CLEANING UP AT THE DMA: The Dallas Museum of Art just launched its Uncrated blog, and already it’s providing some very interesting reading. The most recent post is from Heather MacDonald. The museum’s curator of European Art writes about visiting the Midwestern Art Conservation Center housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The DMA is having a Gauguin painting in the collection cleaned, and as it turns out, the MIA has a later version of the same painting. Check the post to see the two works side-by-side and to see what goes into cleaning up a 19th-century painting.

MUSIC BITS: Preston Jones directs us to five North Texas bands on the rise. Agreed on Seryn; must now check out the other four. (dfw.com) … Quick says Trey Johnson’s new album disappoints while a new cassette from Denton’s Mass Sterilization thrills. (quickdfw.com) … Fort Worth Weekly wonders aloud: Why the heck haven’t people embraced the Orbans’ When We Were Wild? After all, it’s “one of the best albums ever produced by a Fort Worth band,” according to FWW. (fwweekly.com)

FORMER VAN CLIBURN EXEC DIES: Andrew Raeburn, who served as the Executive Director of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition from 1982-85, died in Canada on Tuesday. He was 77. Dallasnews.com spoke with many who worked with Raeburn about the influence he wielded in the classical music world.