Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall plans to renovate its Studio Towers and backstage areas -- but the expansion would require doing away with residences that have been used over the years by artists such as Leonard Bernstein. To accommodate its need for new classrooms, rehearsal spaces, practice and large ensemble rooms within its existing footprint, it will need to occupy all the available space in its two Studio Towers, now occupied by longtime tenant-artists, the venerable New York venue said.

The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra has played all over the city, UCLA's Schoenberg Hall and the Skirball Cultural Center included. But it hasn't ventured outside of L.A. Now the orchestra will finally hit the road -- and it's headed straight to Carnegie Hall . “Why settle?” says Artistic Director Russell Steinberg. More than 75 students, ages 8 to 18, will travel to New York for a Feb. 25 concert. The evening is in honor of their late program director and viola coach Eve Cohen, who passed away from cancer last October.

The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra has played all over the city, UCLA's Schoenberg Hall and the Skirball Cultural Center included. But it hasn't ventured outside of L.A. Now the orchestra will finally hit the road -- and it's headed straight to Carnegie Hall . “Why settle?” says Artistic Director Russell Steinberg. More than 75 students, ages 8 to 18, will travel to New York for a Feb. 25 concert. The evening is in honor of their late program director and viola coach Eve Cohen, who passed away from cancer last October.

Osvaldo Golijov is one of the most in-demand composers working today, with commissions from major orchestras around the world. But the past few years have been difficult for the Argentine composer: He has missed deadlines for new pieces and was accused earlier this year of plagiarism. On Thursday, Golijov whiffed again with the announcement that his new violin concerto -- already delayed -- will not be ready for its scheduled performances in January. The piece had been scheduled to be performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, with violinist Leonidas Kavakos, in concerts in Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall.

Grover Sales' book, "Jazz: America's Classical Music," is generally regarded as one of the most succinct and accurate surveys of its kind. But Sales was not the first to offer this definition of jazz.

How do you get a stage named after you at Carnegie Hall? Donate. Donate. Donate. Carnegie Hall said Friday that it has named its main stage the Ronald O. Perelman Family Stage in recognition of a new $20-million endowment the financier has set up to support education and artistic programs.

If you have ever been to one of those anniversary parties for a rich and popular old relative, where everybody chips in glowing reminiscences and nostalgic photos for a scrapbook, you know what to expect from "Carnegie Hall at 100: A Place of Dreams." The show is a 60-minute stream of celebrity testimonials. (It airs tonight on KPBS Channel 15 at 9 p.m. and KVCR Channel 24 and KOCE Channel 50 at 10 p.m., and Sunday on KCET Channel 28 at 6:30 p.m.

The call came a few hours before Carnegie Hall's season-opening gala concert: Thomas Quasthoff, one of the stars of the night, had an inflamed vocal chord and couldn't sing. Carnegie managers were still searching for a substitute minutes before Wednesday's final rehearsal for conductor Franz Welser-Most and the Cleveland Symphony. Then someone remembered that German soprano Dorothea Roschmann was in town for her Metropolitan Opera performances of Mozart's "Idomeneo."

When members of Fountain Valley High School's Concert Choir perform in New York City's Carnegie Hall in April, it promises to be a high note of their lives. "It gives our choir the opportunity to showcase our talent . . . to show everybody what we've got," said senior Heath Einstein, a choir member since his freshman year. For classmate Mishel Popovich, singing at the famed concert hall is a dream come true. "One of my life's dreams is being fulfilled," said Popovich, who plans to study opera.

The Granada Hills Chorale will play Carnegie Hall this summer, but lovers of choral music won't have to travel far to see a performance. The group, excited about appearing in the landmark auditorium, is sure to be at its best in its annual Spring Concert on Sunday. The show, titled "Prelude to Carnegie Hall," will feature some of the material to be presented in New York. "This isn't just a practice session or a warm-up," said Maryann Mendenhall, director of the chorus.

James Levine has just earned some of the most important rave reviews of his long and distinguished career -- not from music critics, but from doctors on his medical team, who say that the long-ailing conductor has achieved a "remarkable" recuperation from severe back injuries and can resume performing with the Metropolitan Opera next spring. The Met announced Levine's impending return on Thursday, with what may be the first news release by a performing arts group to be dominated by quotes from four physicians.

Mort Lindsey, a conductor, arranger and composer best known as the music director for Judy Garland in the 1960s and for his more than two decades as music director for "The Merv Griffin Show," has died. He was 89. Lindsey, who was in declining health since breaking his hip six months ago, died May 4 at his home in Malibu, said his son Trevor. A pianist and a former staff conductor for CBS and ABC in New York in the 1950s, Lindsey was music director for Garland at her historic Carnegie Hall concert on April 23, 1961.

As the old joke goes: "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice, practice. " That punch line would have to be rewritten for vocal coach, performer and composer Ben Toth. Toth, 34, got to Carnegie Hall — and the Hollywood Bowl and Broadway — by helping other people practice, practice and practice some more. During a late November interview at a Los Feliz cafe, Toth — whose clients include Lea Michele, Taye Diggs, Josh Radnor, Wayne Brady, Christina Hendricks and Mandy Patinkin — was on a high from serving as musical director, arranger and backup singer for "Cheyenne Jackson's Cocktail Hour: Music From the 'Mad Men' Era" at Carnegie Hall" on Nov. 18. But there wasn't much time to relax and enjoy: Toth was also coaching Beau Bridges for his Broadway singing debut in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

When discussing the rapid rise of Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, there's inevitable mention of maestros such as Georg Solti and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. As the concertmaster of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for 16 years (and the youngest in its history), Van Zweden learned conducting 4 feet away from many of the greats of the age. And it was Leonard Bernstein who encouraged Van Zweden, the current music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, to first take up the baton during a rehearsal Bernstein led years ago of Mahler's First Symphony.

Cuban singer Olga Guillot, who was hailed as "the queen of the bolero" and became the first Latin artist to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall, has died. She was 87. She died Monday at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Fla. A family spokeswoman said Guillot had a heart attack. Her biggest hit was "Mienteme" ( "Lie to Me"), recorded in 1954. It was popular across Latin America and earned her three consecutive awards in Cuba as her homeland's best female singer.

Wayne Brady is savoring a big year, with doors opening to him at Carnegie Hall, the White House and, in multiples, on "Let's Make a Deal." The actor-singer-funnyman debuted in October as host of a revival of Monty Hall's classic game show, riding herd on eager contestants choosing between cash and the chance of prizes tucked, famously, behind doors No. 1, 2 and 3. The game show gig and Brady's sold-out Carnegie Hall debut in New York followed...

Joslyn Sinclair sat in a circle of friends giggling like an average 16-year-old, the way she does every Tuesday at Lake Forest Community Church. She loves Leonardo DiCaprio, the poetry of Robert Shaw and singing with the Southern California Children's Chorus. "Singing allows me to release a lot of emotion, to express myself," said Joslyn, of Newport Beach. "I feel lucky to have the talent to do this."

It took more than practice to land Jerry Coleman and 41 other Irvine Valley College singers a performance this weekend at Carnegie Hall. It also took some luck. Coleman, a 52-year-old Laguna Niguel insurance agent who has been singing for fun since childhood, decided on a whim to join the college's chorale soon after moving to the area two years ago. A few months after he joined, the group was offered a gig at the famed New York City concert hall. "I had no idea this would happen.

Recognizing the reality of China as a rising, major world power, Carnegie Hall built a festival, Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, that is digging deep into the mainstream and back country of Chinese culture this fall. The good news for us is that we don't have to hop a plane to experience it, for Carnegie Hall has taken a partner for the first time, the Orange County Philharmonic Society. That in itself is a recognition of another reality -- that artistic leadership in this country is increasingly coming from the West Coast, and those who still cling to worn-out East Coast biases are missing the boat.

Go east, young man -- if your ambitions run toward making a bundle overseeing behind-the-scenes setups for the performing arts, and you don't mind not having a life outside of work. As initially reported by Bloomberg News this week, the top five stagehands at Carnegie Hall earned an average of $431,000 in salary and benefits during the 2007-08 fiscal year -- which ended 2 1/2 months before a bucket of economic ice water awakened many in the arts and elsewhere to a new reality. Some 3,000 miles west, at the Music Center in downtown L.A., those well-paid New Yorkers' top five peers -- two head carpenters, two heads of props and a head electrician -- averaged $221,000, according to the performance center's 2007-08 tax return posted at the website Guidestar.