Regional arts and entertainment events

Sunday

Cage festival Composer John Cage is most famous for his conceptual 1952 piece 4'33" - which consisted of performers sitting quietly for that length of time - but he left a legacy of music with sound that was vastly influential in its use of chance creation, electronics, and physically altered instrumentation. The presenting organization Bowerbird has put together a citywide celebration of Cage that runs in three parts from October to January, and features many of Cage's first interpreters. This week's offerings (call 215-948-2319): Margaret Leng Tan performing the 1946-48 work Sonatas and Interludes on a piano fitted with screws, bolts, pieces of rubber, and plastic at the Curtis Institute of Music, 1726 Locust St., at 8 p.m. Sunday (tickets are $15); cellist Jay Campbell and trombonist Dan Blacksberg performing solo works at the Art Alliance, 251 S 18th St. at 8 p.m. Tuesday (tickets are $12); pianist Joseph Kubera playing 1951's indeterminate Music of Changes at Trinity Center for Urban Life, 22d and Spruce Streets, at 8 p.m. Thursday (tickets are $15); and part of Organ2 / ASLSP, with Peter Kitterman at Christ Church, 20 N. American St., at 8 p.m. Saturday (admission is free).

Born in Yugoslavia and raised in West London,

Rita Ora

is really a citizen of the world of pop, deftly mixing hip-hop and rock elements in her dance anthems. And the girl's got great pipes. She performs at 8 p.m. at

the Trocadero

, 10th and Arch Streets. Tickets are $27. Call 215-922-6888.

Monday

We won't presume to explain the long-theorized, recently-probably-

discovered Higgs boson - known popularly as the "God particle" because it is so crucial to scientists' understanding of how the universe works. A far better source to find out more is Rutgers University theoretical physicist Matt Strassler, whose lecture The Quest for the Higgs Boson and Why It Matters sounds like it pretty much covers the subject (and, at the very least, explains some of the jokes on The Big Bang Theory). Strassler speaks at 7 p.m. at Ursinus College's Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center, 601 E. Main Street, Collegeville. Admission is free. Call 610-409-3000.

Tuesday

It could fairly be said that the entire vampire industry (a booming sector of the economy) owes it all to a journalist (and theater manager and civil servant) - Bram Stoker. His 1897 novel

Dracula

set a template that spawned most of the creatures of the night that surround us now.

The Curio Theatre Company

presents

Josh Hitchens

in a one-man adaptation of the tale at

the Calvary Center

, 4740 Baltimore Ave., at 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Tickets are $15. Call 215-525-1350.

Wednesday

We've always liked a bit of cheese with our frights, and one that fits the requirement is Bernard L. Kowalski's 1959 B-movie

Attack of the Giant Leeches

, in which a Florida game warden slowly catches on that there are monsters in the swamp (the solution is pretty simple and would please

SCTV

's Billie Sol Hurok). The film screens, alongside a Halloween costume party, music by

Agent Moosehead

, and the comedy stylings of

Yes, Hello!

, at 7 p.m. at

the Ambler Theater,

108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler. Tickets are $10. Call 215-345-7855.

Thursday

The multimedia dance troupe

Miller Rothlein

presents works mixing choreography, animation, video, and art installations at

the Crane Arts Old School

, 1417 N. Second St., at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 2 p.m. next Sunday. Tickets are $20. Call 267-888-6476.

Friday & Saturday

Conductor

Giancarlo Guerrero

leads

the Philadelphia Orchestra

in Gershwin's

Piano Concerto in F

, with soloist

Kirill Gerstein

, plus works by Barber, Copland and Roberto Sierra, at

the Kimmel Center's

Verizon Hall, Broad and Spruce Streets, at 2 p.m. Friday, and 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $26 to $127. Call 215-893-1999.

Philadelphia-born film director Richard Lester is best known for his work with the Beatles, but he was also a keen satirist of the excesses of military and political power, looking at it from the perspective of those affected. Here are two examples: The 1967 black comedy

How I Won the War

follows an inept platoon leader, accompanied by his wry orderly (John Lennon), through World War II in an increasingly fractured war-film send-up (7 p.m. Friday), while in 1969's

The Bed-Sitting Room

, written by the Goons' Spike Milligan, Londoners try to maintain a semblance of living in the aftermath of a nuclear war that lasted two minutes and 28 seconds (8 p.m. Saturday). The films screen at

International House

, 3701 Chestnut St. Tickets are $9 per film; $7 for seniors and students. Call 215-387-5125.

India's

Rama Vaidyanathan

, one of the leading performers of the dance style

bharata natyam

, performs at

the Annenberg Center

, 3680 Walnut St., at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $20 to $45. Call 215-898-3900.