News From Here and There

Conductor Kenneth Woods has some comments on Sir Simon Rattle's appointment to the LSO and on the possibility of a new concert hall in London. Read the comments and also the links....Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts to revive a festival closely resembling the late lamented Spring for Music...Jose Maria Condemi appointed Director of Opera at the SF Conservatory of Music. He will direct Elisir d'Amore in April....Bard SummerScape 2015 to be Carlos Chavez and His World. They will also be staging Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers (and I may have to go; that is well before my trip to Germany)....Baritone Quinn Kelsey has received the 10th annual Beverly Sills Award....The Leon Levy Digital Archives at the NYPO have release a fourth enormous batch of material. You can now peruse 13,300 programs from the orchestra's history on line....Eric Gibson has a superb op-ed piece in the WSJ saying that the destruction of cultural heritage should be a war crime (I agree).