Lincoln Center

Adalee R. Hasson, a retired department store supervisor who earned a college degree when she was 70, died Jan. 1 of dementia at a nursing home in Cooperstown, N.Y. The longtime Parkville resident, who celebrated her birthday Christmas Eve, was 85. Adalee Ritz was born at home on Federal Street in Baltimore. She was raised in Overlea and graduated in 1942 from the Institute of Notre Dame. She was also a graduate of Strayer Business College. During the 1940s, she worked as an accounting clerk for the Social Security Administration, which was then in the Candler Building in downtown Baltimore.

Home and Flower Show Lush ferns, perennials, waterfalls and ponds, arched trellises and meandering brick pathways -- the Maryland Home & Flower Show will bloom with design ideas and signs of spring for the next two weekends at the State Fairgrounds in Timonium. Following this year's theme, "International Garden Rhythms," landscape professionals will design 21 gardens, depicting more than a dozen countries from around the world. You can also have a blooming good time at craft and cooking shows and at seminars on such topics as floral design, garden care and home improvement.

For the moment, this room in the Murphy Fine Arts Center is filled with all the chatter and noise and energy you would expect from close to 100 college students crammed inside on a rainy afternoon. Then Nathan Carter bangs out a few notes on the piano and barks out a few instructions, and out of the chaos a wondrous harmony emerges as the voices join into the Morgan State University Choir. It is a scene repeated almost every afternoon during the school year on the Northeast Baltimore campus.

Beverly Sills retired from singing 27 years ago, but the afterglow of her vocal art never really faded. All you had to do was just think of the soprano, and you could still hear the distinctive sound of her gleaming voice, still feel the embrace of her personality. Not many opera stars leave so indelible an impression. Sills, who died Monday at 78, was one of those rare forces of nature who sweep through the music world periodically, brightening up the place, pushing aside pretentiousness and affectation, reaching out to the initiated and uninitiated alike.

Leaving aside O. J. Simpson preliminary hearing coverage (I'm bypassing O. J., OK?), there's still an above-average selection of watchable offerings on TV tonight.* "Live From Lincoln Center" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WMPT, Channels 22 and 67) -- This marks the 28th season of the Mostly Mozart Festival, a welcome summer breeze of concerts devoted to -- well, mostly to Mozart, but tonight to Tchaikovsky, Gluck and Haydn also. Headliners are pianist Shura Cherkassky, soprano Korliss Uecker and baritone Thomas Hampson.

David Zinman, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, will conduct and perform in the nationally televised "Live From Lincoln Center" program Sunday at 3 p.m. on Maryland Public Television, channels 22 and 67.Zinman will conduct the Orchestra of St. Luke's and will accompany featured cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Jeffrey Kahane and cellist Carter Brey.The program of orchestral and chamber music will include the Sonata for Two Cellos by the baroque composer Barriere, the Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano, the Faure "Elegie" and Tchaikovsky's "Variations on a Rococo Theme."

Diana Ross gave it her fabled all last week at Manhattan's Jazz at Lincoln Center in a one-woman concert sponsored by Qatar Airlines, celebrating their inaugural flights to New York City. Colin Cowie covered the room in burgundy flowers, which matched Diana's gown. A glam coincidence? Perhaps. Ross changed midset into a lime-green number with more sequins and chiffon. She was in fine voice, earthy and electric with the joy of performing. The best sight? An audience of sophisticated New Yorkers throwing the aforementioned blooms at Ross' feet as she took her final bows.

One of the most accomplished string quartets of them all comes Saturday night to Smith Theatre under the auspices of Candlelight Concerts. Taking the stage at 8 p.m. will be the Orion String Quartet, which serves as quartet-in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Violinists Daniel Phillips and Todd Phillips (who share the ensemble's violin roles equally), violist Steven Tenenboim and cellist Timothy Eddy have collaborated with such luminaries as cellist Pablo Casals, pianists Rudolf and Peter Serkin and soprano Benita Valente.

They're usually Southern, generally outsiders, often fragile, narcissistic, living in the past and, above all, very feminine. They are the classic heroines in the plays of Tennessee Williams, whose work is being celebrated in "Tennessee Williams Explored," a four-month festival at Washington's Kennedy Center. Highlighted by new all-star productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie, the festival gets under way tomorrow with a symposium titled "Women of Tennessee."

Dan Brown fans can get a look at the opening of his upcoming book, "Inferno," along with a free ebook of his breakthrough best-seller, "The Da Vinci Code," publisher Doubleday announced today. The digital two-fer, which marks the 10th anniversary of DVC, will be available until March 24 at e-book retailers, the company said. Fans will also get the prologue and first chapter of "Inferno," which is scheduled for a May 14 release. It's a smart move for Doubleday. It doesn't cost much to offer the DVC download -- everyone in the whole world has already read the thriller.