Music Director

George Benjamin undertook his first visit to Ojai last January, but in some ways, the trip must have seemed like a homecoming for the celebrated British composer, conductor, pianist and teacher. The freak storms that pounded the normally bucolic Southern Californian landscape throughout the length of his stay made Benjamin, who was in town in his capacity as the music director of this year's Ojai Music Festival, feel as if he'd never left wet and windy England behind. More significantly, though, the journey to Ojai served as a spiritual homecoming for the 50-year-old composer, who has been closely associated with many key figures in the music festival's 63-year history.

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.

Mark Thallander, formerly assistant organist at the Crystal Cathedral and director of music at Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, suffered serious injuries in a car accident Sunday evening on the Maine Turnpike, near Ogunquit. According to colleague John West, artist in residence at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, Thallander was returning alone to a friend's house from a church service in Worcester, Mass., when, during a heavy rainstorm, he ran off the road.

NEW YORK - Listening is very important to Alan Gilbert. It is not surprising for a gifted musician to have attentive ears, but to succeed as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, you have to hear much more than just the music. Before taking his first leadership post at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2000, Gilbert made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and since appearing on the podium of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1998, Gilbert has clearly been listening to what been going on in Southern California.

The Metropolitan Opera says it has extended by five years the contract of music director James Levine. "Nothing could make me happier than to continue my long association with this great company and to build on all the artistic accomplishments we have made," Levine said. Joseph Volpe, the Met's general manager, said the contract had been extended from 2006-07 through the 2010-11 season.

The San Diego Symphony isn't commenting, but word is that the orchestra has named Jahja Ling, a 51-year-old Indonesian-born conductor, as its next music director. "We don't have anything to announce at this time," symphony spokesman Stephen Kougias said Tuesday, declining to speculate when an announcement might come. Would he deny the rumors? "No comment." Kougias was responding to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune that in careful terms reported Ling's imminent hire.

Kenneth Wayne Robertson, music director, died Sunday at Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks. He was 53. He was born Jan. 14, 1946, in Greenwood, Miss., to Annette and Rev. O.B. Robertson. Robertson attended high school in Bakersfield and then went to Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss., where he received a bachelor's degree in music. He went on to Cal Lutheran University and received a master's. Robertson was a soloist and choral music director for more than 35 years.

Masaru Sato, 71, music director for filmmaker Akira Kurosawa who scored such films as "Yojimbo." Sato composed music for several insignificant films in the early 1950s and the better-known "Godzilla Raids Again." He met Kurosawa through his teacher, "Rashomon" composer Fumio Hayasaka, whom Sato once described as a god. When Hayasaka suddenly died in 1955, Sato stepped in to complete his score for Kurosawa's "Ikimono no Kiroku."

Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has been chosen to succeed Andre Previn as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Times has learned. The appointment of Salonen, 31, is to be announced to members of the orchestra at a Hollywood Bowl rehearsal Monday morning, with a press conference to follow.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic can breathe easy again. The audience can relax. We have a music director. The envelope, please. The winner is. . . (dramatic pause) . . . Esa-Pekka Salonen. If all goes as planned, the appointment will become official this morning. Surprise? Not really. He was a likely choice. Also a lucky choice, and a good choice. This man looks like the right man in the right place at the right time. Actually, he doesn't look like a man. He looks like a boy.

It wasn't exactly old times Thursday night when Simon Rattle finally, finally returned to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the first time in 12 years. Back then the L.A. Phil was a dispirited orchestra. Music director Esa-Pekka Salonenwas on sabbatical, and the orchestra was struggling with poor attendance. The completion of the long-delayed Walt Disney Concert Hall was another three years away and still controversial. Meanwhile, it would be two more years before Rattle, then 45, would become music director of the Berlin Philharmonic.

So what would Beethoven drive? I'm not sure that putting anyone that headstrong behind the wheel would be a great idea. He'd likely scream at his publisher on his cellphone while driving, impatiently tailgate, cut people off. He'd speed for sure and never, ever signal. But Orange County is car country and Thursday night at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Joshua Bell handed over the keys of his new Porsche to the composer for a high-octane spin of his "Coriolan" Overture, Violin Concerto and Fourth Symphony.

Gabriel Kahane, best known as an indie singer-songwriter, was his own charismatic singer-songwriter Saturday night in the West Coast premiere of his affecting "Crane Palimpsest" at the Alex Theatre. As he does in a club, he used a microphone and wore jeans. He accompanied himself on guitar and piano. He also had the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on hand, and he gratefully used everything at his disposal to merge pop and new music sensibilities naturally and unpretentiously. Composer-performers who write orchestral pieces for themselves as soloists can these days be anything they like.

Craig Phillips was barely beyond toddling when he asked his mother to take him to the organ loft at their Baptist church in Nashville. "I was fascinated by the sheer size and power you have at your fingertips," Phillips said of the immense Schantz pipe instrument. Since then, he has pulled out all the stops on a career devoted to music. This week the American Guild of Organists bestows on Phillips, music director and organist at All Saints' Church in Beverly Hills, its distinguished composer award for 2012.

Sid Melton Character actor in dozens of TV, film projects Sid Melton, 94, a character actor perhaps best known for his roles in the hit television shows "Green Acres" and "The Danny Thomas Show," died of pneumonia Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, his family said. During a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Melton appeared in about 140 television and film projects. They included two 1951 movies, "Lost Continent" with Cesar Romero and the Samuel Fuller-directed "The Steel Helmet," and 1972's "Lady Sings the Blues" with Diana Ross.

Just weeks after Fox dropped "America's Most Wanted" after more than two decades, its creator-host, John Walsh, has a new home for the show on the Lifetime network. The deal, announced jointly on Tuesday by Walsh and Lifetime, will return to the air Walsh's weekly criminal roundup, which since 1988 has helped bring almost 1,200 fugitives to justice. The series will return for its 25th season later this year. In May, Fox announced it was axing "AMW," citing high production costs.

Dorrance Stalvey, a composer and award-winning music director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has died. He was 74. Stalvey died in his sleep early Sunday at his home in Park La Brea. The cause of death was lung cancer, his wife, Valerie Stalvey, said. The death followed the recent news that LACMA was drastically cutting back its sponsorship of classical music.

Joseph J. Klein, a voice teacher who served as music director at two Glendale churches, has died at a Glendale convalescent home. He was 90. Klein, a resident of Glendora who had lived in Glendale for more than 50 years, died Saturday of complications of a stroke, said his wife, Esther Klein. A native of South Dakota, Klein came to California as a child. He performed with the Immanuel Male Quartet and sang in the Oval Office for President Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s.

Julie Taymor has directed Hollywood movies, won an Emmy Award for an opera production, and earned two Tonys for "The Lion King," one of Broadway's biggest and most lucrative musicals ever. But her artistic roots lie deep in avant-garde and experimental theater. So when the original director and co-creator of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" spoke Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles before hundreds of theater professionals, the event had the feel of a homecoming, or a reunion of artistic kinfolk.

Poly Styrene Singer in the punk band X-Ray Spex Poly Styrene, 53, the braces-wearing singer who belted out "Oh bondage, up yours!" with the punk band X-Ray Spex, died Monday, according to a statement on her website . Styrene, whose real name was Marion Elliott-Said, was in hospice care in St. Leonards-on-Sea, England, after having been diagnosed with cancer. X-Ray Spex released just one album, 1978's "Germ Free Adolescents. " But its aggressively catchy single "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!"