Peabody

The fulfilment of fund-raising commitments to qualify for state aid that was legislated earlier this year saves the Peabody Institute, at least for this round of several years, and puts it in a stronger position to face the challenges of the late Nineties. A large sigh of relief is in order. One of the nation's finest conservatories of music really might have died. And it really didn't.Although the requirement of raising $15 million in five-year pledges by Sept. 15 seemed an impossibility for the midsummer, in a regional business recession, it was met. That the Johns Hopkins University trustees committed their unrestricted endowment to make up what was missing, on the order of $2.7 million, shows their faith that this won't be needed.

After seven years as director of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Jeffrey Sharkey is stepping down. He will remain with the conservatory until a successor is named. "So much of what I hoped to accomplish I feel I have accomplished," Sharkey, 48, said Friday. "But there's an arc to a leadership position. I think that fresh eyes are always a good thing. A new burst of energy will be good for Peabody, and for me, too. " Peabody, the nation's oldest conservatory, opened in 1866.

Anniversaries exist as much to regenerate what's valuable about the past as to remember it. That's why the Peabody Symphony Orchestra is celebrating 100 years of performances with Mahler's mighty Symphony No. 2 (the "Resurrection"). This gigantic, 80-minute work is the piece in which Mahler tried to outdo Beethoven's Ninth and nearly succeeded. It traces a trajectory of life and death through a graphic musical depiction of the Last Judgment and Resurrection. After all, what could be better than the past 100 years of the Peabody Symphony than the next 100?

Wedding date: March 9, 2013 Her story: Julie Zuramski, 34, grew up in Lutherville. She works in sales at National Envelope. Her father, Joseph, is retired from sales, and her mother, Josephine, is a real estate agent for Long & Foster. His story: Matthew Shevlin, 38, grew up in West Conshocken, Pa. He is an employee benefits consultant for Engle-Hambright & Davies in Philadelphia. His father, Joseph, is a vice president for the Eastern region of AMG Resources and his mother, Kathleen, is a teacher.

Enjoy two evenings of classical music. Members of the Peabody Preparatory Faculty will present a recital tonight that includes Dussek's "Sonata for Harp," performed by harpist Michaela Trnkova, and Poulenc's "Sonata," performed by David Drosinos and Bradley Permenter. The program will also feature work by Mozart, Claude Debussy, Astor Piazzola, Katherine Hoover and Jennifer Higdon. Return Saturday when Peabody Camerata, conducted by Gene Young, will perform Anton von Webern's "Five Pieces for Small Orchestra, Op. 10" and John Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano."

The Peabody Opera Theatre and the Peabody Symphony Orchestra will present the Haydn opera "The Perils of Fidelity," at 8:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Nov. 20 in the Miriam Friedberg Concert Hall.Although rarely performed, this Haydn opera is considered to be a masterwork. It is set in a mythical country ravaged by a sea monster that can only be placated by the sacrifice of a faithful pair of lovers. Naturally, as monster-feeding time approaches, even the most constant of couples take pains to conceal their love.

"Normandy: the Great Crusade," a television documentary by the Maryland-based cable network the Discovery Channel, was among 31 winners of the prestigious 1994 Peabody Awards announced yesterday.Judged and selected by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications, the coveted Peabodys are awarded annually for excellence in radio or television.The award was the second in a row for the Discovery Network, which has headquarters in Bethesda.Last year, it and sister network the Learning Channel were cited jointly for general achievement.

With the meeting of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts in Baltimore this week, educators come face to face with one of the crueler ironies facing the city's public schools.Recently the Peabody Prep Outreach Program, which sends talented music and arts teachers into the public schools to work with the city's most disadvantaged children, was named by the guild as a national model for such efforts. So far so good. But the program, which depends on private and foundation support, is so strapped for cash this year that it has not been able to expand beyond the two schools, Tench Tilghman and Ashburton elementary schools, where it is now in place.

Theodora Hanslowe, whose friends call her Teddy, returns Tuesday to her alma mater, Peabody Conservatory of Music, for a preview of her New York recital debut.Hanslowe, an award-winning mezzo, made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1994 as Rosina in "The Barber of Seville."For her Weill Recital Hall program later this spring, she has chosen songs by Henry Purcell, Arnold Schoenberg, Francis Poulenc and George Gershwin, and the second cycle of "Liederkreis" to poems of Joseph Eichendorff by Robert Schumann.

George Peabody, who founded Peabody Institute 137 years ago as the first school of its type in America, believed the purpose of a music conservatory was not only to train artists but to teach ordinary people the values embodied in great music.Robert Sirota, a fine American composer, conductor and educator who was named to head the Peabody after current director Robert Pierce retires this summer, is just the sort of musical humanist the founder had in mind.The traditional pattern of a conservatory education, in which students concentrated on courses in theory, harmony and ear-training and spent most of their time locked up in soundproof practice rooms, is rapidly changing.

If you don't have a ticket to tonight's repeat of "Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin" at the Peabody Institute , try using all your powers of persuasion and influence to get one, or just consider sneaking in. It's an important event. Tuesday night marked the Baltimore premiere of this "concert-drama," which traces the history of the astonishing performances of Verdi's Requiem given 16 times by prisoners at the Terezin concentration camp (the Nazi name for the place was Theresienstadt)

A reception will be held Wednesday at the Peabody Conservatory in honor of the late Mary C. Walker, who upon her death donated $800,000 to the institution where she studied and worked for most of her life. The bulk of Walker's gift - $600,000 - is being designated for undergraduate scholarships, the Conservatory announced recently. The remaining $200,000 will be split evenly between the alumni fund and the archives. Walker was a granddaughter of a man who made his fortune in the 19 t h century in the meatpacking business.

Wedding date: Feb. 16, 2013 Her story: Abby von Kelsch, 37, grew up in Stafford, Va. She works for Booz Allen Hamilton as a disaster consultant. Her mother, Linda, is a retired librarian and her father, Hank, is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer who owns a construction company. His story: Chad Omweg, 35, grew up in Charlottesville, Va. He is a welder. His parents, Beth and John, are retired. Their story: Abby and Chad met in October 2007 in Park City, Utah, after Abby left Baltimore to become a member of the U.S.A.

Just a few words on last weekend's musical jaunts, in case you were desperate for my report, however belated. It was good to see Peabody Opera Theatre exploring the outer banks of the repertoire -- Delibes' once-popular "Lakme. " The work turned up locally about a decade ago in a musically solid, amateurish-looking production from the old Baltimore Opera Company. It's a colorful and charming opera (charming if you don't count a stabbing and a suicide). The plot, set in India, offers something of a foretaste of "Madama Butterfly," with a cultural clash involving a foreign military officer and the daughter of a Brahmin priest.

Isidor Saslav, a former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concertmaster and Peabody Institute violin teacher, died of complications from cancer Jan. 26 at a hospital in Tyler, Texas. The former Mount Washington resident was 74. Born in Jerusalem, he moved with his family to Detroit as a young boy and studied violin under Detroit Symphony concertmaster Mischa Mischakoff. Family members said at 17 he became one of the youngest members of the Detroit Symphony. He earned a bachelor's degree in music at Wayne State University and a doctorate from Indiana University, where he wrote his thesis on the string quartets of Franz Josef Haydn.

Lynn Taylor Hebden, a Baltimore-born lyric soprano who headed the Peabody Preparatory Department for more than two decades and was also a member of the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory, died Sunday from complications of breast cancer at her Roland Park home. She was 84. "I always sought her advice and historical perspective. She always was very interested and wanted to know how people on the faculty she had known were doing," said Carolee Stewart, the preparatory school's dean.

No one who has witnessed the sheer delight generated among young audiences at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's children's concerts can doubt that the programs serve an important educational function. Through its Music for Youth, Tiny Tots and Prime Time programs, the orchestra has taken classical music off the dusty shelf of history and transformed it into a vibrant, living presence to be enjoyed by a new generation of concertgoers.Youngsters attending the BSO's children's concert tomorrow will be treated to an extraordinary performance by any standard: Among the musicians on stage will be some two dozen of their peers, prodigies from the Peabody Prep school between the ages of 14 and 17 who will perform side-by-side with the orchestra's regular players.

When William A. Martin arrived at the Peabody Institute to work on a master's degree in 2001, he was of two minds, thinking about a performance career and a teaching one. You could say he was also of two voices. "He was a 'bari-tenor' when he started out," said Stanley Cornett, Martin's teacher at Peabody. "He had a beautiful, rich voice with a deep resonance to it. " Once Martin moved firmly from baritone to tenor, he faced another dichotomy - whether to focus on opera or music theater.