Hot Air at the Conservatory: the Conservatory hosted on Sunday its second Hot Air festival, dedicated to the music of the last 50 years. The whole thing lasted from 2pm to 10pm, and had multiple concurrent performances, so we did not catch it all. Also: Superbowl, for which a live streaming was projected on a big screen in a basement room. The conservatory must have forgotten to pay its cable bill, the game was broadcast from bootlegged internet streams that kept being terminated for copyright violations. That is, until they found a stable and oddly appropriate German broadcast. But what glimpses we got of the performances in between quarters and during time-outs was darn impressive. more ›

A quote about cellist Alisa Weilerstein: "She's young, accomplished, whip-smart and attractive, so why don't we hate her?" To make it even more difficult to say anything bad about her, just after we chatted with her this past October, she participated in an anti-prop 8 fund raiser in San Francisco. That did not turn out so well, but thanks for trying, Alisa! We also talked to her before she came out of the diabetic closet and announced a partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She's quite juvenile herself, being only twenty-six, and having been on stage since the age of four. So we won't have the goods on that diabetes gig, but Joshua Kosman does, and if you're looking for a role model for the fight against this disease, she's your girl. more ›