Christopher Taylor

SANTA BARBARA -- The title of Olivier Messiaen's "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus" does not translate easily into English. A common version is "Twenty Gazes Upon the Child Jesus." But "regards" also implies "aspects" or "contemplations." One translator, apparently feeling that any suggestion of corporeality would be misleading, simply supplied ellipses for "regards." After all, Messiaen's mystical music invites out-of-body experiences.

SANTA BARBARA -- The title of Olivier Messiaen's "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus" does not translate easily into English. A common version is "Twenty Gazes Upon the Child Jesus." But "regards" also implies "aspects" or "contemplations." One translator, apparently feeling that any suggestion of corporeality would be misleading, simply supplied ellipses for "regards." After all, Messiaen's mystical music invites out-of-body experiences.

If architecture is frozen music, perhaps music is liquid math. And perhaps not. For Christopher Taylor--who graduated with a degree in mathematics from Harvard in 1992 (with highest honors, no less) and won the bronze medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition the next year--the parallels between math and music are indirect at best.

If architecture is frozen music, perhaps music is liquid math. And perhaps not. For Christopher Taylor--who graduated with a degree in mathematics from Harvard in 1992 (with highest honors, no less) and won the bronze medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition the next year--the parallels between math and music are indirect at best.

Elizabeth Taylor, the glamorous queen of American movie stardom, whose achievements as an actress were often overshadowed by her rapturous looks and real-life dramas, has died. She was 79. Hospitalized six weeks ago for congestive heart failure, Taylor died early Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with her four children at her side, publicist Sally Morrison said. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said Mickey Rooney played Elizabeth Taylor's trainer in "Lassie Come Home.

More than 40 municipal bond underwriting firms have endorsed a self-imposed ban on political contributions as a way of avoiding possible conflicts of interest and allegations of influence peddling. Nineteen of the firms met in New York on Wednesday with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. to spell out how the initiative will be implemented.

A TIP AND A TOAST: Two West Hollywood shop owners set a trap for an alleged credit card thief and forger Wednesday, the merchants inviting the suspect to the store to sip expensive champagne with them while Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies closed in.

The first Vietnamese officer in the history of the Westminster Police Department was one of six graduates of the Golden West Police Academy sworn into duty Thursday. The officer, Manh Ingwerson, 27, of Westminster, was born in Saigon and recently completed a 6 1/2-year tour of duty with the U.S. Army, where he was a sergeant serving as a tank commander in West Germany, said Westminster Police Officer Larry Woessner.

A 19-year-old man was fatally injured Thursday when he allegedly ran a stop sign and collided with a dump truck on Santiago Canyon Road in the eastern part of the county, authorities said. Christopher Brian Taylor, an Orange Park Acres resident, was declared dead at the scene, California Highway Patrol spokesman Paul Caldwell said. The accident occurred at 6:10 a.m. at the intersection of Newport Avenue and Santiago Canyon Road.

Edith Chen, who shared first-place honors with Michael Kieren Harvey in the inaugural Ivo Pogorelich International Solo Piano Competition in Pasadena last year, and American Ballet Theatre principals Susan Jaffe and Robert Hill will be among those participating in the Pacific Symphony's eighth summer concert series at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. The five-part series, announced Tuesday, will begin July 1 with a pops program and will close Sept. 9 with a Tchaikovsky program.

Smart but impersonal, Christopher Taylor's local debut recital, Friday night at the South Bay Center for the Arts, still engaged the listener through most of its length in a combination of largely familiar but unusually juxtaposed repertory. In another order, the Brahms-Bolcom-Gershwin-Bach-Beethoven program could have been deadly--but it wasn't.

Edith Chen, who shared first-place honors with Michael Kieren Harvey in the inaugural Ivo Pogorelich International Solo Piano Competition in Pasadena last year, and American Ballet Theatre principals Susan Jaffe and Robert Hill will be among those participating in the Pacific Symphony's eighth summer concert series at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. The five-part series, announced Tuesday, will begin July 1 with an Independence Day pops program and will close Sept.