Exciting breaking news from the Oakland Symphony: Kedrick Armstrong will be the orchestra's new music director.

RTWT sfchronicle.com/entertainment/…

I hear you, granny. And tonight, in your honor, me and my lefty friends are gonna break into the Smithsonian and cut Melania Trump's inauguration gown into dust rags. But as we will be praying devoutly the whole time our government will just have to abide.

Today in Puzzling History - On this date in 1968, musical theater giant and puzzle fanatic Stephen Sondheim published his first cryptic crossword in New York magazine. He'd contribute 41 more cryptics to New York Magazine, helping to popularize the tricksy British crossword format stateside

Mission Impossible.. 😅

'There must be plenty of ambitious hotshots who can look at the shambles the SF Symphony now finds itself in and think, 'I alone can fix this!''

For SFChronicle Datebook, still more thoughts on SFS/Salonen, with a guest appearance from Emily E Hogstad

sfchronicle.com/entertainment/…

'...slick banter or silken monologue that makes the world seem all the grislier precisely because it refuses to be horrified by itself.'

In one virtuosic phrase, Lily Janiak conjures up the style of playwright/filmmaker Martin McDonagh.

datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/hangme…

The Evening Review, East Liverpool, Ohio, August 8, 1930

'Remember: an American music director is only a conductor in his spare time.'

Please *do* read and enjoy this essay about the Music Director Follies. You won't regret it.

Well this guy just experienced Alvin Ailey's 'Revelations' for the first time in his young life.

I'll give a holler when I come back to earth. Don't wait up.

More news of the day: M. Tilson Thomas signs on with SFCM as a conducting mentor, while Pentatone prepares to issue a recording compendium of his compositions.

Full story SFChronicle Datebook: sfchronicle.com/entertainment/…

It's official: Klaus Mäkelä to be the next music director of Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Hannah Edgar with the full story: chicagotribune.com/2024/04/02/cso…

listen

Thank you Peter Hartlaub

Star Tribune, Minneapolis, September 29, 1906

'it was a matter of wishful thinking combined with a faith in Salonen’s ability to galvanize Silicon Valley donors who have so far been largely immune to the lure of cultural giving' In other words, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

'The San Francisco Symphony, which just a few years ago was the envy of the musical world for hiring the one conductor everyone wanted and no one could quite pin down, is now an also-ran.'

For SFChronicle Datebook, some grim reflections on Imbroglio-by-the-Bay sfchronicle.com/entertainment/…

I once told a local author whose work I liked that I was looking forward to reading his new one, but I was waiting for the paperback. He got very snotty about it and stomped off.

I was thrilled when the book was roundly panned, and I never bought or read anything of his again.

NO CHEATING your last saved celebrity picture is your therapist, who is it?

oh indeed

.Lily Janiak would have us believe that theater is *not* a competition, but I think she should show her work. 😆

Seriously, feast on this lively, welcoming snapshot of NY theater in all its multifarious greatness. sfchronicle.com/entertainment/…

More on Esa-Pekka Salonen! My review for SFChronicle Datebook of this afternoon's all-Sibelius program with SF Symphony: sfchronicle.com/entertainment/…