Kent Nagano

Conductors Kent Nagano and Hugh Wolff have been named the first recipients of the Seaver Conducting Award, a biennial honor given by the Seaver Institute, a locally based foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts to encourage the development of American conductors. Nagano, 33, music director of the Berkeley Symphony and the 1985 Ojai Festival (which opens tonight), and Wolff, 31, associate conductor of the National Symphony, will each receive $75,000 over a two-year period.

The world premiere of a work for soprano and orchestra by South Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin will highlight the 58th Ojai Festival, June 3-6, new festival director Thomas W. Morris announced Thursday. Chin has served as composer in residence for the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, led by Kent Nagano, music director of the Ojai Festival. Nagano also has commissioned her to write an opera based on "Alice in Wonderland" for L.A. Opera's 2005-06 season.

Los Angeles Opera's plans to present Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" in May 2005 have been derailed, officials said Tuesday. A film adaptation of "Todd," to be directed by "American Beauty" Oscar winner Sam Mendes, is in pre-production, and all theatrical performance rights to it have been withdrawn. Bryn Terfel, who was scheduled to sing the title role, will still be here, however. He will instead sing the title role of Verdi's "Falstaff" in a revival of the 1990 L.A. Opera production.

After nearly 220 years, Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" remains a marvel of sparkling, touching music and a fascinating delineation of character. In this Los Angeles Opera revival of Ian Judge's 2004 sleek staging, Barbara Bonney and Ildar Abdrazakov will make their company debuts as Susanna and Figaro. Adrianne Pieczonka will sing the role of the Countess. David Pittsinger is the Count. Lucy Schaufer will be Cherubino.

Re Kent Nagano's plans for Los Angeles Opera ("Determined to Be Daring," by Mark Swed, Sept. 16). Do he and Placido Domingo have the full, unequivocal support of patrons and subscribers for these dream projects? A hip, sci-fi adventure "Ring" and half a dozen years more or less given over to specialized work (some not even yet written) by Luciano Berio--are L.A. Opera supporters prepared to pay the very expensive fees for such dream works? And not a word, not a syllable about the repertory that pays the bills and fills the house for every company.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has announced its appointment of Hugh Wolff, the 31-year-old associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, as its new music director and principal conductor. The appointment, which takes effect Sept. 1, was announced last week at the annual conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League in San Francisco, where Wolff was one of two recipients of the first Seaver Conducting Award.

For all the criticism Grammys get for not being quite up-to-date, the 11 classical awards this year have a remarkable feature. Every winner but one--Cecilia Bartoli's Vivaldi disc--is for music written in the 20th century. In one category, that meant that four superb Bach recordings lost to the fifth nominee, "Credo," a recent work by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki.

"Nixon in China" is not much of a conductor's opera, but all those who have had a turn with it have seemed able to impart a distinctive character. Certainly Randall Behr did so Saturday evening, when the piece returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion after a 13-day layoff.

Composer Unsuk Chin, who is writing works for the 2004 Ojai Festival and for L.A. Opera's 2005-06 season, has won the prestigious 2004 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. The South Korean-born composer won the $200,000 prize for her Violin Concerto, given its premiere in January 2002 by violinist Viviane Hagner and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester conducted by Kent Nagano. Chin has served as composer in residence for that orchestra.