This week, The Meadowlark Music Festival spreads its reach further this year, beginning with performances on July 15th at North Platte's Midland Community College by the Jupiter String Quartet, pianist Spencer Meyer at Doane College, and the Metales MF Brass Quintet in Hastings. The 2008 Meadowlark artists drop by Friday Live next week, but this week we'll preview those performances and other ones next week in Grand Island, Lincoln, Blair, and Walton.

The 2008 Flatwater Folk Festival at the Adams County Fairgrounds Prairie Loft Center for Outdoor and Agricultural Learning in Hastings gets underway July 18-20, with songwriting workshops in addition to performances by: Mike and Amy Finders of Iowa City, Iowa; Tom Prasado Rao and Cary Cooper from Houston, Texas; and Nebraska bands Burnt Biskits, and the Wild Clover Band. Coordinator and musician Bernie Seifert sings a tune or two.

Drum Corps International returns to UNL for a big blast blow-out of band and drum corps ensembles. Tony Falcone from the UNL School of Music chats up the big blast blow-out at Memorial Stadium.

Also, Carlos Guerrero chats up Steve Ryan's Lux Center for the Arts exhibit, Unreal Landscapes, featuring digital photo manipulations of seemingly mundane outdoor scenes. Chat with Ryan himself at the opening reception Friday evening, July 11th, then return on Sunday, Aug 3rd, for the annual Community Arts Afternoon at the Lux, with art demonstrations, dancing, hands-on collaborative art projects including an outside mural and the reggae band RC Dub.

And, a statewide arts calendar and William Kloefkorn's Poetry of the Plains.

That's on Friday Live at 9 a.m. Central, or as a podcast on netnebraska.org.