2288 or npl1@cornell.edu.

Husa milestones

The Cornell University Glee Club and Chorus and the Eastman Wind Ensemble will perform four works by internationally known composer and conductor Karel Husa, Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. in Bailey Hall, in celebration of Husa's 90th year. Free and open.

Husa, the Kappa Alpha Professor of Music Emeritus, taught composition at Cornell from 1954 to 1992. Born Aug. 7, 1921, in Prague, Husa attained numerous honors including the 1969 Pulitzer Prize in music and the 1993 Grawemeyer Award.

The concert program begins with two works for wind ensemble, "Divertimento" (a re-orchestrated excerpt from his mid-1950s composition "Eight Czech Duets" for four-hand piano) and "Al Fresco," originally commissioned for the Ithaca College Concert Band, which premiered the piece, with Husa as guest conductor, at the 1975 Music Educators National Conference in Philadelphia.

The wind ensemble and combined chorus will perform Husa's "Festive Ode," composed for Cornell's Centennial Celebration and first performed by the Cornell Chorus, Glee Club and Symphony Orchestra at the Centennial Convocation, Oct. 9, 1964, in Barton Hall. The final (and major) work of the evening, "Apotheosis of this Earth," "was motivated by the present desperate stage of mankind and its immense problems with everyday killings, war, hunger, extermination of fauna, huge forest fires and critical contamination of the whole environment," Husa said.

Free-form Frith

Internationally renowned musician and composer Fred Frith will be in residence at Cornell Feb. 29-March 1, and his work is the focus of a festival of events across campus this week.

The Fred Frith Festival celebrates the multi-instrumentalist avant-garde composer, an experimental music icon active for more than 40 years across a broad spectrum of music-making beginning with rock band Henry Cow in the late 1960s.

Cornell Cinema screens "Step Across the Border," the award-winning 1990 documentary about Frith and his constant search for musical ideas from around the world, Feb. 25 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 26 at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre (admission $4-$7).

On Feb. 29, Frith gives a public lecture for Cornell's Composers' Forum, "Composing Music for Film," at 4:30 p.m. in the A. D. White House Guerlac Room, and performs free improvisation on guitar, solo and with pianist Annie Lewandowski, at 8 p.m. in the Barnes Hall auditorium.

Frith facilitates an improvisation master class/open rehearsal with the Cornell Avant Garde Ensemble, March 1, 9:30 a.m. in B20 Lincoln Hall. The events are free and open to the public.

The festival is supported by Cornell Cinema, the Department of Music, Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center and the Composers' Forum.

Adolescent brains

In the second decade of life, young adults have endless choices, but the decisions they make depend on developing the power of the brain to learn and reason. Professor of human development and psychology Valerie Reyna discusses this in a talk about her new book "The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making," March 1 at 4 p.m. in 160 Mann Library. Free and open.

Reyna is co-director of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research at Cornell. In her book, she brings together an interdisciplinary group of scientists to examine how the adolescent brain develops -- and how this development affects various aspects of reasoning and decision-making, from memory and representation to judgment, mathematical problem-solving and the construction of meaning.

The Chats in the Stacks book talk is supported by the Mary A. Morrison Public Education Fund at Mann Library. Information: http://mannlib.cornell.edu/events-exhibits or 607-255-5406.

Art song

Tenor Ian Bostridge comes to campus for a concert in Bailey Hall with pianist Julius Drake March 2 and a master class with Cornell students March 3.

The 8 p.m. concert, featuring a program of lieder (German art songs) by Schumann and Brahms, is presented by the Cornell Concert Series. Tickets are $25-$35 for reserved seating; students $17, plus applicable ticket fees, available at http://www.CornellConcertSeries.com or http://www.BaileyTickets.com; Ticket Center Ithaca, 171 The Commons, or by calling 607-273-4497 or 800-284-8422. www.BaileyTickets.com; Ticket Center Ithaca on The Commons, or 607-273-4497. Cornell employees ordering online with a valid NetID are eligible to select the "CU Student" option for the student rate through Feb. 29.

The master class with Department of Music students is Saturday morning, March 3, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in Barnes Hall.

Bostridge was a postdoctoral fellow in history at Oxford University before beginning a full-time career as a singer. He made his operatic debut in 1994 in Benjamin Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Edinburgh Festival. His recordings have won Gramophone and Grammy Awards, and he has performed internationally in recitals with Drake.

Bostridge maintains an active interest in academia and the Cornell visit offers an opportunity for him and the audience to explore music, art and ideas together.

To the moon

Cornell Cinema takes "A Trip to the Moon" -- or two -- at its Elegant Winter Party, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.

"A Magical Méliès Evening" includes a screening of the black-and-white version of George Méliès' legendary 1902 short film at 9 p.m., with a live improvised score by The Electric Golem (electronic music duo Trevor Pinch and James Spitznagel). The first outer-space adventure in the history of cinema figures prominently in the new film "Hugo."

Also showing: A restored hand-painted color version of the film, with a new soundtrack by French band Air; and "The Extraordinary Voyage," a 2011 one-hour documentary by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, charting the film's story from 1902 to the rediscovery of a nitrate print in color in 1993, its costly restoration and Cannes Film Festival premiere last year. Contemporary filmmakers Michel Gondry, Martin Scorsese and Jean-Pierre Jeunet are among those interviewed.

The party, Cornell Cinema's annual fundraiser, also features hors d'oeuvres, desserts, Meleau wine tastings, a cash bar and door prizes. Tickets are $50 general ($90 a pair) and $30 for students ($50 a pair), available at http://CornellCinemaTickets.com, by calling 607-255-3522 and from the Cornell Cinema Office, 104 Willard Straight Hall, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. starting Monday, Feb. 27. Information: http://cinema.cornell.edu.