This month marks the 10th year of David Cotner's Actions, an indispensable weekly e-mail that seeks, according to Cotner, to chronicle "all things happening in leftfield and experimental art, music, and culture."

Actions teems with odd news items ("[Taliban] militants put on a cassette with nothing but noise and screeches on it. They claimed it helped avoid detection by American spy planes"), brief obituaries, calls for work, and other, sometimes cryptic bulletins ("Please do not contact Frans de Waard for anything Staalplaat related"). I also like "In a natal daze," a roll call of upcoming birthdays. The latest Actions groups Fluxus artist and coiner of the term "intermedia" Dick Higgins (March 15, 1938), video artist Elisabeth Schimana (March 15, 1958), and Cecil Taylor (March 15 or 25, 1929).

The core of Actions is a concert calendar that lists shows worldwide, in Seattle, Los Angeles, Regina (the capital of Saskatchewan), Osaka, and just about everywhere else. The latest Actions reminds me that Seattle singer, saxophonist, and composer Amy Denio is touring with the Tiptons sax quartet in Germany (they hit Hannover Thursday, March 15).

Yet despite an exhaustive purview, Actions, along with Cotner's recent nine-page index, "Experimental Musicians in America," is incomplete, and heroically so: The avant here, there, and everywhere is too big for any one person or periodical to track completely. Although my own "Experimental Music Almanac" published June 2003 in these pages missed only a handful of Seattle avant artists (the SIL2K collective, Intonarumori, Greg Sinibaldi, and myself), the article is already out of date and obsolete.

Indeed, Actions confirms that the avant is no longer just a "scene." Actions attests to a broad and vibrant parallel culture where mainstream pop culture echoes faintly against bold, daring art with little or no commercial potential.

Sign up for David Cotner's Actions communiqué at www.hertz-lion.com.

THURSDAY MARCH 15

PAUL RUCKER
The bassist, cellist, composer, and installation artist leads an adventurous jazz quintet. Seattle City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave, 684-7171, Noon—1 pm, free.

MUSIC FOR LUNCH
John Pickett, a piano prof at Central Washington University, treks across the mountains to perform Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Sherman-Clay Piano & Organ, 1624 Fourth Ave, 622-7580, 12:15 pm, free.

HARSH
This new monthly series devoted to harsh noise, breakcore, power electronics, death industrial, and other sonically aggressive musics features John Wiese, who spewed gritty microloops, pencil-thin sine waves yanked from the stratosphere, and bruising low tones at the first Wooden Octopus Skull festival in 2005. With Logic Probe, Honed Bastion, and Fetal Distress. Bring earplugs. Re-bar, 1114 E Howell St at Boren Ave, 233-9873,9 pm, $5.

FRIDAY MARCH 16

JOSHUA ROMAN
The Seattle Symphony's new, 23-year old principal cellist serves up a solo recital, tackling a cello suite by J. S. Bach (the exuberant Sixth) and Zoltán Kodály's Sonata op. 8. Roman also plays György Ligeti's early (1948/1953) Sonata for Solo Violoncello, whose first movement updates Bartók and concluding Capriccio evokes sped-up gamelan music. Yum. Next time how about Nomos Alpha by Xenakis? Town Hall, Eighth Ave and Seneca St, 652-4255, 7:30 pm, $13—$18.

SATURDAY MARCH 17

KEITH EISENBREY
A throwback to an age when pianists composed and improvised, Eisenbrey presents three complete sets of 24 preludes composed by three Seattle composers, Greg Short, Lockrem Johnson, and Ken Benshoof. University Temple United Methodist Church, 1415 NE 43rd St, 632-5163, 2 pm, $10 suggested donation.

SUNSHIP
Stuart Dempster, ex-Stinkhorn saxophonist Michael Monhart, and guitarist Brian Heaney front a quintet named after the classic Coltrane LP. Expect hard-blowing and feverishly fierce solos buttressed by jazz-rock grooves. Egan's Ballard Jam House, 1707 NW Market Street, 789-1621, 7 pm, $5.

THE MICROSCORE PROJECT
Violinist Johnny Chang and cellist Jessica Catron commissioned more than 225 miniature works from their favorite composers, including Pauline Oliveros, Peter Ablinger, Philip Brownlee, Harold Budd, and James Tenney. Live, the duo quilts the pieces—most of which clock in at 30 seconds—into a larger work. Chang and Catron plan to intersperse several of Tenney's "Postal Pieces" as well as "Just Another Bagatelle," a duo he composed for the Microscore Project in 2004, throughout the concert. Chapel Performance Space at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, 8 pm, $5—$15 sliding scale donation.

SUNDAY MARCH 18

ORCHESTRA SEATTLE
As a failed accordionist, I confess I'm intrigued by the premiere of the Accordion Concerto No. 2 by accordionist and composer Murl Allen Sanders, though I mainly want to hear Stravinsky's Agon, which is seldom performed in concert. A fleet-footed fencing match between melodious Baroque counterpoint and the spry stabs, strikes, feints, and parries of post-WW II serialism, Agon's glassy, gossamer textures (strings, harp, and mandolin), snaky castanets, and archaic trumpet fanfares accomplished the unthinkable: Stravinsky made dissonance dance. Dvoák's turgid yet beloved Symphony No. 9 "From the New World" rounds out the program. First Free Methodist Church, 3200 Third Ave W, (800) 838-3006, 3 pm, $10—$20.