Ellington

NOW OR NEVER Conductor Jeff Tyzik takes the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra through the works of two of the United States' best composers in Gershwin and Ellington: American Genius. The program includes selections from Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo" and "Sophisticated Lady" as well as George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Tickets for the performances, which take place tonight through Sunday at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, are $21-74. Call 410-783-8000 or visit www.baltimoresymphony.org for more information.

Percy Zell Michener, 92, a master builder whose crowning achievement in 40 years as a civil engineer was the 18-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, died Feb. 2 in Scottsdale, Ariz., where he lived.Mr. Michener oversaw the $200 million project for nine years from its conception to opening day on April 15, 1964.Mercer Ellington, 76, a trumpet player, arranger, composer and conductor who had led the Duke Ellington Orchestra after his father's death in 1974, died of heart failure Thursday in Copenhagen, Denmark.

TERESA BREWER, 76 Singer had hits in 1950s Singer Teresa Brewer, who topped the charts in the 1950s with such hits as "Till I Waltz Again with You" and performed with jazz legends Count Basie and Duke Ellington, died Wednesday. She was 76. She died at her home in New Rochelle of a neuromuscular disease, said family spokesman Bill Munroe. Ms. Brewer had scores of hits in the 1950s and a burgeoning film career but pared down her public life to raise her children. She re-emerged a decade later to perform with jazz greats Mr. Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Wynton Marsalis.

Here is Stephanie Terry, first grade teacher at Duke Ellington Primary, 709 W. North Ave., racing down the hallway of maybe the only school in Baltimore located above a grocery store."

There will be jazz around the clock in Philadelphia next weekend during the fourth annual Spectacor Presidential Jazz Weekend Friday through Sunday.Regional and international artists will perform in a variety of rhythms and styles, from the sophisticated sounds of Mercer Ellington and the Duke Ellington Band to the Afro-Latin beat of Papo Vazquez Bomba Jazz.As a tribute to jazz musicians Miles Davis and Lee Morgan, 14 regional jazz ensembles will take part in "Jazz 'til Sunrise," an all-night review beginning at 10 p.m. Friday and continuing until 6:30 a.m. Saturday at the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum.

When conductor Jason Love comes onstage wearing a brown cowboy hat, and concertmistress Brenda Anna dons Princess Leia braids during intermission, you can bet it's not just another night at the symphony. Indeed, Saturday night at Jim Rouse Theatre proved a delightfully different musical affair as the Columbia Orchestra concluded its 25th anniversary season with a "Symphonic Pops" program of selections by Richard Rodgers, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, George Gershwin and film composer par excellence, John Williams.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's 19th-annual tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was unlike any of the others. Sitting side-by-side with BSO players Wednesday night at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall were lots of black musicians. That constituted quite a tribute to King in itself. Joining the BSO was the Soulful Symphony, the remarkable ensemble founded and conducted by Darin Atwater and now affiliated with the orchestra. A packed house turned out for the occasion - all events involving the Soulful Symphony this season have had the box office hopping happily - and was rewarded with a secular and religious mix of programming.

U.S. Rep. Norman Sisisky, 74, a Virginia Democrat, died at home yesterday in Richmond while recovering from cancer surgery, his office said. A Navy veteran of World War II, he was first elected to the House in 1982 and was a senior member on the House Armed Services Committee as well as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Herbie Jones, 74, a jazz musician who worked with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, died March 19 of complications from diabetes in New York. A jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger and educator, he toured five continents with the Ellington band.

An abundance of pain lies just beneath the lightly romantic, gently comic surface of "Twelfth Night." One of the play's major themes is about having to suppress your truest self to be accepted by the dominant culture. It's about feeling powerless, about having to "pass." And that's a theme that resounds deeply for black Americans - or members of any minority group, really. So Sheldon Epps' decision to set this modern-day retooling of Shakespeare's story in Harlem in the 1940s was inspired.

The Maryland Republican Party is paying Michael S. Steele $5,000 a month in consulting fees under an arrangement that began shortly after his selection as gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s running mate. Although the payments appear legal, Democrats said the GOP's contract with Steele raises ethical questions and suggests the party might be subsidizing the living expenses of a candidate for statewide office. "It looks to me like they've hired themselves a candidate," said David Paulson, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party.