Marin Alsop gets elected into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She's not the only one. New members also include the Coen brothers, B.B. King, and Dawn Upshaw.

But wait, some local inductees on this long list:
- Benjamin Buchloh.
- Elizabeth Diller (Yes, based in New York but the ICA gets her mention).
- Gülru Necipoglu.
- Yehudi Wyner.
- Jerome Groopman.
- Paul Sagan.

One of our readers was not quite so thrilled with the door situation at the Museum of Fine Arts. Specifically, Maryel Locke raised a very logical concern about the MFA’s plan to close the West Wing doors to the public in favor of entrances on the Fens and Huntington.

"The Museum of Fine Art's splendid new entrance at the Fenway, opening June 20, is a long block's walk from parking or the T-stop. Those of us with any kind of infirmity muster their strength to see the art inside, not waste energy walking to the entrance (or the Huntington entrance) and returning afterward to car or T. Most of those who are fine will not like the extra walk. After all, you spend your time inside the museum standing and walking, except when eating or seeing movies. And if there is rain or snow, the walk outside will be much worse. Everyone likes entering easily by the West Wing. Why does the MFA want to be inhospitable?"

Naturally, I asked the MFA for a response. Here it is:

The West Wing entrance is going to be closed to the general public after the historic entrances are renovated. However, both the State Street Corporation Fenway Entrance and the Huntington Avenue Entrance will have drop-off areas for visitors and handicap accessible ramps. Also, the Museum's Manager of Accessibility, in the MFA's Visitor Services Dept., can work with any visitor who needs special arrangements to enter the Museum.

So now we find out why Neil Young has put off releasing the archives. It's all about the Blu-ray.

Apparently, when you're a rock star, cost is not an issue.

Neil Young (right) at Sun Microsystems' JavaOne Conference in San Francisco. With him are Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (center) and Sun vice president Rich Green. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press)

What is it that Mark Twain said about statistics?

You have to hope that the Austrian Ballet's "lavish" production of "The Nutcracker" doesn't start Valerie Wilder (below) off on the wrong toe shoe. According to this story, the run left the company with a $1.8 million operating deficit.

The good news: The ballet's endowment fund and investment returns led to an overall surplus of $1.436 million, "ensuring its reputation as one of Australia's most financially sound performing arts companies."

Check out Diller, Scofidio + Renfro's design for Alice Tully Hall. Does it look familiar?

Here's an interesting way to cover politics.

A photo of the band I helped organize for the Peirce School Art Fair.

Word comes from the Massachusetts Cultural Council that the House has voted to maintain the Cultural Facilities Fund. The House voted to recommend a state budget for the coming fiscal year that calls for $6.5 million for the facilities fund, and a $400,000 budget increase for the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Babson Capital, as part of $300,000 of donations, is giving $35,000 to Community Music School, which "offers music training to students of all ages and background from the greater Springfield area." The money will help with the Presto II program, "which provides stringed-instrument instruction to economically disadvantaged Springfield children ages 9 to 14." In addition, Babson Capital is giving the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras $30,000 to sponsor its Intensive Community Program. "The program provides inner-city children a chance to develop symphony instrument training, with the goal of students qualifying to join the BYSO in later years."

Daniel E. O’Leary, director of the Portland Museum of Art since 1993, retires today. He will take over as director of the Winslow Homer Studio Project, with Deputy Director Thomas Denenberg serving as acting director. The museum will form a search committee this summer.

The story that won't go away. Sorry, Roger.

By Megan Tench
Globe Staff / May 5, 2008
Two pre-Broadway premieres - a new musical featuring Gershwin music and starring Harry Connick Jr., and a revival of "Brigadoon" - headline Broadway Across America-Boston's 2008-09 lineup.

The season will bring six musicals and two plays. Among them are the touring version of "Spring Awakening," winner of eight Tony Awards; "A Bronx Tale," starring Academy Award nominee Chazz Palminteri; and the Tony-nominated "Frost/Nixon," starring Stacy Keach.

Read on...

From Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times:

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra said Monday that it had engaged Riccardo Muti as its next music director, luring the charismatic Italian maestro — one of a dwindling band of podium eminences — to the United States and adding a layer of luster to the city's cultural profile.

Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

I saw her recently at the press opening for the Museum of Fine Arts "El Greco" show. I approached to say hello and ask if we could chat sometime soon about her leaving WBZ. And what's sort of funny is how I stammered through my introduction and attempt to explain my purpose. But then it hit me... She's Joyce Kulhawik. She's famous.

I remember watching her when I was a kid, and it's hard to imagine Boston TV without her. Rather than bellyache, I'd prefer to let the always thoughtful Ed Siegel take on this one.

"THE STATE of local television news has gotten so horrible that nothing should surprise us. But how does one explain WBZ-TV's decision to let go of Joyce Kulhawik, its popular, relentlessly energetic, and seemingly ageless arts and entertainment reporter?"

Read on...

By Mark Feeney
Globe Staff / May 4, 2008
The whole Miley Cyrus/Annie Leibovitz business - and business is the right word - comes down to a simple misunderstanding. Leibovitz took a photograph for Vanity Fair of a famous person. What the people who got so upset by it saw was something else: a photograph of a famous brand name.

Keep reading.

Miley Cyrus was shot by Annie Leibovitz for the June 2008 issue of Vanity Fair Magazine. (Annie Leibovitz exclusively for Vanity Fair)

Word comes from David Borden that, "after 8 years of managing giant city-crushing monsters, this will be my last round of Kaiju performances."

He's heading to Harvard Graduate School of Design to pursue a master degree in landscape architecture.

His mass e-mail explanation included the following line:

"As to how monster wrestling relates to architecture,  I have a couple theories but they are all too long for email."

That was enough for me. I asked how monster wrestling relates to architecture. Borden sent this nugget straight from his application essay:

"My Studio Kaiju career has impacted my personal development and enabled me to grow as a leader and manager of complex creative projects. I am prepared to apply my experience in media production to landscape design, particularly as my background relates to creating engaging experiences for audiences. I intend to make spaces that provide a sense of surprise, that encourage exploration, and challenge expectations. It is my belief that to be truly successful, landscape design must not just be visually compelling but must also address the programming needs of the community. Based on my live-event production experience, I am interested in pushing the boundaries of landscape architecture through the development of creative programming for public space."

Kaiju will continue. But if you want to see Borden, you'll need to catch the following shows:

5-10-08, The Roxy, Boston, MA
6-1-08, The Trocadero, Philadelphia, PA
6-7-08, Webster Hall, Manhattan, NY

From this week's Boston Symphony Orchestra program book:

Three members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra will retire from the BSO following the 2008 Tanglewood season—trumpet player Peter Chapman (lives in Bedford), after 24 years of service to the BSO; horn player Daniel Katzen, after 29 years of service, and principal trombone Ronald Barron (Newtonville), after 38 years of service. Two members of the orchestra retired during the course of the 2007-08 season—trombonist Norman Bolter (West Roxbury), who departed in January after 32 years of service, and cellist Jerome Patterson (Natick), who retired in December after 40 years of service. We thank them all for their dedication and many years of service to the BSO (163 years total) and to the musical community of Boston, and wish them well in all their future endeavors.

A member of the BSO trumpet section since July 1984, PETER CHAPMAN was named second trumpet of the BSO and assistant principal trumpet of the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1988. Born in Montreal, he received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston University and first performed with the BSO while still a student at Boston University in 1966. As a student he won the “BU Night at Pops” Concerto Competition and performed Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. Numerous Pops solo appearances followed, with Arthur Fiedler, Harry Ellis Dickson, and John Williams. A Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center for four summers beginning in 1964, Mr. Chapman was the first recipient of the TMC’s C.D. Jackson Master Award, and he was selected by Leonard Bernstein for the original production of Bernstein’s Mass, which opened the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Before joining the BSO, he was a member of the Boston Pops Orchestra and principal trumpet of the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. He has also been principal trumpet with the Opera Company of Boston, Boston Ballet, Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming, and Boston Musica Viva. Mr. Chapman currently teaches at the New England Conservatory.

Horn player DANIEL KATZEN leaves the BSO following the 2008 Tanglewood season to become Associate Professor of Horn at the University of Arizona School of Music in Tucson. He is perhaps best-known to BSO audiences as the practitioner of the Alphorn demonstrations at Tanglewood on Parade since 1984. Mr. Katzen joined the BSO as second horn on April 29, 1979, after playing 48 professional auditions across the United States (probably a record). He played his first BSO concert in the Pops’ fiftieth-anniversary celebration of Arthur Fiedler’s tenure as Conductor, a concert that was televised live nationwide. The following Tanglewood season concluded with a tour of the European summer festivals of Montreux, Lausanne, Lucerne, Salzburg, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin, the first of sixteen tours he made with the orchestra. Before moving to Boston, Mr. Katzen held the positions of fourth horn in the San Diego Symphony, second horn in the Grant Park Symphony, and second horn in the Phoenix Symphony. He has also played as extra and substitute horn in the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles, Rochester, and Munich Philharmonics, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra. In 2005 he was invited to perform with the Super World Orchestra in Japan.

Mr. Katzen’s musical education started early, when he picked out tunes on the piano as a small child, followed by piano and cello lessons before settling on the horn. Jazz bass, harpsichord, and harp also played peripheral roles in his studies. He graduated from high school with a diploma from the Eastman School Preparatory Department “with honors”; from undergraduate school at Indiana University School of Music “with distinction”; and received a master of music degree in horn performance from Northwestern University. A junior year abroad brought him to the Salzburg Hochschule für Musik. His teachers were Milan Yancich, Morris Secon, Michael Höltzel, Philip Farkas, Dale Clevenger, Peter Damm, and Fred Fox. On the faculties of Boston University and the New England Conservatory since 1980, he has taught more than 200 students in private and group studies. He helped develop the Brass Orchestral Repertoire Class, which he ran for a decade, and instituted the series of orchestral wind/brass sectional rehearsals in 1985. Fifty of his students currently work professionally on their instruments throughout the world. His series of Jordan Hall solo recitals have featured performances of his own transcriptions of Bach’s suites for unaccompanied cello; his final recital there, this Sunday night, March 16, will include the last of the six suites. Danny hopes not to be a stranger in Boston. “Instead of the academic ‘publish or perish’ dictum,” he reports, “at the U of A School of Music it’s ‘perform or perish.’ So I hope to be back in Boston before too long, taking part in local concerts.”

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, NORMAN BOLTER began his formal trombone studies at the age of nine with Ed VonHoff of the St. Paul Public School System. He later studied with Ronald Rickets and Steven Zellmer of the Minnesota Orchestra and John Swallow at New England Conservatory, and also includes former BSO principal bassoonist Sherman Walt as one of his teachers and artistic mentors. Prior to the BSO, Mr. Bolter was principal trombone with the Boston Ballet orchestra, Opera Company of Boston, and Springfield Symphony, and trombonist with the Cambridge Brass Quintet. A former Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, where he won the C.D. Jackson Award, he joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1975 at age 20, becoming the youngest member of the orchestra at that time. He is also principal trombone of the Boston Pops Orchestra and was a member of the Empire Brass Quintet, which won the prestigious Walter H. Naumberg Award in Chamber Music, the only brass ensemble ever to win that award.

Besides his recordings with the BSO, Boston Pops, and Empire Brass, Mr. Bolter can be heard as principal trombone on recordings with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, and as trombonist and conductor on four recordings of his own compositions—“Experiments in Music,” “Anew at Home,” “Occurrences,” and “In Living Continuance.” In addition to his numerous trombone solos, he performed the tenor horn solo on the BSO recording of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 and played euphonium on the Minnesota Orchestra recording of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.

Mr. Bolter has also won critical acclaim as a composer, both in the United States and abroad. In the past twelve years he has written more than 200 compositions not only for trombone, but for all types of brass, as well as for orchestra, wind ensemble, brass band, and mixed chamber ensembles of all kinds. His works have been commissioned by numerous organizations and individuals, and his compositions appear on recordings by trombonists Joseph Alessi, Ronald Barron, James Miller, and Douglas Yeo. A renowned teacher whose former students hold major positions in orchestras, chamber groups, and universities around the country and abroad, he serves on the faculties of the New England Conservatory and Longy School of Music. In addition, he is co-author, with his wife Dr. Carol Viera, of several papers and booklets including “Methods of Effective Practice,” “High Range Exercises,” “Metronome Meditation,” “It’s Not All in the Air,” and “Reading at the Speed of Sight.” Since retiring from the BSO, Norman continues to expand and deepen his playing, giving solo recitals, teaching, composing, writing, giving workshops about music as a living thing, and intensifying his spiritual practice.

BSO principal trombone RONALD BARRON joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1970, after two seasons as a member of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He was principal trombone of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1970 until 1983 and in 1975 was named principal trombone of the BSO. He studied primarily with Ernest Glover at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. In 1974, Mr. Barron shared the highest prize awarded for trombone at the Munich International Competition and appeared as soloist with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. He has been soloist on many occasions with the Boston Pops and with regional New England orchestras and bands, and has conducted master classes and performed recitals across the United States, Europe, and Japan. In addition to numerous recordings with the BSO and Boston Pops, he has recorded with the Canadian Brass, Empire Brass, and Summit Brass, and he has nine solo recordings—volumes I and II of “Le Trombone Français,” “Hindemith on Trombone,” “All American Trombone,” “American Showcase,” “In the Family,” “An Evening from the 18th Century,” and “The Return of the Alto” on the Boston Brass Series label; and “Cousins,” an American Band solo recording with cornetist Gerard Schwarz on Nonesuch, which was named a 1977 “Record of the Year” by Stereo Review.

Mr. Barron taught at Boston University for more than thirty years and has been a faculty member for the International Trombone Workshop, the Keystone Brass Institute, and the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute. He currently teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music and the Tanglewood Music Center. He participated in the Georg Solti Project at Carnegie Hall in 1994 and has served as a jury member at the international competitions of Munich and Toulon. He received the 2005 ITA Award from the International Trombone Association “in recognition of his distinguished career and in acknowledgement of his impact on the world of trombone performance,” and is currently on the ITA’s Board of Advisors. His retirement from the orchestra will give him time to work on the book he has been researching for three years. His research for Saint-Saëns, Stewart, and the BSO began when he came into possession of the original copy of Saint-Saëns’s Cavatine for tenor trombone and piano, Opus 144, dedicated to George W. Stewart, an original member of the BSO trombone section in 1881. The BSO is a big part of this story, which centers around the orchestra’s trip to the San Francisco World’s Fair in 1915. Being chairman of the Orchestra Committee and researching this book have brought him a deeper understanding of the BSO’s history and current status, as well as its role in the evolution of the symphony orchestra as a cultural institution in our society.

Beyond his music-based activities, Mr. Barron’s study of and affinity for wine have led to his recently being recognized a “Certified Specialist of Wine” by the American Society of Wine Educators (he hopes to become a “Certified Wine Educator”). For the past twenty-two Tanglewood seasons, he and his wife Ina have operated a B&B—“Echezeaux” (a recognized great name in wine)—just a few minutes from Tanglewood, in Richmond. Following his retirement from the orchestra, Ron and Ina will continue to welcome guests at Echezeaux, perhaps expanding their business into spring and fall. They also plan to remain at their Newton residence for the foreseeable future, staying in touch with everyone at the orchestra. Ron extends his thanks to those both on stage and off for a lifetime of memorable music.

Born in New York City, cellist JEROME PATTERSON studied at the Juilliard School and Hartt College of Music; his teachers were Luigi Silva, Aldo Parisot, and BSO principal cello Jules Eskin. In 1963 he was a fellowship student at the Tanglewood Music Center, where he was awarded the Piatigorsky Prize. Before joining the BSO in 1967, Mr. Patterson played with the symphony orchestras of New Haven, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Puerto Rico. Locally, in addition to his activities at Symphony Hall, he has performed with the Brockton Symphony, the Worcester Symphony under Joseph Silverstein, the Newton Symphony under Ronald Knudsen, the Wellesley Symphony, and the Framingham Symphony under Alfred Schneider.

Today's Rocket update.

The Fiber Art Center is closing.

Perhaps the most negative review ever.

Former colleague Michael Prager checks in on Jonathan Franzen's recent Grub Street talk.

Baritone Joseph Valone has won Boston Lyric Opera's Stephen Shrestinian Award for Excellence. "This award is presented annually to a member of BLO’s ensemble who has demonstrated exceptional artistic growth and shown great promise for continued professional achievement."

J.D. Salinger did not like "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

And the winners of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Concerto Competition...

- Sharon High School's Daisy Joo, a junior who plays violin and studies with Jin-Kyung Joen. To win, Joo performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major, first movement.

- Walnut Hill School's JeeHae Ahn, a sophomore pianist who studies with Wha Kyuung Byun. She performed the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3, first movement.

- Trumpeter Nathaniel Meyer (Belmont High School) and flutist Katherine Griffith (Weston High School) won second and third place.

- Honorable mentions: Pianist Mark Galinovsky (Newton South High School), flutist Sarah Shin (Walnut Hill School) violinist Hayato Ishibashi (Walnut Hill School), violinist Oren Ungerleider (Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School), cellist SuJin Lee (Newton South High School), cellist Tavi Ungerleider (Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School), and violinist Ji-Young Park (Walnut Hill School).

The Harvard University Art Museums are no more. Instead, meet the Harvard Art Museum.

As the Harvard Crimson notes, the museum is clearly hoping folks won't shorten the name, adapting HUAM into HAM.

"The new name, selected because it better expresses the institution’s mission, grows out of an initiative to further unify and integrate the museum’s collections and programs," a press release states. "The Harvard Art Museum will maintain the identity of its three museums, the Fogg Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, as well as its research centers, among them the Straus Center for Conservation."

“We have been operating as a single entity for over two decades, yet we have a name that does not connote unity,” said Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director. “Along with comprehensive academic and facilities planning, we also needed to evaluate how we could better present ourselves as a united organization with a common mission. Our new name and our new facilities will reflect an interdisciplinary, unified approach to research and teaching and will enable us to open our collections and our resources to more students, scholars, and visitors.”