Peabody Institute

It was Baltimore steaming hot even after the sun set, and I didn't get to see the big street protest scene that I came to see filmed for "House of Cards. " But after two hours Wednesday night of standing around on Centre Street with about 40 others, most of whom seemed to have some connection with the Peabody Institute where the crew was filming or were drinking at the Anchor bar across the street, there was Kevin Spacey standing in the street in tuxedo pants and a T-shirt with his suspenders hanging down around his knees.

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.

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.

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)

Maria Morales, a glamorous Spanish dancer who taught at Peabody Institute and entertained at New York nightclubs in the 1930s and 1940s, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at her Mount Vernon home. She was 89. "She was this extraordinary flamenco and Spanish dancer," said Robert Sirota, director of the Peabody Institute, where Ms. Morales taught until three years ago. "She was irreproducible. You can't find someone with her background, culture, elegance and vibrancy. Her dancing was an expression of all those wonderful things.

ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer's proposed budget for fiscal 1992 includes a modest $125,000 cut in program funds for the Maryland State Arts Council and a $865,000 decrease for Maryland Public Television.The budget also includes $5.4 million for the Peabody Institute -- $3 million in operating support and $2.4 million for the conservatory'sendowment, part of a 5-year state bailout approved last year.The proposed funding for the arts council is $7.425 million, a decline of just $17,000 from its current appropriation.

Bargain hunters were at the Peabody Institute yesterday looking at some practically irresistible deals -- where else could you buy a Viennese-made Boesendorfer for just $58,000?It was the music school's annual piano sale, and, yes, the Boesendorfer was there, more for its good looks than for the idea that anyone would actually buy it. But the sale was, nevertheless, a pretty gleaming accumulation of grands -- some of them even halfway affordable.Every year, the Kawai piano company lends practice pianos to music schools across the country, and the next year it sells them off at more or less a wholesale price.

As Robert Sirota discusses the future of American music conservatories, a bit of the past looks on.Mr. Sirota, who this Friday becomes director of the Peabody Institute, is having lunch at the Peabody American Grill, a hotel restaurant a short walk from the music school. Hanging on the wall, overlooking him like a protective deity, is a photograph of Ernest Hutcheson -- long-ago faculty member at the Peabody, acclaimed pianist, renowned composer and, in a sense, mentor to Mr. Sirota."My first piano teacher took lessons from Hutcheson," he says.

The office formerly held by Melvin A. Steinberg was misstated in an article in Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section about retiring Peabody Institute Director Robert O. Pierce. Mr. Steinberg is the former Maryland lieutenant governor.The Sun regrets the error.When Robert O. Pierce was a boy in Wichita, Kan., his schoolteacher father passed on to his three sons a love for music and a style for dealing with conflict stemming from the family's Quaker faith."We never learned to resolve things by force or authority," says Mr. Pierce, 61, who is retiring Thursday after 14 years as director of the Peabody Institute.

Workers remodeling a 19th-century rehearsal hall at the Peabody Institute have found 10 dusty jugs of moonshine in an unlocked closet, where they apparently sat for nearly 60 years. Faded labels on the bottles suggest that the hooch was the handiwork of Gustav Strube, the first conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Strube, who came to Baltimore in 1913 and lived here until his death 40 years later at age 85, was one of Baltimore's most beloved characters. A composer, conductor, violinist and music professor known as "Papa Strube" to his students, he was locally renowned for his succulent goulash and his home-brewed beer, wine and liquor.

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.

"House of Cards," a Netflix political drama starring Kevin Spacey, returns to Mount Vernon to finish filming scenes postponed by severe wind and rain last month. According to a notice the producers sent residents and businesses in the Mount Vernon area, filming will start at 7 p.m. Tuesday and end at 10 a.m. Thursday. E. Centre Street will again be closed during part of that time for filming of a crowd scene. "We are filiming  at Peabody Institute and will be closing a portion of E. Centre St. during filming," the notice says.

It was Baltimore steaming hot even after the sun set, and I didn't get to see the big street protest scene that I came to see filmed for "House of Cards. " But after two hours Wednesday night of standing around on Centre Street with about 40 others, most of whom seemed to have some connection with the Peabody Institute where the crew was filming or were drinking at the Anchor bar across the street, there was Kevin Spacey standing in the street in tuxedo pants and a T-shirt with his suspenders hanging down around his knees.

UPDATES WITH STREET CLOSINGS: "House of Cards"  is at Mount Vernon's Peabody Institute this week where the producers are expected to film one of the biggest scenes in the first 13 episodes of the series. The $100 million Netflix production, which stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, will be filming at the Peabody starting Tuesday, according to Richard Selden, director of marketing and communication for the institute. The crew and their Haddad's production trucks arrived in Mount Vernon today and took up residence around the perimeter of the square.

"House of Cards"  is coming to another major Baltimore institution, Mount Vernon's Peabody Institute, where the producers are expected to film one of the biggest scenes in the first 13 episodes of the series. The $100 million Netflix production, which stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, will be at the Peabody starting Tuesday, according to Richard Selden, director of marketing and communication for the institute. The big scene is scheduled to be filmed Wednesday night with part of East Centre Street closed to traffic.

There are unexpected perks that can come with receiving a Pulitzer Prize, as composer Kevin Puts discovered last Tuesday. "It was 'Kevin Puts Day' here," he said by phone from his home in Yonkers, N.Y. "There was a nice ceremony with the mayor. I got a plaque. I never had a day named after me. " Puts, a Peabody Institute faculty member since 2006, won the Pulitzer for "Silent Night," an opera about the unauthorized Christmas truce in the midst of World War I, when troops from both sides of the trenches emerged to celebrate Christmas together before the killing resumed.

Manon Lescaut, the original Material Girl, remains one of the most beguiling figures in opera. She can be found onstage at the Peabody Institute this weekend, turning heads, acquiring possessions and hearts with dizzying speed, letting morality hit the fan. To open its season, Peabody Opera Theatre is offering a mostly effective student production of Massenet's "Manon," one of several adaptations of a rather racy, early 18th-century novel by Antoine-Francois Prevost....

Anyone foolish enough to think that classical music is the exclusive province of aging men and elderly, blue-haired ladies would do well to meet Tonya Robles, the newly appointed executive director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. The talented, energetic Robles - who is all of 29 years old - comes to the orchestra with a neatly crafted resume chock-full of diverse musical experiences. An easy choice While a voice student at Baltimore's Peabody Institute, she interned with the Baltimore Symphony's administrative staff and, almost immediately, found her professional niche.

On Saturday, July 25, 2009, SHIRLEY HSIAO-NI PAN of Baltimore, loving daughter of Wee Kian Lian, dear sister of Sylvia and Sophia Pan, aunt of Jasper and Kenneth Chen. Also survived by brother-in-law Winston Chen. Shirley was a great pianist and devoted teacher. She was well liked and respected at Peabody Institute of Music. The family would like to thank all of her friends for their support. Arrangements by Peaceful Alternatives Funeral and Cremation Center, P.A. 2325 York Road, Timonium, MD, 21093.

Michael Kaiser - president of the Kennedy Center, international arts management/rescue guru and compelling advocate for preserving artistic quality even in the face of financial meltdown - is the 2009 recipient of the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America. The award, presented by the Peabody Institute, will be given to Kaiser during the conservatory's graduation ceremony on May 21. He joins a starry roster of recipients, that since 1980, has included the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Quincy Jones and Eubie Blake.