Assistant Conductor

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has a new assistant conductor - Lara Webber, who spent the last three years as associate conductor of a South Carolina orchestra. She has a two-year contract with the BSO and starts her new job Sept. 1. Webber, who led some of the BSO's youth concerts in April, was selected by music director Yuri Temirkanov, members of the orchestra and administrative staff and the BSO's artistic committee, following an audition process. She succeeds Daniel Hege, whose position with the orchestra was changed from assistant to resident conductor last year, when he was appointed music director of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.

Six years ago, at Catholic University in Washington, there was an unusual presentation of Giuseppe Verdi's monumental Requiem for soloists, chorus and orchestra. The last notes of the score gave way to very different music, coming softly from the choristers. As they filed off the stage and left the hall, they softly intoned a chant from the Kaddish of the Jewish liturgy. When those sounds, too, faded away, there was no applause from the audience. Only some muffled sobs could be heard in the darkened room.

Any opening night is dramatic, but adding to the excitement at Maryland Hall this weekend will be the appearance of the first of four guest conductors vying to succeed Gisele Ben-Dor as principal conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.Stephen Smith, the 37-year-old assistant conductor of the world-class Cleveland Orchestra, opens this season's conductor's derby directing Beethoven's "Leonore" Overture No. 3, the second Horn Concerto of Richard Strauss and the hair-raising Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich.

The Londontowne Symphony Orchestra, which exists to provide a local venue for audiences - and performers - who are passionate about classical music, begins its third concert season a week from tonight under the direction of guest conductor Julien Benichou. The 40-member symphony consists of many professional musicians who donate their time, as well as skilled musicians from Anne Arundel County who are also music teachers, college professors, retired entertainers and gifted students who are eager to perform with an orchestra that strives for excellence.

As the Baltimore Symphony's tour of Japan was winding down Thursday evening after its next-to-last concert in Osaka, music director David Zinman was stricken with a kidney stone and had to be flown home to Baltimore yesterday afternoon.What kept Zinman from joining his orchestra at a late-night Thanksgiving celebration and prevented him from conducting the final concert of the tour last night in Tokyo's Suntory Hall turned into a triumph for young Daniel Hege, the orchestra's assistant conductor.

She sings into it. She marks it up. The oversized blue book Lara Webber has carried around this week in rehearsals with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra contains all the directions she needs to conduct Gustav Holst's The Planets tonight at the Meyerhoff. Until now she has conducted only a few of the piece's seven movements. In recent weeks the notations in her score have grown; this week, she added a few more. Years from now, her ideas about it may have changed completely. Though the score is 5 years old, it still looks new by conducting standards.

Lara Webber has been going at a vivace tempo all day. Early that morning, she left Cooperstown, N.Y., where she has been assisting with an opera production, and drove to the Albany airport. She had to change a flat tire on the way. After arriving in Baltimore, she was whisked off to a round of media interviews. By the time she's finished with a radio appearance and reaches Meyerhoff Hall, it's 3 p.m., and she's practically panting for food. But the unpretentious and affable Weber still exudes enthusiasm about her new job - assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Louise Sherman, 61, a vocal coach, died of cancer Wednesday in Denver. An assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera for 20 years, she served as a vocal coach for stars including Luciano Pavarotti, Beverly Sills and Joan Sutherland.Pub Date: 2/15/98

After a two-year search, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra named Jose-Luis Novo yesterday as its new conductor and musical director. Novo was among six finalists who tried out for the chance to succeed Leslie B. Dunner, whose contract was not renewed after five years. Birthplace: Valladolid, Spain Age: 38 Family: married (his wife, Lori Kesner, is an American flutist) Education: After studying at a conservatory in his hometown in Spain, he attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, then came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar.

Scott Speck, the 34-year-old maestro who was poised to enter his second season at the helm of the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra, has resigned from the group effective Tuesday.The reason? He has been named assistant conductor of the Savannah Symphony in Georgia . The full-time professional orchestra plays a 40-week season under the direction of Philip Greenberg, its conductor for the past 11 years.As assistant conductor, Mr. Speck will conduct 60 programs a year, including chamber orchestra performances and children's concerts.

In the tight confines of a reception room backstage at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, four aspiring conductors step into the well created by a U-shaped arrangement of tables. National Symphony Orchestra music director Leonard Slatkin, seated at the center table, looks intently at the four, who seem a little nervous, several of them shifting their weight from foot to foot. "OK," Slatkin says. "Who are we going to vote off the island?" The room echoes with laughter as the next step in the National Conductors Institute proceeds - assigning which piece of music each of those four conductors will rehearse and then perform with the NSO in a free concert on Saturday.

After a two-year search, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra named Jose-Luis Novo yesterday as its new conductor and musical director. Novo was among six finalists who tried out for the chance to succeed Leslie B. Dunner, whose contract was not renewed after five years. Birthplace: Valladolid, Spain Age: 38 Family: married (his wife, Lori Kesner, is an American flutist) Education: After studying at a conservatory in his hometown in Spain, he attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, then came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar.

Culturally, the American Christmas season is an amalgam of extremes, especially in the musical realm, where Handel's Messiah and wonderful melodies like Felix Mendelssohn's "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and Adolphe Adam's "Cantique de Noel" (Oh Holy Night) are forced to co-exist with jolly snowmen, red-nosed reindeer and mommies caught kissing Santa. But Annapolitans who take their culture straight are in luck this Christmas season as the capital city's performing arts organizations are doing their heroic best to neutralize those vapid, Muzak-ridden noises so hopelessly devoid of the spiritual intensity the weeks of Advent are supposed to evoke.

The Annapolis Symphony's 2003-2004 concert season, cobbled together quickly in the wake of the orchestra's decision to part company with conductor Leslie Dunner, yielded only two bona fide candidates for the permanent conductorship of the orchestra. They are Lara Webber, the former assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, and Emil de Cou, the current assistant with Washington's National Symphony Orchestra. Now the plot will thicken as the new concert season opens and the search committee begins sizing up several additional candidates.

A program of opera favorites being performed on the Maryland Hall stage is hardly news. What is out of the ordinary is that the accompanying ensemble will be the talented young musicians of the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra. For the first time, the CYSO will be an opera orchestra, says Julien Benichou, the French-born, Baltimore-based conductor in his first year as music director of one of Maryland's premiere youth orchestras. "I think it's very nice for kids to accompany singers," Benichou says.

Tropical Storm Isabel delayed the start of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra's post-Dunner era this fall when it left much of the capital city powerless in its wake. The ASO debut of Syracuse Symphony conductor Daniel Hege was washed away, along with a program of concertos by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms that would have been the local orchestra's first offering since the departure of Maestro Leslie B. Dunner in the spring. Barring the appearance of any last-minute bad weather, the ASO's 2003-2004 season premiere will take place this weekend at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, when guest conductor Rossen Milanov, assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, leads the players in a program of Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff and Elgar.

MOBILE, Ala. -- An assistant towboat operator -- licensed for a year -- guided a barge into a railroad bridge and then radioed for help 12 minutes before the span collapsed beneath the Sunset Limited, investigators said yesterday."

A professor who has taught conducting at the Eastman School of Music for the past 20 years and a 28-year-old rising star are among the four finalists to replace Gisele Ben-Dor as music director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra.The finalists, who were chosen from 300 applicants, also include the assistant conductors of the Detroit and Cleveland symphony orchestras, Pat Edwards, chairwoman of the search committee, zTC said yesterday. Each will conduct a concert during the ASO's 1997-1998 season before the orchestra's board of directors makes a decision, she said.

The Annapolis Symphony has announced the slate of guest conductors who will lead the orchestra's Classic Series concerts in the 2003-2004 season. Buffeted in recent months by criticism over the decision not to renew the contract of music director Leslie B. Dunner, the ASO will begin looking to the future by showcasing some of the nation's highly regarded young conductors. Some of the visitors might be considered for the orchestra's permanent directorship, according to ASO insiders. Leading the orchestra in September will be Daniel Hege, in his fourth season directing New York's Syracuse Symphony.