Nagano

I finally became tired of reading and hearing about the correct pronunciation of Nagano (letters, Feb. 19). I decided to ask one of my students where I teach at Cal State Northridge. She is from Nagano, and even though she pronounces it NAH-ga-no, she informed me that it perfectly permissible to pronounce it Na-GAH-no. Many of the residents of that city do pronounce it the second way. GERSTEN SCHACHNE Northridge

Kent Nagano's tenure at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra appears uncertain following reports that the American conductor will depart the orchestra when his current contract as music director expires in 2016. But the orchestra's management has vigorously denied the reports. A report this month from Montreal's La Presse stated that Nagano's contract with the orchestra won't be renewed beyond 2016. The report, written by Claude Gingras, cites sources saying that Zarin Mehta is helping the orchestra find Nagano's successor.

Reporting from Nagano, Japan Fame is fleeting, but mountains are eternal. Or so it seems in Nagano, the mountain-ringed city in the center of Honshu, Japan's main island. Nagano had a brief brush with international fame when it hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, but the city center has returned to its former self, a comfortably modern medium-size downtown spread out below the imposing Zenkoji Buddhist Temple. But the mountainous prefecture, or administrative region, encircling it seems ancient, with its Shinto shrines, hot springs and villages trapped in time.

Conducting titles at the world's top orchestras are often convoluted and mystifying. In the case of Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, a newly announced leadership change is baffling even by classical standards. For five years, Gustavo Dudamel has led the Gothenburg Symphony as its principal conductor. With his term set to expire this year, the orchestra said on Thursday that Dudamel is stepping down from that position and is assuming the role of "honorary conductor. " The orchestra said it has named Kent Nagano as principal guest conductor and artistic advisor. Nagano's role as artistic advisor begins immediately, said the orchestra.

Your staff people in Nagano are very lucky. They could enjoy the opening ceremony without the constant chattering of Jim Nantz throughout the "Ode to Joy." Does CBS think that sports fans are too dumb or uneducated to enjoy Beethoven? I hope someone from CBS reads this so they can tell Nantz and company to shut up during the closing ceremony. AUDREY B. FOLEY Claremont It may have been "An Opening With Appeal," as the headline stated, but not on CBS, which botched the opening royally, just as it has the rest of the Olympics.

I had a dream Ilia Kulik and Pasha Grishuk swapped costumes, and no one noticed. I had a dream Hermann Maier flew out of control on the downhill run, crashed into Akebono, and then both got up, dusted themselves off, and stomped off to kick some Dream Team USA hockey butt.

When the competition gets underway Sunday at Hakuba, it will be going straight downhill, and fast. american Tommy Moe, the gold medalist in 1994, and his rivals will be traveling at sppeds hovering around the national spped limit -for automobiles. The men's course is 3,588 yards and drops 3,035 feet in elevation, making for a medals race that should be determined by hundredths of a second. Here's a look at where the downhill speeds rank in a theory of unrelativity: 150.

It was going to be the pinnacle of their careers. Three athletes who sacrificed for years would play on the first U.S. women's Olympic hockey team. They would be in Nagano now, battling for a medal with their loved ones watching proudly from the stands. Instead, their dreams were shattered. Kelly O'Leary, Stephanie O'Sullivan and Erin Whitten were the last players cut. "It ruined my life," O'Leary says. "It's changed my whole outlook, my whole faith in people."

The old wounds, physical and spiritual, healed long ago. When Lou Zamperini returned to Japan recently, it was in the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. If any American during World War II had earned the right to hate, it was Louis Silvie Zamperini. Once one of America's best track and field athletes, he was beaten almost daily for 2 1/2 years in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps and fed a near-starvation diet.

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.

Reporting from Nagano, Japan Fame is fleeting, but mountains are eternal. Or so it seems in Nagano, the mountain-ringed city in the center of Honshu, Japan's main island. Nagano had a brief brush with international fame when it hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, but the city center has returned to its former self, a comfortably modern medium-size downtown spread out below the imposing Zenkoji Buddhist Temple. But the mountainous prefecture, or administrative region, encircling it seems ancient, with its Shinto shrines, hot springs and villages trapped in time.

James Patterson's publishing company says that he's the first author to exceed 1 million sales in electronic book delivery. The Hachette Book Group says Patterson has moved 1.14 million units of his books for devices like Kindle and the iPad. The big seller, by far, is the most recent: Patterson's novel "I, Alex Cross," which was published both electronically and in hardcover last fall. Since his first novel in 1976, Patterson's books have sold more than 205 million copies. There's no third-party monitor of e-book sales, so Hachette used its own figures and checked other prominent authors.

Two-time Olympic champion Hermann Maier retired Tuesday, ending a career in which he became one of Alpine skiing's most prolific racers and almost lost a leg in a motorcycle accident in 2001. The 36-year-old Maier cited surgery on his right knee in the off-season as the main reason for his retirement. The Austrian speed specialist won two golds at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, and earned three world championship titles. He won 54 World Cup races and four overall titles, putting him second only to Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark , who captured 86 race victories.

Kent Nagano, who now commutes between the Montreal Symphony and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Germany, has been a rare visitor to Southern California since ending his tenure as Los Angeles Opera music director three years ago. But Saturday night he appeared at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica with a handful of Montreal Symphony players, two Inuit throat singers and a bassoon-playing bear. First the orchestra's second associate concertmaster, Marianne Dugal, gave a labored solo performance of the Chaconne from Bach's D-Minor Violin Partita.

The posters of Kent Nagano on the side of the Bavarian State Opera are curious. One is a severe close-up of his face, pores and all, unsmiling, stern. Another is the same shot with "Hier bin ich gern" plastered over him in blocky red letters, like war paint. It translates: "I'm glad to be here." He may not look it, but in fact he is. The company is, at present, midway through its annual Opera Festival, which began at the end of June and runs through July.

I doubt that many who attend "The Marriage of Figaro" know exactly what is going on at all points in its screwball plot. Yet Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, when Los Angeles Opera brought back its perfectly likable 2004 production of Mozart's opera, I noticed something unusual. As the situation on stage got more confusing, heads in the audience began bobbing less.

Once last trip around the rink to remember Nagano '98. . . . Count goaltender Guy Hebert among those Team USA players who left Nagano with mixed feelings about the Olympics. Certainly, Hebert accomplished a childhood dream by participating in the Games. But he didn't suit up and play in any of the United States' four games, and that remains a sore point for Hebert. The closest to the ice Hebert got during the games was a seat several rows from the glass.

I enjoyed "Pronunciation Irks Angelenos Named Nagano" (Feb. 12). I received a number of inquiries about my name saying, "Have I been mispronouncing your name for 40 years?" Our relatives and Caucasian friends are calling, kiddingly, and saying, "Hi, Nag-a-no!" Until this winter Olympics, I never heard my name pronounced this way. The European competitors pronounce it correctly. In 1946, I lived in Japan for nearly one year, serving in the Army as an interpreter in Tokyo. I found and met my relatives from Kochi, Nagoya, Tokyo and Sapporo but I never heard it pronounced as on television.

EXPLAINING his reason for including three composers in his project to create a narrative symphonic work about the experiences of Japanese Americans in the World War II internment camp Manzanar -- a work he conducted at UCLA this month -- Kent Nagano told The Times that he felt the context was broad. There were many stories to relate, he well knew, his parents and grandparents having been among those interned, and he liked the idea of more than one musical point of view.

It is not easy to find the UC Santa Cruz Music Center without help, and it is not easy to find help. And maybe that is as it should be. The performance at the University's Music Hall three weeks ago was billed as a "preview of the world premiere" of a symphonic work, "Manzanar: An American Story" -- a work that will be performed again Thursday night at UCLA. This is not an easy subject. This has not been an easy project.