Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

As I write, the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day in Guilford. Schools are recessed, the summer solstice has passed, and vacations are on the horizon. We look forward to the delights that the season provides. Held on a Sunday afternoon in June, the Baltimore Symphony Associates "Wine Event" at the home of Ellen and Geoff Lord was well-attended by about 50 partygoers — music lovers all — assembled to benefit Baltimore's acclaimed symphony orchestra. Ellen and Geoff prepared a beautiful setting , with floral arrangements and a beautiful centerpiece on the dining room table.

The first Women of the World-Baltimore Festival drew about 1,700 people to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall during the three-day run that ended Sunday. An additional 1,000 patrons attended a concert Saturday night featuring singer Mary Chapin Carpenter and comedienne Rain Pryor. Modeled after the Women of the World-London festival held in 2011, WOW Baltimore was organized by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Marin Alsop, to celebrate achievements by women in a wide range of fields.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's annual gala has retained its status as the kickoff event to Baltimore's social season - and the party to see and be seen at. Hundreds of formally dressed folks swirled under a tent just outside Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to enjoy cocktails, a vast dinner buffet and lots of catching up before heading into the hall for a concert by the BSO featuring pianist Lang Lang. "It's fabulous as always. This is always my favorite event," said Susie Schapiro, Ed-Psych Solutions director, at the gala with her fiance, David Nevins, Nevins & Associates president.

In "Learning to live with the ringing" (Jan. 22), Tim Smith quotes Baltimore Symphony Orchestra director Marin Alsop as saying, "No one does these things [allows cell phones to ring during performances] intentionally. ... We have to try to be kind and humane. " Maestra Alsop is too kind. No one has to bring a cell phone into a concert hall or theater. Leave them home or in the glove compartment. Henry Cohen, Baltimore

An article in yesterday's Arts & Society section gave an incorrect year for David Zinman's return to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after a musicians strike. The conductor returned to the podium in 1989.The Sun regrets the errors.One of David Zinman's greatest moments with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will take place this week, when he leads the last program of his 13-year-tenure as the symphony's music director.My prediction has nothing to do with chutzpah, arrogance or insanity. It's just that I know David Zinman.

No stranger when it comes to new music, soprano Dawn Upshaw should be in her element as soloist for the world premiere of Robert Beaser's "The Heavenly Feast" in three performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra beginning Thursday.Known for her ability to slide with ease from new pieces to the established repertory, Ms. Upshaw will do more than perform this BSO-commissioned piece. She'll also sing three concert arias by Mozart, and selections from Wagner's "Die Meistersinger." On its own, the orchestra will perform Schubert's Symphony No. 5.For "The Heavenly Feast," the American composer Beaser uses a text from a 1984 poetry collection, "The Lamp-Lit Answer," by his friend, poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg.

Marin Alsop stood in front of the Peabody Symphony Orchestra a couple of weeks before 2006 slipped into 2007, dressed as denim-casual as the students before her. BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA / / Performs Thursday through Jan. 14 / / 410-783-8000 [Please see BSO, 2E]

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. How do you get to Meyerhoff Hall? Campaign, campaign, campaign. Mayor Martin O'Malley, who has played venues ranging from the Lauraville Fair to Mick O'Shea's, will perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in April, accompanied by his band, O'Malley's March. The deal was struck last month, when Calman J. Zamoiski, president of the symphony board, approached the mayor after his inauguration. "I went up to congratulate him, and I said, `Your first duty as mayor is to agree to perform with the orchestra.

The French "pathetique" -- the title to which Tchaikovsky agreed for his last and greatest symphony -- is not adequately translated by the English "pathetic." It suggests nothing simpering or sentimental; it is a word whose meanings are more meaningfully captured by "tragic" and "dramatic."Fortunately that is exactly the way that Stanislaw Skrowaczewski interpreted Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra last night in Meyerhoff Hall.This performance announced its intentions in the first movement: an opening that was sepulchral rather than sentimental; a treatment of the movement's famous second subject melody that was warm and passionate; a tremendous entry by the brass that launched the music -- even though one knew what to expect -- into unexpected frenzy; and a coda in which the pulse of the strings over a descending scale in the brass beat with palpable but expiring life.

Jack Hook, a trombonist who was also the longtime secretary-treasurer of Local 40-543 of the American Federation of Musicians of Metropolitan Baltimore, died Tuesday of a ruptured aneurysm at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Towson resident was 76. Mr. Hook, who was born in Baltimore and raised on St. Paul Street, graduated in 1952 from City College. Mr. Hook didn't start studying and playing the trombone until he was a teenager. "He was largely self-taught and held no degrees in music," said his daughter, Susan L. "Lorrie" Loveland, who lives in Parkville.

It was the cellphone heard 'round the world. A bouncy marimba ring tone on an iPhone erupted during the final soft, almost unbearably poignant minutes of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 9 at a recent New York Philharmonic concert in Lincoln Center. Music director Alan Gilbert finally reached his tipping point. He stopped the orchestra and turned to face a seemingly oblivious patron. The man, speaking anonymously to The New York Times as "Patron X," later said he had put his newly acquired iPhone on silent but had no idea an alarm had been set on it. When the offending device finally stopped, the conductor tried again to bring Mahler's wrenching 80-minute symphony to a proper end. While cellphone nuisances are commonplace wherever people gather for plays, operas and concerts, they rarely lead to a drastic mid-performance suspension.

The classical music world, ever on the hunt for bright young stars with box office snap, still has some reliably surefire veterans. One of them is Itzhak Perlman, the most popular, widely recognized violinist since Heifetz. Tickets for Perlman's guest stint as soloist and conductor with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra have been scarce for some time, even though, as was the case at his 2010 guest stint with the ensemble, Perlman is doing minimal fiddling. People still want to experience his musicianship, still want to let him know how much he means to them.

Baltimoreans have had much to be proud of since the beginning of September. The most ennobling, of course, were the Sept. 11 commemorations honoring the fallen victims of that infamous attack and their families. There was the Grand Prix, and then we had the Ravens victory over the Steelers. Less heralded publicly, but of impressive impact and long-lasting effect, was the spectacular performance of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening, Sept. 10. It was a one-two punch.

It's still late-summer, but classical musicians can hardly wait to get back into the concert hall for the 2011-2012 season. One of the first to return is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra . Conductor Marin Alsop leads a Gala Celebration concert Sept. 10 at Baltimore's Meyerhoff Symphony Hall that features a Baltimore native, violinist Hilary Hahn , playing Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. This program also includes a BSO-commissioned piece, David T. Little's Baltimore-themed "Charm," reinforcing Alsop's commitment to new music.

When he was in his early teens, Andrew Grams saw the sci-fi hit "Jurassic Park. " The visual side of the movie wasn't the only thing that left an impression. "The trumpet theme from the score stuck in my head for the entire summer," said Grams, the Maryland-born conductor who, now in his early 30s, will lead the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this week in music from that film and others scored by John Williams. "Hearing the music today takes me back," he said, "and I hope it will do that for other people, help them remember who they were when they first saw the movie and heard the music.

As I write, the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day in Guilford. Schools are recessed, the summer solstice has passed, and vacations are on the horizon. We look forward to the delights that the season provides. Held on a Sunday afternoon in June, the Baltimore Symphony Associates "Wine Event" at the home of Ellen and Geoff Lord was well-attended by about 50 partygoers — music lovers all — assembled to benefit Baltimore's acclaimed symphony orchestra. Ellen and Geoff prepared a beautiful setting , with floral arrangements and a beautiful centerpiece on the dining room table.

The penultimate program of the Baltimore Symphony's season balances feel-good orchestral pieces by Osvaldo Golijov and Benjamin Britten against a piano concerto by Johannes Brahms packed with darkly emotional drama. It makes for an engrossing combination. The orchestra-only portion includes the local premiere of "Sidereus" by Golijov, the Argentine composer with Russian-Jewish roots and a knack for writing music of uncommonly broad appeal. The BSO was among nearly three dozen orchestras involved in commissioning the work, first performed in Memphis, Tenn., last fall.

Some musicians develop firm ideas about how to play a particular piece and stick to them no matter what. Others keep their options wide open. Emanuel Ax is one of the latter, which helps explain why this Polish-born pianist has been a major force in the classical music world for 35 years. Ax, who performs Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this weekend, is celebrated for the freshness of his music-making, as well as a brilliant technique. "I learned this concerto when I was 21," said Ax, who turns 62 next week.