PICKING APART PUCCINI: In his monthly “Off the Cuff” column for theaterjones.com, Dallas Opera general director Keith Cerny kicks around a curious opera question: “If Puccini’s brilliant mid-career works (La bohème, Tosca and [Madam] Butterfly) are so highly regarded that for many they define the operatic genre, why are his remaining works not even more popular?” He poses the question because the DO will present Puccini’s Turnadot in April. Cerny’s dissection of the composer’s other work – and why it may not have quite made it into the repertory – is a must-read for opera buffs.

LOCAL MUSIC BITS: Preston Jones runs through a bumper crop of new work by North Texas rappers. (dfw.com) … Edie Brickell, the pride of Oak Cliff, is teaming up with comedian-turned-banjo-picker Steve Martin for an album, due in April. (dallasnews.com) … Dreamy Soundz Recording Studio in Fort Worth is keeping analog recording alive. (DC9 at Night)

AND THE WINNER IS …:The Meadows Museum announced Tuesday that Stephen Lapthisophon has been named the recipient of the 2012 Moss/Chumley Artist Award. The award goes to a local artist who’s been exhibiting for at least a decade. Lapthisophon is known for his site-specific installations, and his success in the visual arts is all the more impressive because he’s legally blind. “I use my own blindness as a figure for the ways we interpret the world through our own specific framing mechanisms,” he is quoted as saying in the news release announcing the award.