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Latest news and reviews of movies, music, dining, arts and other events in Birmingham, Alabama

The F Words. Works by Karen Graffeo, Kim Riegel, Sonja Rieger and Carolyn Sherer, with additional works by Collin Williams, Spencer Shoults and David Young. Space One Eleven. Through Dec. 12.

The title of this show is a provocative, if incomplete, reference to "four fabulous females" -- artists who have works displayed at Space One Eleven.

What we have is an overabundance of visual expressiveness in what are really three exhibitions in one. Ambitious and fascinating, the diversity and quantity of works offer the viewer the opportunity to see works by seven very gifted artists.

Alabama Booksmith

1. "Bottega Favorita: A Southern Chef's Love Affair with Italian Food" by Frank Stitt
2. "Born Country: How Faith, Family, and Music Brought Me Home" by Randy Owen
3. "Alphabet Juice" by Roy Blount, Jr.
4. "Trail of Crumbs" by Kim Sunee
5. "The Long Shadow of Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant" by Gaylon McCollough

Frank Stitt & Warren St. John
Sun 3 p.m. $65 Alys Stephens Center, Jemison Concert Hall, 1200 10th Ave. South. An event featuring Stitt and his new book, "Bottega Favorita," and St. John, who wrote the introduction. Ticket includes a signed first edition of the book and a reception after a show in which St. John talks with Stitt on stage. For more information, call 870-4242 or go to www.alabamabooksmith.com. 975-2787. www.alysstephens.org

RESULTS FROM LAST WEEK
What's your favorite holiday cartoon?

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" -- 56 percent

"A Charlie Brown Christmas" -- 33 percent

"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" -- 11 percent

AN OPERA GREAT: Angela Brown stars in the Christmas show at the Alabama Theatre next weekend. Watch her sing an aria from "Aida."

Hundreds of programs with holiday themes are airing between now and the end of December, and we have an extensive list in Sunday's Play section in The Birmingham News.

To get you started, though, here's what we consider the top 10.

First, a note: the original "Miracle on 34th Street" certainly would have made this list, but NBC aired it Thanksgiving Day. Right now, it's not scheduled to air again this year.

Ask John Pizzarelli about other singers out there tackling the "Great American Songbook" - classic songs of eras gone by - and he's mostly congenial.

Take Peter Cincotti and Michael Buble, for instance, whom he's asked about.

"I like Peter Cincotti, but I think he has left the room," says Pizzarelli. "I think he wants to do something different. Michael Buble has really balanced the line well between singing the standards and then doing something else well."

Then, unscripted, unasked, he brings up another singer.

"The ones I shudder at are the Rod Stewarts of the music business," he says. "The good news, I guess, is that you know there's an audience to hear the music - the 4 million people who bought his records are not all over 80. But the introduction of standards through Rod Stewart is an oxymoron. There are better people singing the standards, like Buble, Diana Krall, Jane Monheit and myself."

Deciding which symphony orchestras are the world's best is about objective as comparing Dutch chocolate, German beer and Vienna schnitzel. But the British periodical Gramophone surveyed music critics from the Los Angeles Times, New Yorker magazine, Le Monde, De Telegraaf and others publications and came up with the top 20. Amsterdam's Concertgebouw was number one, followed by the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics and the London Symphony.

Seven American orchestras made the list -- Chicago Symphony (5), Cleveland Orchestra (7), Los Angeles Philharmonic (8), Boston Symphony (11), New York Philharmonic (12), San Francisco Symphony (13) and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (18). Noticeably absent was the Philadelphia Orchestra, long considered among America's "top five."

Here's Gramophone's list:

1. Concertgebouw-Orkest, Amsterdam
2. Berliner Philharmoniker
3. Wiener Philharmoniker
4. London Symphony Orchestra
5. Chicago Symphony Orchestra
6. Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
7. Cleveland Orchestra
8. Los Angeles Philharmonic
9. Budapest Festival Orchestra
10. Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden
11. Boston Symphony Orchestra
12. New York Philharmonic
13. San Francisco Symphony
14. Mariinsky Theater Orchestra
15. Russian National Orchestra
16. St. Petersburg Phillharmonic
17. Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
18. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
19. Saito Kinen Symphony Orchestra
20. Tschechische Philharmonie

For the complete story at Bayerischer Rundfunk online, click here.