Mel Powell

Composer and educator Mel Powell's family requested Monday that any memorial donations be made to the Mel Powell Graduate Composers Scholarship at CalArts in Valencia. Powell, 75, died Friday of liver cancer in his Sherman Oaks home. An obituary in Saturday's Times stated that Powell had suffered from muscular dystrophy.

The Los Angeles Kings have won the Stanley Cup. In other news, "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" has just received a Peabody Award for broadcast excellence, scientists announced the sun tomorrow will rise in the West and set in the East and Charlie Sheen has taken a vow of celibacy in anticipation of entering the priesthood. We now return you to our regularly scheduled program, "The Twilight Zone. " Richard Turnage Burbank :: That's one less item on my bucket list.

CalArts composer Mel Powell keeps his music spare and to the point. "I have this old-fashioned idea," he explains. "I still believe that beauty consists in the most music in the shortest space." As an example, the Powell program Friday night at 9:30, second event at the ninth CalArts Contemporary Music Festival, will take "just a little more than an hour."

Manny Ramirez -- Miss October. Ronald Levine Van Nuys :: We had been warned by his past teams, fans and players. But much like a new lover, we overlooked Manny's self-centered attitude. The honeymoon was great, Manny, but we caught you cheating and our relationship has never been the same since. Manny, we want a divorce! Ron Roberts Encino :: Plaschke, you got it wrong again, what a surprise! If Joe Torre wanted Manny in the dugout for the entire game Manny would be in the dugout for the entire game.

Wednesday, a program of music by Mel Powell will open the 10th consecutive season of one of the more prestigious series in the nation: the American Composers Series at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater in Washington. Still, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, who has taught at CalArts for two decades, is leery of such programmatic arrangements. "One-composer programs are problematic, even if the composer is Bach," Powell says.

It is all but impossible to get a fix on Mel Powell. To his students at CalArts in Valencia, he is the professor in whose classroom students are inculcated with an understanding of music through the centuries, from Palestrina to Poulenc to Powell.

For the last three decades of his life, pianist Mel Powell was best known within the Southland cultural community as the Pulitzer Prize-winning, founding dean of the CalArts music school. But before he became an educator and a classical composer, Powell--who died of cancer last year at the age of 75--was a highly regarded jazz pianist, arranger and composer.

"I'm looking at my hand right now to see if it's still trembling," said composer Mel Powell, laughing into the phone at his CalArts office a half hour after learning that he had won the Pulitzer prize for music. "And I am positively ecstatic, especially since it comes as a total surprise."

At age 69, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Mel Powell still strives to master what could be called the fine art of knowing when to quit. "Too often, when I go to hear a new piece and it runs and runs and runs, I start thinking about girls, malted milks--all those things that are forbidden--which is certainly not what I'm supposed to do," Powell said in a recent interview from his office at CalArts in Valencia.

Mel Powell was a very good composer. But that is something easy to overlook in remembering the man who became the first dean of music at the California Institute of the Arts and who did more than his share to give the often unfettered arts college credibility and class in his three-decade tenure there. Powell, who died Friday morning from liver cancer, less than three months after his 75th birthday, was more loved and better known than his music. The reason for that is simple.

Choosing home-field advantage for the World Series with the All-Star game winner is about as meaningful as flipping a coin and slightly less fair. Here's a thought: Let's televise a winner-takes-all battle between the managers of the league champions -- rock, paper, scissors, one throw. This one counts. Mel Powell Sherman Oaks :: Does anyone really like Chris Berman's hackneyed childish behavior during the Home Run Derby? Why do we, year after year, have to listen to his idiotic "Back . . . back . . . back" after almost every swing of the bat?

Dear Dodgers: I apologize. May I please have my fork back now? MEL POWELL Sherman Oaks With all the new faces, the Dodgers should consider returning players' names to their uniforms. Can't tell Tomko from Repko, Lugo from Loney, or Betemit from Brazoban. Does the batboy have a mustache? BILL BROGAN Oxnard Since the swap of Milton Bradley for Andre Ethier, Ned Colletti has made a series of shortsighted moves that won't be enough to keep the Dodgers from being on the outside looking in this postseason, while weakening their roster next season.

Only Gary Bettman's NHL could take a sport that has played one game outdoors in decades and land it on the Outdoor Life Network. By losing its place on ESPN, the NHL apparently ranks behind bass fishing, poker and really bad Bobby Knight movies in anticipated ratings. MEL POWELL Sherman Oaks

This is fantastic! For years, I have longed for the day when The Times would finally give this much coverage to the Kings! In-depth reporting, features on many of the players, a guest columnist--it's just wonderful. Thank you for at last giving the Kings the coverage we hockey fans have always ... What? Oh. Never mind. Mel Powell Sherman Oaks

Another playoff loss to the Red Wings, again without leading at any time. I guess this is what "fiscal responsibility" looks like. JORDAN CHODOROW Los Angeles It's said that one definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again, yet expecting a different result. In 1998, the Kings' organization tried to "Black Out the Blues." We got swept. Last year, they tried to "Black Out the Red Wings." We got swept. Now they want to do it again. What are they, nuts?

Like Webern and Grieg, Mel Powell was a miniaturist. Of course, the late American composer, being remembered this week in twin concerts of his complete vocal music by soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson and 12 colleagues of Southwest Chamber Music, won a Pulitzer Prize for a large-scale two-piano concerto. But that was an exception.

Mel Powell, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and founding dean of the CalArts School of Music in Valencia, died Friday. He was 75. Powell, who began his long career as jazz pianist for Benny Goodman, died of liver cancer at his Sherman Oaks home, California Institute of the Arts officials said. The educator and composer won the Pulitzer in 1990 for "Duplicates: A Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra," which had been commissioned by music patron Betty Freeman for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Hey, CBS! Thanks for showing us the exciting USC-Notre Dame football ga MEL POWELL Los Angeles

Ross Porter, the Benjamin Franklin of useless statistics, has finally gone off the deep end. During the final Astro-Dodger game of the season, Porter came up with this one: "Larry Dierker will become the first manager in history to reach the playoffs in a season in which he underwent successful brain surgery." Since he has obviously lost it, I thought I'd give Ross some other statistics for him to use next year: Raul Mondesi has become the first player in history to have more public expletives than base hits in a single season.

For the last three decades of his life, pianist Mel Powell was best known within the Southland cultural community as the Pulitzer Prize-winning, founding dean of the CalArts music school. But before he became an educator and a classical composer, Powell--who died of cancer last year at the age of 75--was a highly regarded jazz pianist, arranger and composer.