Orchestra

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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.

Vacation Bible school at Friendship Baptist Friendship Baptist Church, 1391 Sykesville Road, Sykesville, will offer a one-week sports-themed vacation Bible school from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. July 8-12 at the church. Youngsters will participate in activities related to the theme "Game Day Central," a sports metaphor for a religious and moral life. A kick-off rally, with food, games and entertainment, is planned for 6 p.m. July 8. Drivers from the Junior Dragster League will show their race cars and talk about how life as a dragster is similar to life in Christ.

Reflections on war and peace, tragedy and hope have busied composers for centuries, leading to the creation of many a work that enjoys the label "timeless." The Baltimore Choral Arts Society's program Sunday afternoon at Goucher College explored two of those pieces, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. There was also room for the local premiere of a composition that, while not in the same league, offered an eloquent reaction to the events of Sept. 11. The combination of repertoire and subject matter added up to an absorbing experience.

An impending musical disaster causing reported "hyper-ventilating among musicians" was turned into triumph at a May 20 concert, two weeks after ailing Londontowne Symphony conductor Brenda Leach needed a fill-in. Anna Binneweg, director and conductor of the Anne Arundel Community College Orchestra, agreed to serve as cover conductor, quickly securing missing rental scores to conduct initial rehearsals. LSO president Kathy Solano said she was "impressed at how well prepared she was for her first rehearsal with us."

Rosemary Lather can't get enough of teaching music. The veteran educator, who plays violin, is orchestra director at River Hill and Marriotts Ridge high schools. But every Thursday, Lather adds a third orchestra, this one made up of middle-schoolers, to her teaching responsibilities. Since 1991, Lather has directed Howard County's Middle School Gifted and Talented Orchestra. The group attracts the best young strings players in the area. "I love high school, but it's very refreshing to still work with the middle-schoolers," Lather said.

Marin Alsop made history with her appointment as the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. With her inaugural concerts in September, she became the first woman to head a major American orchestra. In 2005, Alsop was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first and only conductor to receive this prestigious American award. The three books that most influenced her: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "The Magic Mountain" By Thomas Mann (Everyman's Library $26) His writing is so symphonic in structure and content and its ambiguities allow for immense interpretive license.

Spring fundraiser concert -- The Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra will present its annual spring gala concert and fundraiser at 6 p.m. Sunday in the Francis Scott Key Auditorium at St. John's College, 60 College Ave., Annapolis. It will feature a reception, silent auction, raffle and music by the orchestra and Thomas Reeves. Tickets are $40 for adults and $15 for students. 443-758-3157.

Last week's winter storm severely disrupted the rehearsal schedule of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, whose 70-odd members had to maneuver slick roads and work through power outages. Maestro Jos?-Luis Novo and his plucky orchestra took the stage at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts as scheduled Friday to present works by Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Maurice Ravel, Felix Mendelssohn and Leonard Bernstein in a Valentine's Day-inspired program subtitled "All About Love." But while love may be blind, it is not deaf.

If there's a problem child among Gustav Mahler's nine symphonies, it's No. 7. A little unwieldy and unruly, prone to go off in unexpected directions, the Seventh has never been quite as easy to love as the others. But the work responds well to discipline, respect and affection, qualities it received Tuesday night by conductor Hajime Teri Murai and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra. Mahler, a little obsessive about death, slipped something funereal into all of his symphonies, usually to profound effect.

When he stands before an orchestra, his cues are precise, his tempos clear; his face takes on a wide variety of expressions, from fierce to cherubic, as he shapes the melodic phrases. The only outward sign that Ilyich Rivas is not a seasoned professional conductor is some telltale acne. He's all of 16. Ilyich is doing what many in the music community consider remarkable. Having hurriedly earned his GED last June, he is now at the Peabody Conservatory in a diploma program designed for graduate students.

Last season, while the Baltimore Opera Company slouched toward liquidation and other musical organizations in the area canceled or postponed performances because of the economic downturn, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra kept its head above water - and not just financially. Inside the BSO, where relations between the musicians and management had been greatly strained only a few years ago, a remarkable level of cooperation prevailed, enabling both sides to make substantial sacrifices as the recession took its toll.

When longtime Baltimore Symphony Orchestra violinist Ivan Stefanovic lost the sensation in the index finger of his left hand, he asked colleagues where he could get help. The answer for Stefanovic, as it has been for a number of the orchestra's musicians: David Shulman, a former professional clarinetist turned physical therapist. "What impressed me was that the first thing he said was, 'Bring in your instrument.' That immediately told me he was a different therapist," Stefanovic says. "We don't have to explain what we do and how we do it. He knows what kind of injuries we sustain and how to treat it without injuring us further."

It was both heartwarming and heart-rending to watch the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's musicians voluntarily give back $1 million in pay raises and other previously negotiated benefits last year in order to keep the institution afloat through the current economic downturn. The players' sacrifice was an expression of the fierce loyalty they felt toward the orchestra and its management, and their generosity was unprecedented. Of the 17 major symphony orchestras in the country, the BSO players were the only ones to give back previously negotiated salaries and benefits on their own, rather than in response to management demands.

In yet another sign of how the recession continues to weaken local arts organizations, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians agreed to a 12.5 percent pay cut Thursday, as management faced its first budget deficit in two years and an endowment fund now off-limits because its value has slipped too low. "I think the musicians' eyes have been opened," said Paul Meecham, BSO's president and CEO. "Everyone has recognized that this is not a question of how...

Taking a shower has never felt truly safe ever since Janet Leigh stepped under the spray in the bathroom of nondescript Cabin 1 at the Bates Motel, during the most famous scene of Alfred Hitchcock's stylish horror film from 1960, Psycho. It's chilling enough to see the mysterious assailant's knife come slashing through the air at the unfortunate woman. What really makes the scene click is the accompanying sound of Bernard Herrmann's music, with its piercing strings underlining every jab of the violence.

With a coming-full-circle flourish, the Baltimore Symphony is putting the grand in the grand finale of its 2008-2009 season. Way back in September, music director Marin Alsop started things off with the Immolation Scene from Wagner's Gotterdammerung, those traumatic/cleansing moments at the end of the composer's massive Ring Cycle. Alsop now wraps things up with a good 50 minutes or so of excerpts from the four Ring operas, culminating, of course, with that cathartic Immolation Scene. Nice symmetry.

Shortly after signing a new five-year contract that will keep her in the post of Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director until 2015, Marin Alsop led the ensemble in a hefty program Thursday night that included the East Coast premiere of Jennifer Higdon's Violin Concerto. Written for Baltimore's own classical music star, Hilary Hahn, it's a killer of a concerto for the soloist, and it asks a lot of listeners, too. Cast in three movements, the half-hour concerto makes a grand statement, packed with thematic material and expansive development, all of it delivered with extraordinarily prismatic colors.

Marin Alsop, who became the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's 12th music director in September 2007, will remain in that post until 2015 under the terms of a five-year contract announced Thursday. That contract will begin when her initial three-year deal ends in September 2010. "I'm very, very happy about it," Alsop said. So is the orchestra. News of the contract "was greeted warmly," said Laurie Sokoloff, head of the players committee. Though Alsop's appointment as music director famously triggered opposition from BSO musicians displeased with the orchestra's previous management and the way the search was conducted, it dissipated quickly.

Musical worlds collided Thursday night when rocker Trey Anastasio took the stage with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and conductor Marin Alsop. There were no casualties. Anastasio, founding member of Phish and a songwriter with a refreshing avoidance of conventional chord progressions, has been collaborating with traditional classical ensembles for several years now. His most ambitious effort in this field is a half-hour piece called Time Turns Elastic that he co-wrote with Don Hart, composer-in-residence of Orchestra Nashville.