Stanford Lively Arts recently announced its 2007-2008 season, and several prominent performances highlight a higher “star power” quotient for next year. This is the first full season led by new director Jenny Bilfield, who was previously president of Boosey and Hawkes, a music publisher. She has promised to make Lively Arts programs, which has always had problems attracting a critical mass of student performance-goers, more accessible to the student body. To that end, she formed the “Lively Arts Street Team,” created a new staff position specifically for student engagement and promised more student-friendly performances and ticket prices (some events can cost more than $50, even for students). Because Lively Arts serves both the Stanford audience as well as the larger Bay Area community, balancing the interests of diverse audiences can be difficult.

A schedule of the 2007-2008 Lively Arts season is now available online at http://livelyarts.stanford.edu, although only the titles of events are available. As a result, it is hard to figure out the details of the events, apart from the performers. Even with minimal details, the upcoming season looks to be an impressive one. The most exciting event is the season-opening performance (October 9), when Philip Glass comes to town for a performance based on “Book of Longing,” a recent book of poetry by Leonard Cohen. Glass will be on keyboard, Cohen will be on video. Glass is recognized as perhaps the foremost of the “modern” or “contemporary” composers. He is probably best known in popular culture for the movie soundtracks he scores for films like “The Fog of War,” “Notes on a Scandal” and “The Hours,” but is also often associated with Stravinsky. He is arguably the most well known living composer who does not compose “Star Wars” music. It’s unclear what exactly the performance will be (spoken word? orchestral?), but the joint performance is guaranteed to be interesting.

L.A. Theatre Works arrives later in the month, performing their much-discussed “The Pentagon Papers.” This dramatization of a gripping period at the end of the Nixon reign promises to be compelling, especially because Theatre Works is known for “radio theatre.” November brings Alarm Will Sound, an innovative classical music group known for premiering works by modern composers like Steve Reich. They will be performing “Son of Chamber Symphony,” a new work by John Adams, commissioned for Lively Arts.

In bringing Philip Glass, Alarm Will Sound and several performances from the Kronos Quartet to Stanford, it seems as if Lively Arts is emphasizing modern classical music, an interesting direction for Lively Arts to take. The question of accessibility for the student population remains in question, however.

January is clearly the centerpiece month for the 2007-2008 season. The Kronos Quarter will be performing “Sun Rings” with the Stanford Chamber Chorale, in what has been described as a “multimedia performance.” Renaissance man Spike Lee will be speaking in Memorial Auditorium. Pianist Christopher O’Riley, known to many trendy indie kids for his piano-only covers of Radiohead songs, will be performing — although hopefully his performance will not include interminable renditions of “Everything In Its Right Place” and “Fake Plastic Trees.” And to top it all off, renowned jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, will be performing with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at the end of the month.

After a heady January, the program decreases both in moxie and pace, although several notable performances remain. For aficionados of string quartets, no less than four (Emerson, St. Lawrence, Turtle Island and Julliard) are performing from February through April. In addition, accomplished pianist Alex Toradze will be playing with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra on Mar. 9, and the day before will be performing solo. Both performances are under a program called “The Stravinsky Project.” The versatile Elisa Monte Dance Company performs on Apr. 14 and finally, the season caps off with the Jin Xing Dance Company’s collaborative performance with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and the Stanford Symphonic Chorus.

All in all, the season is definitely a step up from 2006-2007’s. Philip Glass, Spike Lee, and Wynton Marsalis’ appearances at Stanford are much-awaited. The several innovatively collaborative programs should be unique and memorable performances, especially the ones involving Stanford arts groups. But Lively Arts still relies, it seems, on string quartets and chamber music to fill up the program, and while the prominence of those groups is not objectionable, the question remains of how much they interest students. That being said, it should be an exciting year and student attendance should be higher than ever, especially if ticket prices are lowered. A larger Lively Arts presence on campus is certainly welcome, and with such a diverse list of performances, it seems that Bilfield’s ambition is on its way to being realized.