Music Director

Time was when orchestras toured with lots of music from their homeland, a way of passing out proud calling cards. Then along came globalization, or at least European Unionism. When the Orchestre National de France arrived Monday night at the Kennedy Center for a Washington Performing Arts Society presentation, it brought along its German music director and an all-German program. And when it gives two concerts this week in New York, only one French piece will make it alongside hefty German, Russian and Czech fare.

The nation's premier stage plans to mount a three-week festival of the arts and culture of the Arab world next season - a programming decision with political overtones. The festival, called "Arabesque" and presented in cooperation with the League of Arab States, will be held at the Kennedy Center from Feb. 25 to March 15, 2009. There will be performances from 22 nations in dance, theater and music, including 12 premieres. Visual arts and fashion will also have a part. In recent years, the Kennedy Center has shone spotlights on the arts of Japan and China - but neither is a culture with whom the U.S. recently has been in conflict.

The 31-year-old music director of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal, an influential West Baltimore church, was in jail yesterday on charges that he raped and abused a 12-year-old female parishioner during three encounters, city police and church officials said. Timothy D. Price III of Owings Mills has been held in lieu of $1 million bail at Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Center since he was arrested Wednesday, according to court records. He was charged with second-degree rape, assault, child abuse and multiple sex offenses.

A significant era is winding down in Washington, where Leonard Slatkin's dozen-year tenure as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra will end in June. He has fortified the ensemble, made it more versatile and flexible than it was when his predecessor, Mstislav Rostropovich, had the reins. He has enlivened the music scene with unexpected repertoire and festivals. Not that you would necessarily gather any of this from perusing some of the local media coverage. Many concert reviews and commentary pieces Slatkin generates read more like multicount felony indictments from an over-eager district attorney's office.

Few musical groups are as aptly named as the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Paul O'Neil, co-founder of the progressive symphonic rock group, was inspired by the Trans-Siberian Railroad. To O'Neil, music is similar to the famed transportation system in the way that it connects different cultures, nationalities and backgrounds. Perhaps unexpectedly, O'Neil's collaboration with fellow producer/musician Robert Kinkel and composer Jon Oliva would prove TSO's name fitting - as their music would connect a variety of people, usually divided by choices in music or live entertainment.

Jack Everly is principal pops conductor of the Baltimore, Indianapolis, and National Arts Centre (Ottawa) symphony orchestras and music director for the Symphonic Pops Consortium in Indianapolis. He is also the music director of the Indianapolis Symphony's "A Yuletide Celebration" and music supervisor of the Baltimore Symphony's "Holiday Spectacular," which has its last performance of the season today. When not on the podium or arranging and orchestrating, Everly indulges in his love for films, model trains, Haagen-Dazs and a pooch named Max. He resides in Indianapolis.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will help pay tribute to Leonard Bernstein at New York's Carnegie Hall next season, performing his eclectic Mass with the Morgan State University Choir and Brooklyn (N.Y.) Youth Chorus. BSO music director and Bernstein protege Marin Alsop will conduct the Carnegie performance Oct. 24, as well as another concert the next day at the United Palace Theater, a restored vaudeville/movie venue in the uptown New York neighborhood of Washington Heights. The second performance will involve hundreds of New York City public-school students.

The musical relationship between the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and music director Marin Alsop hit a new plateau Thursday night. Just about everything clicked tightly and expressively in a meaty program that drew a big, happy crowd - and a TV crew from CBS Evening News gathering footage for future use. After a few weeks of spotty attendance for guest conductor-led programs, it was reassuring to see the turnout at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, although I...

Two years after anticipation of her appointment caused a near-mutiny among its players, Marin Alsop made her official Charm City debut as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra last night, receiving a standing ovation as the took the stage. The ovation was repeated, even more emphatically, at the conclusion of the concert. The audience seemed reluctant to leave.

After two years of buildup, Marin Alsop's historic tenure as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra truly began last night, and began with quite a kick. If you go The BSO performs at 8 tonight and tomorrow and 3 p.m. Sunday at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Tickets: $28-$60. Information: 410-783-8000 or bsomusic.org.