If you ever wonder about the unknown, this year’s TEDx conference is right up your alley. The theme of “The Incredible Unknown” was inspired by the quote, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known,” associated with famous astronomer and UChicago alumnus Carl Sagan. Speakers include Daniel Casasanto, assistant professor in psychology and director of the Experience and Cognition Laboratory, and others who dare to question the unknown.

Saturday, May 2, Logan Center Performance Hall, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., tickets sold out.

UChicago’s own student-run Chamber Music Organization is hosting its Spring Showcase this evening in the Logan Center’s beautiful ninth-floor performance penthouse. Student groups will perform works by Brahms, Mozart, Ravel, and Shostakovich in a casual, intimate environment. Food will be provided!

Friday, May 1, Logan Performance Penthouse, 7–9 p.m., free.

The Civic Orchestra of Chicago returns to Hyde Park this Sunday to reprise its annual free concert at the South Shore Cultural Center. The CSO’s talented training ensemble—whose members go on to play in professional symphony orchestras all over the country—will present an American program, including a suite from George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess as well as Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs (featuring baritone and Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus member Bill McMurray). Rounding out the program is Antonín Dvořák’s famous Symphony No. 9 From the New World. Globe-trotting Canadian conductor Julian Kuerti, who has held posts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Montreal-based Orchestre Métropolitain, makes his Civic Orchestra debut.

Sunday, May 3, South Shore Cultural Center (7059 South South Shore Drive), 3 p.m. No tickets are required, but general admission seating is limited and given on a first-come, first-serve basis.