Organist

NEW YORK -- Eddie Layton, the Yankee Stadium organist and ballpark fixture for 37 years, died Sunday after a brief illness. He was 79. Mr. Layton joined the team in 1967, when the club began using organ music at Yankee Stadium, and played until his retirement after the 2003 season. Tucked away in a booth on the press-box level, Mr. Layton entertained fans for decades, often by hitting just a few notes. He would reward outstanding plays with a brief rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and would sound a short trill after high-and-inside pitches.

Families — nuclear, blended, created, dysfunctional — have long provided movies with red meat for both drama and comedy. The film series Family Matters, running Thursday through next Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, offers four very different movies that examine family dynamics and behavior. Following each film, panelists will lead an audience discussion about issues represented in the film. The Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology has collaborated with the MFA on the series, which opens Thursday with "The Squid and the Whale," Noah Baumbach's story of two brothers dealing...

Families — nuclear, blended, created, dysfunctional — have long provided movies with red meat for both drama and comedy. The film series Family Matters, running Thursday through next Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, offers four very different movies that examine family dynamics and behavior. Following each film, panelists will lead an audience discussion about issues represented in the film. The Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology has collaborated with the MFA on the series, which opens Thursday with "The Squid and the Whale," Noah Baumbach's story of two brothers dealing...

Organist Robert Barney will present a program including Edward Elgar's "Vesper Voluntaries," a set of eleven short pieces written in 1890, and a sonata by C.P.E. Bach, the best-known of J.S. Bach's musical children, on Tuesday Aug. 16 at 4 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 81 Elm St., Concord. Admission is free. Tea and light refreshments will follow the performance. For more information, call 978-369-3715 or go to www.trinityconcord.org . -Nancy Shohet West

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Dashing in the sun, through oaks and Spanish moss. Sleigh riding's no fun, when there's no snow to cross. Could "Jingle Bells" really be a song of the South? It's not hard to see why balmy Savannah has a tough time selling the Christmas carol as a native creation. Or why the claim makes folks in Medford, Mass. -- hometown of the song's composer -- cry humbug. This much is known: James Pierpont was the organist at Savannah's Unitarian Universalist Church in 1857 when he copyrighted the song "One Horse Open Sleigh," a...

Organist Robert Barney will present a program including Edward Elgar's "Vesper Voluntaries," a set of eleven short pieces written in 1890, and a sonata by C.P.E. Bach, the best-known of J.S. Bach's musical children, on Tuesday Aug. 16 at 4 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 81 Elm St., Concord. Admission is free. Tea and light refreshments will follow the performance. For more information, call 978-369-3715 or go to www.trinityconcord.org . -Nancy Shohet West

"Beauty on a budget" is not a phrase one expects to hear from the mouth of Malcolm Rogers, since 1994 the director of the Museum of Fine Arts. With a successful $504 million capital campaign under his belt, Rogers is regarded by many as a fund-raising genius, and over the past few years he has used his Midas touch to transform the museum almost beyond recognition. In November 2010, the MFA opened a massive new wing dedicated to the art of the Americas and a new wing for contemporary art, along with various new or improved public amenities.

Best-selling author Dan Brown made a rare public appearance in New Hampshire on Friday, saying very little about his next novel other than he's well into the writing process. "The Da Vinci Code" author, who grew up in New Hampshire, spoke at a benefit for The Music Hall's "Writers on a New England Stage" series in Portsmouth. Brown is working on a new book that again features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon as protagonist. In addition to "The Da Vinci Code," Langdon's appeared in "Angels and Demons" and "The Lost Symbol.

It may seem like music critics are always championing the works of composers heard by too few, but this week we have a special case: a composer whose music never existed in the first place. I'm speaking, naturally, of Vinteuil, the fictional composer whose creations haunt the pages of Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time. " Why take the trouble for an imaginary composer? Proust was not a highly trained musician but he was surely one of the most sensitive listeners to ever wield a pen, a writer who waxes rhapsodic, as only he could, about the elemental powers of music.

This was a championship for a Lost Generation of Boston Celtics fans. These are people for whom Bill Russell, the greatest winner in American team sports, and Bob Cousy, the legendary "Houdini of the Hardwood," are like figures out of King Arthur's tales. These are people for whom John Havlicek, basketball's consummate 'sixth man," and Dave Cowens, the mercurial redheaded center, are as personally relevant as comic book characters. These are people for whom even the great Larry Bird is just some guy wearing short-shorts who pops up occasionally on ESPN...

NEW YORK -- Eddie Layton, the Yankee Stadium organist and ballpark fixture for 37 years, died Sunday after a brief illness. He was 79. Mr. Layton joined the team in 1967, when the club began using organ music at Yankee Stadium, and played until his retirement after the 2003 season. Tucked away in a booth on the press-box level, Mr. Layton entertained fans for decades, often by hitting just a few notes. He would reward outstanding plays with a brief rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and would sound a short trill after high-and-inside pitches.

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Dashing in the sun, through oaks and Spanish moss. Sleigh riding's no fun, when there's no snow to cross. Could "Jingle Bells" really be a song of the South? It's not hard to see why balmy Savannah has a tough time selling the Christmas carol as a native creation. Or why the claim makes folks in Medford, Mass. -- hometown of the song's composer -- cry humbug. This much is known: James Pierpont was the organist at Savannah's Unitarian Universalist Church in 1857 when he copyrighted the song "One Horse Open...

Courtly manners that could fit snugly in the Financial District made some think Caldwell Titcomb was to the Brahmin born. Not so. He was a son of Augusta, Maine, and instead of banks and boardrooms, he traveled the world of theaters, classrooms, and concert halls. At the end of his career, he was president of the Boston Theater Critics Association, wrote theater criticism for the Bay State Banner and other venues, and was a professor emeritus who taught the craft of criticism at Brandeis University.

Methuen Memorial Music Hall 192 Broadway (Route 28), Methuen 978-685-0693; www.mmmh.org Summer recital s: Series of organ recitals ends Wednesday at 8 p.m. with Jonathan Schakel of Charlottesville, Va. Admission $10, children under age 12 $5. Special concerts: Sept. 17, 3 p.m., Sunday at the Music Hall with organist Chandler Noyes and soprano Karen Bandhauer ($10, $3); Oct. 20, 8 p.m, Fall Scholarship Fund Organ Recital with Philip Scriven ($10, $5)