Music Lovers

There were more music lovers than you could shake a baton at. But Marvin Hamlisch certainly gave it his all at the 17th annual Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Gala. The BSO's principal pops conductor led the orchestra in a swinging concert before a sold-out crowd of more than 1,000 at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.But that was only the first movement. Next, the bedecked bunch enjoyed hors d'oeuvres in the hall's foyer, then dinner on a temporary floor in the auditorium. The grand finale to the evening was dancing in the lobby.

The Chimes agency rang in some 2,000 music lovers, and $325,000, at its fund-raising benefit at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. The event featured a reception and a concert by opera star Jose Carreras.Even before the internationally renowned tenor took the stage, a buffet in the lobby hit the perfect pitch for opera aficionados such as Terry Perl, president and CEO of the Chimes; Eileen Levine, Elaine and Alvin Katz, Judith Martinak, and Susan and Gary Talles, event co-chairs; Allan Levine, the Chimes' board chair; Steve Kramer and James Phillips, board members; Hal Dahan, the evening's honoree; Dr. Cesar Castillo of St. Agnes HealthCare; Marc Winner, president of F. P. Winner Ltd.; Steve Gigliotti, VP and GM of WMAR-TV; Arlene Mandel, manager at the dental office of Feldman, Sachs & Fitzgerald; and Janice Altman, fitness-wear distributor.

William Kapell was the James Dean of American pianists. He was young, he was handsome and he played the piano better than anyone. But he was a rebel with a cause. He was a musician whose example proclaimed to the rest of the world that American artists were the equal of any.To many pianists of his generation, it seemed that Kapell united the qualities of their greatest older contemporaries: the red-blooded virility of Arthur Rubinstein, the high-strung brilliance Vladimir Horowitz and the profundity of Artur Schnabel.

Johann Sebastian Bach saw himself more as a musical artisan than as any kind of incandescent genius, so chances are he would have been shocked at the notion that the 313th anniversary of his birth would inspire celebrations by music lovers all over the world.But if any musician deserves a birthday bash, it must be the creator of the "B-minor Mass," the "Brandenburg Concertos," monumental works for solo organ and "Well-Tempered Clavier," whose visionary sense of harmony transformed music in the 18th century and continues to define its essence today.

One of the legendary musical groups in New York during the 1950s and early '60s was the New York Wind Quintet. According to some music lovers, those halcyon days may be returning because of the five young wind players -- flutist Marya Martin, oboist Stephen Taylor, clarinetist Alan Kay, hornist David Jolley and bassoonist Frank Morelli -- who formed the New York Wind Soloists a few years ago. This ensemble will perform what promises to be a fascinating program...

This has been a dispiriting year for classical music lovers.In September, David Zinman announced he will not renew his contract as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra after next season, thus ending an enormously successful 13-year partnership and leaving the orchestra's future in doubt.The national music scene has been equally grim: Several important orchestras -- Philadelphia, San Francisco and Atlanta -- have gone on strike; and because of sharply falling sales, death knells have been sounding for the classical record industry.

For more than 15 years, Isaac Stern has appeared to music lovers less like a great violinist and more like, to quote William Butler Yeats, "a sixty-year-old smiling public man."This is scarcely surprising. In the years since 1960, Stern -- who celebrated his 75th birthday last year -- has saved Carnegie Hall, contributed mightily to the fight for racial equality, helped create the National Endowment for the Arts, raised millions of dollars for the state of Israel, starred in an Academy Award-winnning documentary ("From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China")

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam may be the finest of the three great orchestras of Europe. But the orchestra, which opens its current American tour tomorrow at the Kennedy Center, has never enjoyed the celebrity -- at least among most American music lovers -- of the Berlin Philharmonic or the Vienna Philharmonic."

With Perlmans, Zuckermans, Lins, Midoris, Shahams and Bells already on hand, and scads of other first-class fiddlers popping up even as we speak, we truly live in a golden age of violin playing.Classical music lovers are blessed by an embarrassment of riches. Not only have impeccably high standards become the norm in concert halls, but the repertoire has expanded as well. After all, you can't perform the Beethoven Concerto every night.And how many Bruch and Mendelssohn concertos do even the most rabid violin aficionados need in their CD collections?

Cleveland -- With the grace, nonchalance and absence of fanfare with which a Mozart piano concerto begins, Leon Fleisher slipped back into two-handed piano playing this past weekend.His appearance with the Cleveland Orchestra and music director Christoph von Dohnanyi Thursday and Saturday was only the second time since 1965 that the man still regarded as the greatest pianist ever born in the United States has performed in public with both hands. For most classical music lovers, Fleisher's return to two-handed playing is on a par with Bo Jackson returning as a star in both baseball and football.

Music lovers have a lot to be grateful for in this area: An orchestra of international standing, along with several smaller ensembles, all producing remarkably effective performances on a regular basis. A fine, full-sized opera company, along with some of more modest dimensions, all trying to serve the vocal art with distinction. Excellent choral and chamber groups. A vibrant, history-rich conservatory. And much more. But, on this Thanksgiving Day, the gratitude mingles with trepidation.

Service paints gentler view of Ivins About 250 friends, relatives and colleagues filled the pews at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick to pay tribute to Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist who committed suicide. As federal authorities portrayed him as a mentally ill man who was responsible for the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, friends and family remembered him as a talkative man who liked to understand how everything around him worked. Virgin Festival draws music lovers Thousands of live music lovers attended the third annual Virgin Mobile Festival at Pimlico Race Course The event was a popularity contest, with some of today's hottest musicians vying for the crowd's attention on two opposing main stages.

Hometown -- Baltimore Current members -- Jason Brown, keyboard; Lavar "Topix" Green, drum machine; Salim Heggins, MC; Sean "Sinseer" Davis, bass Founded in -- 2005 Style -- hip-hop Influenced by -- Jay Dee, Ron Carter, Big Daddy Kane, Sonny Cheeba Notable --The band looks to hip-hop from the '80s and early '90s for inspiration in crafting its own brand of smooth, live hip-hop. Its most recent album, Hip-Hop Revisited, came out last year. Quotable -- "One of the things that grabbed us was it was balanced," Heggins said of vintage hip-hop.

Are you a beginning budgeter? Be careful not to be too overzealous. While it's a good idea to trim the fat, you're unlikely to stick to a budget that makes no room for occasional indulgences, like movies, music and books. No sacrifice If you're looking for ways to curb your spending without sacrificing the small joys, try swapping instead of shopping. Here are three Web sites that allow you to trade your gently used items for someone else's treasures: Paperbackswap.com. A site designed for readers both discriminating and frugal, Paperbackswap is the 21st century answer to a lending library.

Not so long ago or far away, there were record stores, where collections of music recorded on vinyl LP (long-playing) discs were sold in artful cardboard albums. They were funky havens, the air sometimes thick with the scent of strawberry incense, and music pumped through the speakers all day. The folks who worked there - perhaps a little quirky but usually approachable - could tell you almost anything you wanted to know about the latest sounds. Music lovers would take the albums they purchased home, mount the vinyl discs on turntables and savor the intimacy and physicality of placing the needle in the first groove, listening to the faint background hum of the amp as they studied the album art. But then big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City squeezed these friendly neighborhood shops with their larger selections and lower prices of high-quality compact discs.

Filene Center at Wolf Trap Drive a bit west of Washington, and have a picnic on the lawn while enjoying live music. Where --1551 Trap Road, Vienna, Va. Call --703-255-1900 Web site --wolftrap.org Notable --The stage is visible from almost all lawn spots, and patrons may bring refreshments. Because of decibel restrictions, the music won't leave your ears ringing long after the show. Vibe --Warm and welcoming. What to wear --Let the weather guide your outfit choices. Casual wear will do just fine.

Now and then I run across a gadget that meets my criteria for cool technology. That means it has to do something useful, and do it better than other gadgets of its ilk. And it has to work right out of the box. Roadmaster USA's odd-looking VRFM8 makes the cut. It's an elegant package of old FM broadcasting technology and new electronics that solves a real problem for many digital music lovers - how to play that great collection of tunes in the car. ...

When a Rahsaan Patterson album drops, you can bet your last dollar that it's going to be among the best R&B releases out that year, an inspired set of tunes ablaze with attitude and feeling. But here's the sad thing: You probably won't hear it. Patterson doesn't fit the mold for today's popular black male singers: No hyper-masculine posturing, no hip-hop flourishes anywhere in the music. And he doesn't overplay sex in his image or lyrics. The New York-born singer is seemingly too thoughtful a songwriter, too eccentric a vocalist to garner real attention from the mainstream.

Just a little more than four months from now, the spotlight will be firmly fixed on the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, generating a glow that will probably be reflected all the way to Bel Air. The new venue, which will showcase the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic, Washington Performing Arts Society and others, looks like it's going to be exactly what its proponents hoped for - a major addition to the region's cultural life....

Many music lovers have an inordinate fondness for "the good old days" - a time when, it is firmly believed, musical giants roamed the earth spreading unparalleled artistry as they went. Personally, I get enough pleasure from so many of today's music-makers that I couldn't possibly dismiss the present. But hit me with a classical golden-oldie, and I can start waxing about the superiority of the past, too. That's what I've been doing lately, ever since falling under the spell of Angel/EMI's Classical Archive series on DVD, one of the most notable achievements yet in the art of excavating musical vaults.