Conductor

Baltimore School for the Arts will hold its annual orchestra concert at 7 p.m. today in the school's Schaefer Ballroom, 712 Cathedral St. Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for students. Works by Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi and Mozart will be featured in the debut of the school's new conductor, Ruben Capriles. Information: 410-625-0403, or www.bsfa.org.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will announce today that it has named Swiss conductor Mario Venzago as the new artistic director of Summer MusicFest.Venzago, who first conducted the orchestra in 1995 and who will lead all five programs of MusicFest in June and July, calls the appointment his "first little step into the United States."For the Baltimore Symphony, however, it is a major appointment. Venzago, who succeeds Pinchas Zukerman in the post, inherits a summer series that seems to have lost its sense of purpose several years ago and that has been playing each season to ever-smaller audiences.

Musical chairsFORTUNATELY, the eminent Russian conductor Yuri Temirkanov signed on as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra through the 2002-2003 season. That makes Baltimore a winner in the great conductor shuffle going on.Seiji Ozawa, the 63-year-old who has been music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 26 years, is quitting as of August 2002 to become music director of the Vienna State Opera.The nimble Japanese conductor who dances on the podium with pixie charm will be missed by many who believe he burnished that orchestra into the nation's greatest.

The more I see of Annapolis Symphony conductor Leslie Dunner, the more I like him.The "Eroica" Symphony he gave us Saturday night was admirable, and then some. If you like your Beethoven lean, brusque and mean, Dunner is not your man. His "Eroica" was lithe and buoyant, yet when the animating passion of Beethoven's vision rose to the surface, I heard no lack of feeling.Everywhere you looked, there was elegance. The accents that dot "Eroica's" score were suavely pinged, not clobbered with abandon.

Keith Lockhart calls himself "the luckiest guy in the world."Musically, at least, that's not hyperbole.In 1995, Lockhart became the conductor of the Boston Pops, the best-known, most-recorded and, perhaps, most popular orchestra in the United States. Last season, he succeeded Joseph Silverstein as music director of the Utah (Salt Lake City) Symphony."My two main halls are the best in the country," says Lockhart, who conducts the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra tonight at Wolf Trap.He's not exaggerating there, either.

Yuri Temirkanov is about to do something for the first time and he's scared."Anything you don't understand, you find frightening," Temirkanov says. "When [scientists] say the universe has no limits, I can't understand that and it scares me."But what intimidates the 60-year-old Temirkanov -- who is generally considered the greatest Russian conductor of his generation and who survived more KGB threats and interrogations than he cares to remember -- is scarcely as grand as the Big Bang theory.

The featured conductor for last night's Baltimore Symphony subscription concert in Meyerhoff Hall was the celebrated Finnish conductor, Paavo Berglund. On a program that included Sibelius' "Pohjola's Daughter" and Franck's Symphony in D Minor, Berglund was scheduled to join pianist Alicia de Larrocha in a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major (K. 467).But the conductor had expected to accompany the Spanish pianist in Concerto No. 27. When he learned otherwise two weeks ago, he informed the orchestra's management that he did not have sufficient time to prepare Concerto No. 21.The day was saved by the orchestra's resident conductor, Daniel Hege, who stepped in to give de Larrocha a superb accompaniment in K. 467. The young conductor may very well have proved a better collaborator for the pianist than Berglund.

The Naval Academy Department of Music has announced details of the Vice Admiral Eliot and Miriam Bryant Distinguished Artists Series for the 1999-2000 season.On Oct. 7, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will travel to the academy's Alumni Hall under the direction of Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the Peruvian conductor of the Eugene Symphony in Oregon.Annapolitans will remember Harth-Bedoya as the young maestro who made a strong impression in March 1998, conducting the Annapolis Symphony in works by Ginastera, Prokofieff and Schumann as part of the local orchestra's conductor search.

Maestro Leslie B. Dunner will conduct the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra in two free holiday concerts -- Saturday at Downs Park in Pasadena and Sunday at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis.The conductor revived an old Annapolis Symphony tradition of presenting free concerts in the park when he chose last year to make his debut in this informal setting. And he will focus again this weekend on the less-critical open-air audiences with whom he establishes ready rapport.Sartorially, he will have a way to go to top the sequined flag vest he wore at last year's park concerts, but he has promised another wardrobe surprise.

The more I see of Annapolis Symphony conductor Leslie Dunner, the more I like him.The "Eroica" symphony he gave us Saturday night was admirable, and then some. If you like your Beethoven lean, brusque and mean, Dunner is not your man. His "Eroica" was lithe and buoyant, yet when the animating passion of Beethoven's vision rose to the surface, I heard no lack of feeling.Everywhere you looked, there was elegance. The accents that dot "Eroica's" score were suavely pinged, not clobbered with abandon.

It's a wonder the fire alarms didn't go off at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on Thursday night. The incendiary matchup of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, guest conductor Vasily Petrenko and piano soloist Stephen Hough produced one of the most memorable concerts of the season. Tonight's repeat should be just as gripping. The Russian-born Petrenko, who became principal conductor of England's Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005 at age 29, put together a hefty program: Shostakovich's daunting Symphony No. 8; Tchaikovsky's sweeping Piano Concerto No. 1; and a rarity (on these shores)

As the world slips deeper into debt and doubt, it's good to know that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's annual Holiday Spectacular is as reliably diverting as ever. There are still several more chances to get your cheer infusion before the production wraps up Tuesday. Friday's opener reaffirmed the basic soundness of the concept, which was introduced to Baltimore audiences in 2005 by BSO principal pops conductor Jack Everly. He imported this holiday product from the Indianapolis Symphony, where he is also principal pops conductor.

Marin Alsop is back in town for her first Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts since last month's sensational production of Leonard Bernstein's Mass that won over audiences and quite a few critics in New York and Washington, as well as right here. The conductor will lead two performances of a full-length program this weekend at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, as well as introduce a new series there called "Off the Cuff." This latest BSO product has Alsop's name all over it. The concept is simple: one work of music, preceded by a discussion of it, all packaged together in 90, intermission-less minutes or less.

With the economy careening around us, there's nothing like an evening with the gold standard of rock-solid German musical stock to settle the nerves. Beethoven concertos and Schumann symphonies, at least, never lose their value, or their ability to generate interest. There was a remarkable reminder of those qualities last night from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in a program that will be paying further dividends this weekend. It's always a wise investment when the BSO engages Juanjo Mena as guest conductor.

The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra saluted the 300th anniversary of its hometown last weekend with a musical history tour that covered the past three centuries and also took a brief look at the present. It seemed doubly appropriate for such activity to take place "during a week when we have been surrounded by historic events," as conductor Jose-Luis Novo noted in remarks to Friday night's audience at Maryland Hall. Novo did not try to fashion a thoroughly cohesive assortment of repertoire but simply offered pieces that helped to illustrate the evolution of styles and orchestra sizes since 1708, when Annapolis was chartered.

After the intensity of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, the provocative work that occupied the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the past two weeks and garnered glowing notices from Washington to New York, last night's comfort-food program must have provided a welcome return to normality. Led by an exceptional guest conductor, Ludovic Morlot, the musicians sounded cohesive and dynamic as they addressed three repertoire standards in a less-than-filled Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. To start, there was a fun, if unintentional, nod to Halloween - The Sorcerer's Apprentice, by Paul Dukas.

The hottest hot-weather conductor in America right now is a Brit - Bramwell Tovey. He's a box-office magnet for the New York Philharmonic's Summertime Classics series, and he was just named principal guest conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's summer series at the Hollywood Bowl. On Thursday night, the 50-something Tovey made his Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debut as part of the Summernights 2008 festival, leading a one-performance-only Gershwin-Bernstein program before a sold-out house at the Music Center at Strathmore.

Leon Fleisher will celebrate his 80th birthday this week doing two of his favorite things - playing the piano and conducting. Joining him onstage for an all-Mozart program will be the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which shares with Fleisher a long, strong history. "It's quite fitting that on the very day of my birthday [Wednesday], I have two rehearsals with the orchestra," he says. "It's a kind of homecoming." Such an occasion makes a perfect time for reminiscing and taking stock. Settling into a leather couch opposite two grand pianos in a high-ceilinged salon of his handsome Roland Park home on a recent Sunday morning, Fleisher faces the inevitable question of how he feels about approaching his octogenarian milestone.

Leonard Slatkin bowed out in trademark style Sunday night, ending his 12-year tenure as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra with an entertaining program that reflected his wide-ranging tastes and skills. Greeted by a standing ovation when he first walked onto the Kennedy Center Concert Hall stage, as he had been last Thursday for the final subscription concert of the NSO season, the conductor launched quickly into what was billed as a "Salute to Slatkin." Actually, there wasn't that much saluting.

Had the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performed its latest program on the other side of the Atlantic over the weekend, it might have found itself in severe legal trouble. Conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier encouraged the BSO to pump out the volume Friday night at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to an extent that could have run afoul of European Union rules governing noise levels in the workplace, rules that have just been extended to the music and entertainment fields. (That's already causing some headaches - earaches, I guess - over there.