For the 42nd consecutive year, the Minnesota Orchestra celebrates the holiday season with performances of Messiah—Handel’s beloved masterwork for chorus and orchestra. Led by Grammy Award-nominated conductor Stephen Layton, making his Orchestra debut, the performances feature soprano Janice Chandler-Eteme, mezzo Jennifer Dudley, tenor Thomas Cooley, bass-baritone Nathan Berg and the Minnesota Chorale, the Orchestra’s principal chorus.

The Minnesota Orchestra concludes its holiday season with a special Handel’s Messiah Sing-Along concert, performed with 150 members of the Minnesota Chorale, the Orchestra’s principal chorus. Chorale Artistic Director Kathy Saltzman Romey conducts the concert, which includes the “Hallelujah” and “For unto us a child is born” choruses, as well as solo arias and other oratorio selections.

Magic Circle Mime Company returns for A Spirit for the Holidays family concerts; Orchestra and Minnesota Chorale present special Messiah sing-along concert.

James Sewell Ballet will present its annual holiday production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors," Dec. 21-22, at The O'Shaughnessy in St. Paul.

Viva Nortec, la nueva frontera de la música! Made up of DJs, graphic artists, and filmmakers, Tijuana’s Nortec Collective delivers some of the freshest electro-ambient music in North America. Nortec Collective performs Saturday, December 8, at 8 pm in the Walker Art Center’s William and Nadine McGuire Theater.

The Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal wants to reconsider production, both artistically and economically, by creating immaterial and more sustainable forms of generating meaning and beauty. The solo exhibition Tino Sehgal will be on view at the Walker Art Center December 12, 2007–March 23, 2008.

New Suburban Landscapes, the first major museum exhibition to examine both the art and architecture of the contemporary American suburb and its catalytic role in the creation of new art, premieres at the Walker Art Center from February 16 to May 18, 2008.

The uniquely American folk art form of weathervanes and whirligigs is featured in this unprecedented exhibition organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). This exhibition features approximately forty artworks, including both handmade folk art and manufactured examples, ranging from the eighteenth through the twentieth century, on view through April 13, 2008.

Families can immerse themselves in the many elements of hip-hop at the Walker Art Center’s Free First Saturday event Hip-Hop Hooray!, from 10 am–3 pm Saturday, December 1.

A special sneak-peek showcases the return of award-winning actor/playwright/director Danny Hoch, who continues his long association with the Walker Art Center (Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop; Hip-Hop Theater All Stars) with Taking Over, a series of enveloping monologues that looks at urban gentrification as a kind of neo-feudalism in the new millennium.

A rare presentation of one of the world’s foremost private collections of Japanese art opens in a special exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) on February 24.

The 2007 British Television Advertising Awards program returns November 30–December 30 for another rousing run of screenings at the Walker Art Center, where last year more than 16,000 people saw the 2006 award-winning spots.