"Rat Creek, Wood - Tikchik State Park" From Robert Glenn Ketchum's Bristol Bay Southwest series 1999.

The Cleveland Orchestra takes a musical trip to Hungary this week, when Hungarian composer and conductor Peter Eotvos makes his debut with the orchestra at Severance Hall. He'll conduct a program of music by perhaps Hungary's greatest composer, Bela Bartok, featuring two of his popular works: the Concerto for Orchestra and the Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring soloist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (pictured). For the 8 p.m. performances tonight and Saturday, those pieces will be augmented by Eotvos' own Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestras, a Cleveland Orchestra premiere. The two Bartok pieces comprise the 11 a.m. concert tomorrow. Tickets: $24-$83. Box office: 216.231.1111. - Anastasia Pantsios

Friday, April 25

Gypsy

Many consider the 1959 musical Gypsy to be the greatest work of the musical theater, with an astonishing score (the work of composer Jule Stune and lyricist Stephen Sondheim) that included the unforgetable "Everything's Coming Up Roses." Its central role of Rose, the ultimate stage mother who drives her daughters away in the process of trying to make them into stars, is a bravura role for actresses "of a certain age," performed first by Ethel Merman and later such Broadway divas as Angela Lansberry and Bernadette Peters. Even in productions where the actress isn't big enough for the role, the music and riveting storyline carry the show. A touring production arrives at Akron's EJ Thomas Hall (198 Hill St.) for three performances, at 8 tonight and 2 and 8 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets: $30-$52.50. Box office: 330.972.7570. - AP

Robert Glenn Ketchum

Photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum has followed in the footsteps of Eliot Porter, whose work from the 1940s through his death in 1990 made him the preeminent figure in color nature photography at a time when black-and-white work was considered the gold standard of fine-art photography. Ketchum began working in the late '60s and, like fellow Californian Ansel Adams, developed a strong conservationist bent to go along with his landscape work, finding that working with the beauty of the natural world gave him the desire to work to preserve it. He's photographed Alaska, the Hudson River Valley, San Francisco's Presidio and even Northeast Ohio. At Of the Land at the Harris Stanton Gallery (2301 W. Market St., Akron, harrisstantongallery.com), he'll be showing a recent series of photos taken at Alaska's Bristol Bay to raise awareness of the imminent destruction of salmon fishing there by the gas, oil and mining industries. The show also includes carved and painted gourds by Akron artist Barbara Krans Jenkins. It opens with a free artists' reception at 5:30 p.m., at which Ketchum will give a brief talk about his work. - AP

Saturday, April 26

Geoff Herbach /Sam Osterhout

Geoff Herbach's debut novel, The Miracle Letters of T. Rimbeck, pivots on a series of oddball suicide notes written by a man whose life has taken many turns for the worse. But his plan to end it all gets sidetracked when an inheritance check causes him to launch a search for his long-lost father and the series of events that follows. Herbach's part of a Minneapolis-based literary collective called Lit 6 (lit6project.com) that shares a house, specializes in wacky, smart-ass humor that appears to combine sketch comedy with a literary sensibility, and produces an online radio show called Electric Arc. Herbach and fellow Lit6 member Sam Osterhout will be careening into town, Gerbach to read from and sign his novel, and Osterhout to perform some of the radio sketches and, apparently, aid and abet Gerbach with his reading, at the Bela Dubby Cafe (13321 Madison Ave., Lakewood, 216.221.4479) at 7 p.m. It's free. - AP

Epstein Family Art Sale

Mort and Marian Epstein were both artists, as is their daughter Gene, who's also known for her work as a musician in her jazz combo, Gene's Jazz Hot. Mort Epstein, now 90, is a former Cleveland Institute of Art professor whose work comprises photo-based works and wooden bowls and furniture. His wife, who died in 2002, specialized in prints and photos, while Gene has produced oils, pastels, watercolors, sculpture and altered books. The Epsteins have been longtime peace and social-justice activists so their limited showing/sale of their works, Art for Peace: The Epstein Family Art and Craft Exhibit and Sale, is being held to generate money for the Cleveland Chapter of Veterans for Peace (Mort Epstein is a WWII veteran) and its goal "to end war as a national policy." It takes place in their studio/gallery at 5340 Hamilton St., off E. 55th and Chester, suites #206-207 from 4-7 p.m. today and 3-6 p.m. tomorrow. - AP

Five Emerging Female Artists

Five women BFA students from the Cleveland Institute of Art have decided to make the presentation of their art a little more fun and freewheeling than simply putting it in a gallery and inviting people in to drink wine and eat cheese cubes. The show, Five Emerging Female Artists, at the Heights Arts Gallery (2173 Lee Rd., Cleveland Hts., 216.371.3457) is using the gallery as a staging point for interactive events at nearby sites which you'll learn about only when you show up. Each artist will have a Saturday evening to amplify her work with themed events, starting with Zena Pesta's Powdered Wig Tea Party at 7:30 tonight. Kaile Green's Fantasy Forest Frenzy follows on May 3, with Emma Kern's Mad Lib Mayhem on May 10 and Alex Tapi� and Heather Quesada hooking up for the Colossal Costume Conclusion on May 24. All kick off at 7:30 p.m. and all are free. - AP

Tuesday, April 29

Orion String Quartet

The well-traveled, highly respected Orion String Quartet, now in its 21st year, serves as quartet in residence at Lincoln Center, Indiana University and New York's Mannes College of Music and has worked with artists ranging from Yo-Yo Ma and Pablo Casals to Wynton Marsalis and Chick Corea, as well as the Bill T. Jones/Artie Zane Dance Company. It's noted for its performances of Beethoven's string quartets, and one of those is on the program it will perform for the Cleveland Chamber Music Society at 8 p.m. at the Fairmount Temple Auditorium (23727 Fairmount Blvd, Beachwood). The Beethoven String Quartet in A minor will be joined by the Beethoven-influenced Mendelssohn String Quartet in A minor and a newly composed piece recently premiered by the Orion String Quartet, Lowell Lieberman's String Quartet No. 4. Tickets: $25. Go to clevelandchambermusic.org or call 216.291.2777. - AP