UPS piano trio returns

The Puget Sound Piano Trio, recently revived after a 15-year hiatus, will give its debut performance tonight featuring faculty members Duane Hulbert on piano, Maria Sampen on violin and the recently appointed, Naumberg-winning cellist David Requiro playing works by Beethoven, Brahms, Omiccioli and Cassado. 7:30 p.m. tonight. $12.50/$8.50 seniors, students, and UPS faculty and staff/free for UPS students. Schneebeck Concert Hall, University of Puget Sound, 1500 N. Warner St., Tacoma. 253-879-3419, www.pugetsound.edu/music

The Tacoma Symphony rocks with electric harpist

Deborah Henson-Conant rocks the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra with a strap-on electric blue harp, a powerful voice …

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For today I headed along Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It’s a pretty bleak street right now – lots of closed shopfronts – so thank goodness for the art. Tacoma Art Place (just along South 11^th Street from MLK Way) usually has a featured artist in the lobby, although nothing’s there now until Feb. 10. Then there are the mural shopfronts, an artist-driven project between South 11^th and 13^th Streets that brightens the boarded-up windows.

And then there’s Fulcrum Gallery, which for several years now has been one of a handful of fine art galleries in town showing …

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“Black Swan” at The Grand Cinema

For a dark depiction of the masochistic, psychologically brutal side of ballet, you can’t go past “Black Swan,” where Natalie Portman plays a ballerina who loses herself, literally, in the iconic “Swan Lake” lead role. Various times. $8.50/$7.50. The Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett St., Tacoma. 253-593-4474, www.grandcinema.com

Still a “Nutcracker” or two at PNB

Christmas might be almost here but the “Nutcracker” keeps going, at least for Pacific Northwest Ballet. The extravagant Stowell and Sendak production, with its “Where the Wild Things Are”-style sets and imagination, runs through this weekend. …

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Free museums on National Museum Day

National Museum Day is this Saturday, and a handful of local museums are participating in the Smithsonian Magazine-organized event by offering free admission. Museums include: Fort Nisqually, Foss Waterway Seaport, Museum of Glass, Washington State History Museum and Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma; the Frye Museum, Burke Museum, Seattle Art Museum and Henry Art Gallery in Seattle; and the Hands-On Childrens’ Museum in Olympia. Get your downloadable tickets and information at www.smithsonianmag.com.

State high school photo show at TAM

The 2010 Washington State High School Photography Exhibit is on again at Tacoma Art Museum, featuring …

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Mary Josephson at Traver

The opening this month at Traver Gallery is for Portland-based Mary Josephson, who creates expressive portraits in glass, textile and monotypes. Opening 2-5 p.m. March 13, then 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tue-Sat, noon-5 p.m. Sun. through April 4. Free. 1821 E Dock St. Ste 100, Tacoma. 253-383-3685, www.travergallery.com

Opera Night with chorus and opera companies

The Northwest Repertory Singers and Rainier Family Opera collaborate this Saturday night in “A Night at the Opera,” combining their chorus and solo strengths to present favorite staged scenes from “Lucia di Lammermoor,” “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “La Traviata.” 7:30 p.m. March …

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Walk into Fulcrum gallery and you’ve got a choice. Turn left, and it’s mangled limbs and a blood-red war memorial. Right, and you can see three Michael Jacksons and Boy George reincarnated as Queen Elizabeth II.

Hmm, choices, choices. The irony is that the two sides of the gallery are both by the same artist – Troy Gua – and they don’t, in fact, either mock or detract from each other. They don’t exactly dialogue, but then you can’t expect too much.

On the left, Gua has constructed an eloquent testimony to soldiers who have lost limbs and lives in …

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