Concert Hall

BluCan portable Bluetooth speaker by GinNii International Corp. $99.95 at giinii.com. Goes on sale in April The engineers at GiiNii keep coming up with slick new ways of listening to audio from our digital devices. A few weeks ago I wrote about AudioBulb, the company's odd but clever combination of a wireless loudspeaker and screw-in light bulb. Now comes a product that's impressed me even more. BluCan is a portable Bluetooth speaker that sounds about 10 times better than you'd ever expect.

BluCan portable Bluetooth speaker by GinNii International Corp. $99.95 at giinii.com. Goes on sale in April The engineers at GiiNii keep coming up with slick new ways of listening to audio from our digital devices. A few weeks ago I wrote about AudioBulb, the company's odd but clever combination of a wireless loudspeaker and screw-in light bulb. Now comes a product that's impressed me even more. BluCan is a portable Bluetooth speaker that sounds about 10 times better than you'd ever expect.

PERCHED IN THE second balcony of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's gleaming new performance space, museum director Anne Hawley confessed it was all something of a surprise to her. "Frankly," she said, "I never dreamed we would be building a concert hall. " Over a decade ago, a task force of conservators and museum leaders noted the long-term wear and damage to the Gardner caused by an annual 10,000 listeners filing through the galleries to attend concerts and other programs in the Tapestry Room.

The controversy has faded, and the gleaming new wing is almost ready for opening day. Anne Hawley, director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, sits in her new office on a recent afternoon, her window overlooking two artist-in-residence apartments. Nearby, workers furiously install finishing touches, from shelves to fresh sod, for an expansion more than a decade in the making. Hawley, wearing one of her trademark long scarves, is about to meet a pair of donors to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of the building, which opens to the public Jan. 19....

NEW YORK -- Milton Kaye, a pianist and arranger who introduced Dmitri Shostakovich's first concerto to a US audience, toured war zones with Jascha Heifetz and wrote theme music for "Concentration," has died. He was 97. Mr. Kaye died Monday at a hospital after battling pneumonia, said his wife of 60 years, actress Shannon Bolin. He was musical director for shows on all three major networks. His broadcasting credits included Arturo Toscanini's "NBC Symphony of the Air," "The Bell Telephone Hour," and the 1950s children's program "The Rootie Kazootie Show," for which...

NEW YORK -- Russell Johnson, 83, who designed the acclaimed acoustics for several of the world's leading concert and opera venues, including Jazz at Lincoln Center, died Tuesday in his sleep at his home in New York, according to his firm, Artec Consultations Inc. Mr. Johnson -- who worked for 15 years with the Cambridge, Mass., firm of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman -- founded Artek in 1970 and served as chairman until his death. He collaborated with architects around the world and was instrumental in shaping contemporary approaches to the design of concert halls,...

THE CONTROVERSY HAS faded, and the gleaming new wing is almost ready for opening day. Anne Hawley, director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, sits in her new office on a recent afternoon, her window overlooking two artist-in-residence apartments. Nearby, workers furiously install finishing touches, from shelves to fresh sod, for an expansion more than a decade in the making. Hawley, wearing one of her trademark long scarves, is about to meet a pair of donors to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of the building, which opens to the public Jan. 19. Designed by famed...

NEW YORK - Olga Bloom, the founder of a floating concert venue that has been part of New York City's music scene since 1977, died Thursday. She was 92. Her death was confirmed yesterday by Mark Peskanov, director of the floating chamber music program, Bargemusic. Ms. Bloom was 57 years old in 1976 when she gave up her career as a violinist and violist to create Bargemusic. She converted an old coffee barge into a concert hall moored in Brooklyn. She once said she wanted to create a place for musicians to perform in an environment that would nurture...

Emmanuel Music's 2008-09 season is the last to have been planned by its late founder, Craig Smith, and is dedicated to his memory. Smith was not a man to do things halfway; comprehensiveness was his mantra. So it comes as little surprise that he would have programmed all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos for Thursday's opening-night concert. This might sound like a tired idea for a season opener until you realize that the Brandenburgs, once a staple of concert life and radio programming, have gone mostly AWOL over the last several years.

Opera Boston's terrific, ingeniously entertaining new production of George Frideric Handel's "Semele" is a reminder that modern sitcoms are pale retreads of their mythical Greek and Roman forbears. A reluctant bride is a comic staple. The same bride having an affair with Jupiter, king of the gods? Now that's a special guest star. Semele is the bride, busy stalling a betrothal arranged by her father Cadmus when Jupiter carries her off: consternation ensues. Director Sam Helfrich - updating the action to the golden age of formulaic...

THE CONTROVERSY HAS faded, and the gleaming new wing is almost ready for opening day. Anne Hawley, director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, sits in her new office on a recent afternoon, her window overlooking two artist-in-residence apartments. Nearby, workers furiously install finishing touches, from shelves to fresh sod, for an expansion more than a decade in the making. Hawley, wearing one of her trademark long scarves, is about to meet a pair of donors to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of the building, which opens to the public Jan. 19. Designed by famed architect Renzo...

PERCHED IN THE second balcony of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum's gleaming new performance space, museum director Anne Hawley confessed it was all something of a surprise to her. "Frankly," she said, "I never dreamed we would be building a concert hall. " Over a decade ago, a task force of conservators and museum leaders noted the long-term wear and damage to the Gardner caused by an annual 10,000 listeners filing through the galleries to attend concerts and other programs in the Tapestry Room.

NEW YORK - Olga Bloom, the founder of a floating concert venue that has been part of New York City's music scene since 1977, died Thursday. She was 92. Her death was confirmed yesterday by Mark Peskanov, director of the floating chamber music program, Bargemusic. Ms. Bloom was 57 years old in 1976 when she gave up her career as a violinist and violist to create Bargemusic. She converted an old coffee barge into a concert hall moored in Brooklyn. She once said she wanted to create a place for musicians to perform in an environment that would nurture...

ROCKPORT - Early on a recent weekend evening, pedestrians filled the sidewalks downtown, the area of restaurants and small stores on Main Street, Dock Square, and Bearskin Neck. Mark and Virginia Meyer of Lowell were there to watch a show at the 330-seat Shalin Liu Performance Center at 37 Main St., a state-of-the-art hall that books world-class musicians. The couple visited in June and learned there were tickets available for a mid-July show in the popular Rockport Chamber Music Festival.

Emmanuel Music's 2008-09 season is the last to have been planned by its late founder, Craig Smith, and is dedicated to his memory. Smith was not a man to do things halfway; comprehensiveness was his mantra. So it comes as little surprise that he would have programmed all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos for Thursday's opening-night concert. This might sound like a tired idea for a season opener until you realize that the Brandenburgs, once a staple of concert life and radio programming, have gone mostly AWOL over the last several years.

Opera Boston's terrific, ingeniously entertaining new production of George Frideric Handel's "Semele" is a reminder that modern sitcoms are pale retreads of their mythical Greek and Roman forbears. A reluctant bride is a comic staple. The same bride having an affair with Jupiter, king of the gods? Now that's a special guest star. Semele is the bride, busy stalling a betrothal arranged by her father Cadmus when Jupiter carries her off: consternation ensues. Director Sam Helfrich - updating the action to the golden age of formulaic...

The controversy has faded, and the gleaming new wing is almost ready for opening day. Anne Hawley, director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, sits in her new office on a recent afternoon, her window overlooking two artist-in-residence apartments. Nearby, workers furiously install finishing touches, from shelves to fresh sod, for an expansion more than a decade in the making. Hawley, wearing one of her trademark long scarves, is about to meet a pair of donors to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of the building, which opens to the public Jan. 19....

ROCKPORT - Early on a recent weekend evening, pedestrians filled the sidewalks downtown, the area of restaurants and small stores on Main Street, Dock Square, and Bearskin Neck. Mark and Virginia Meyer of Lowell were there to watch a show at the 330-seat Shalin Liu Performance Center at 37 Main St., a state-of-the-art hall that books world-class musicians. The couple visited in June and learned there were tickets available for a mid-July show in the popular Rockport Chamber Music Festival.

NEW YORK -- Russell Johnson, 83, who designed the acclaimed acoustics for several of the world's leading concert and opera venues, including Jazz at Lincoln Center, died Tuesday in his sleep at his home in New York, according to his firm, Artec Consultations Inc. Mr. Johnson -- who worked for 15 years with the Cambridge, Mass., firm of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman -- founded Artek in 1970 and served as chairman until his death. He collaborated with architects around the world and was instrumental in shaping contemporary approaches to the design of concert halls, opera houses,...

NEW YORK -- Milton Kaye, a pianist and arranger who introduced Dmitri Shostakovich's first concerto to a US audience, toured war zones with Jascha Heifetz and wrote theme music for "Concentration," has died. He was 97. Mr. Kaye died Monday at a hospital after battling pneumonia, said his wife of 60 years, actress Shannon Bolin. He was musical director for shows on all three major networks. His broadcasting credits included Arturo Toscanini's "NBC Symphony of the Air," "The Bell Telephone Hour," and the 1950s children's program "The Rootie Kazootie...