Shara Worden is arguably one of the most prolific collaborators working in music today. In the midst of her other activities, Worden has written and recorded a new set of her own original songs under the moniker of her chief creative vehicle, My Brightest Diamond. But unlike MBD’s previous two full-length albums, she substitutes overtly rock sonorities with the instrumental colors of indie chamber sextet yMusic.

If we follow the lead of Cage, whose final definition of music is “sounds heard,” it seems that one could infer that music is not merely a human creation or experience; sounds—all sounds, any sounds—created by humans and non-humans alike, exhibit a kind of music.

The Composer is Dead, composer Nathaniel Stookey’s collaboration with celebrated children’s book author Lemony Snicket (the pen name of Daniel Handler), is giving Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra some serious competition.

Seven up-and-coming composers have been selected from an applicant pool of 143 for the 2009 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, which will be held from November 17-22, 2009 in Minneapolis.

According to WNYC’s Chief Creative Officer Dean Cappello, the acquisition of WQXR will turn the formerly commercial station into a listener-supported entity, which means that “eighteen minutes of commercials will go away and we can play longer pieces.”

During the month of July, the digital music subscription service Classical Archives is presenting an “American Music Celebration”; the programs coincide with American baritone Thomas Hampson’s 2009 tour, 250 Years of American Song which will be supported with internet streams and even an iPhone application.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation recently awarded a $500,000 grant to Seattle Opera to fund the newly commissioned American opera Amelia, by Daron Aric Hagen and Gardner McFall, specifically to subsidize additional productions of the work by two other American opera companies over a four-year period.