James Levine, music director of both the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has withdrawn from the rest of the summer Tanglewood Festival in order to have a kidney removed. Here’s the press release:

BSO MUSIC DIRECTOR JAMES LEVINE…

It’s a boy for St. Louis Symphony Orchestra president Fred Bronstein and his wife, Liz: two weeks ago, they adopted a Nevada-born, ethnic-Chinese baby who now bears the bigger-than-he-is name of Max Russell Jing-qi Bronstein.

The infant Max, now a…

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is accepting entries for its third annual Elaine Lebenbom Memorial Competition for Women Composers.

The international competition offers a $10,000 prize and a chance for the winner to have her work given its premiere as a…

The Sacramento-based McClatchy chain has fired two classical music critics in recent weeks, apparently specifically targeted in the chain’s cutbacks. Paul Horsley of the Kansas City Star and Lawrence Johnson of the Miami Herald were both in cities with burgeoning…

Nine months after PR director Jeff Trammel left (nine months in which Dianne Darwin, assistant first to presdient Randy Adams and then to Fred Bronstein, filled in heroically) the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra has a new PR director. He has…

“So who won, anyway?” you ask. Here’s the list:

2007 Houston Symphony Ima Hogg Young Artist Competition Winners

LASZLO MEZO-ARRUDA, CELLO
First Prize: $5,000 Grace Woodson Memorial Award

Laszlo Mezo-Arruda will perform the Lalo Cello Concerto in D minor at…

As of Sunday afternoon’s concert, there’s one plus and one minus on the safety front at Powell Symphony Hall.

The good: The Dress Circle boxes now have standards to aid in supporting patrons as they make their way up or…

Just in: a report that St. Louis Symphony Orchestra assistant principal horn Larry Strieby is giving up that post.

He’s not leaving the orchestra, but he will give up the responsibilities of assistant principal for the job of utility horn.…

DENVER - It’s like Old Home Week in Colorado this week, as a reported 3,500 arts administrators and others from assorted arts groups - the League of American Orchestras, Opera America, Chorus America, theater and dance groups and (oh, yes)…

HOUSTON – The 2008 version of the Ima Hogg Young Artist Competition ended Saturday night with a long, four-concerto program – and some surprises for the judges.

On Thursday, we’d chosen four finalists out of a field of nine semifinalists.…