Okay, boys and girls. If you have not, for some reason, seen the Anish Kapoor show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, head on over. It closes Sept. 7, meaning you've got a month.

For those counting, attendance at the ICA has been pretty strong during the Kapoor show. The museum reports having about 43,000 in the house since May 30, when the exhibit opened, which is slightly ahead of last year at the same time when Philip-Lorca Dicorcia was up and the ICA had only been open for seven months.

Another comparison: "The World as a Stage" show (Feb. 1 to April. 27) brought in a total attendance of 34,000.

The 14 large works on display in "Past, Present, Future" at the Institute of Contemporary Art include "Inwendig Volle Figur” (above). (Dave Morgan)

Sorry, Scarlett. David Kravitz is moving in on your man. The opera singer is part of a group of local musicians who will take the stage at Jordan Hall on Sept. 12 for "National Anthem," a concert designed to raise money for Barack Obama's campaign.

Tickets are available for minimum contributions to the Obama campaign of $100, $50, or $20. Patron seating is available for a $1,000 contribution. For more information visit www.ObamaConcert.com or call (617) 209-4303.

In its latest push for survival, the Citi Performing Arts Center has signed a deal with Madison Square Garden Entertainment to give the New York institution a Boston branch in which to spread its brand of big-stage entertainment.

Audiences can expect to see more rock concerts, the arrival of Cirque du Soleil's family production "Wintuk," and return runs of the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular," which replaced Boston Ballet's "Nutcracker" in 2004.

Continue reading...

In case you hadn't noticed, it is raining. So tonight’s free Boston Landmarks Orchestra concert has been moved from the Hatch Shell to the Church of the Covenant at 67 Newbury Street. Start time remains 7p.m.

Esther Nelson will take over as general and artistic director in September. She’s replacing longtime general director Janice Mancini Del Sesto but with more artistic duties included, hence the title change. BLO is still looking to replace departed music director Stephen Lord, and will relaunch its search after Nelson arrives in the fall. Nelson, 55, ran Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, NY for six years before leaving in 2002, and becoming a management consultant.

The full announcement...

Credit or complaints can be registered with the creator, Michael Monroe.

First off, I also have hundreds of promo CDs. Maybe more. The deal is this. When you write music reviews - and I don't do many anymore, but for years I wrote them for such places as Salon - the people at record company put you on lists. Then you keep getting free CDs. Even when you die. (I remember discs coming in for deceased writers when I was at the Boston Phoenix in the mid-90s.)

So what to do with the discs? I give some away. I turn some into coasters. But I never, ever sell them. See, that would be against the rules... not only those set by the record companies but also those enforced by my publication.

(Here's what happened when a film critic sold a bunch of DVDs.)

Still, I'm intrigued by this blog entry. It talks of the futility of record companies sending out unsolicited CDs and then claiming to hold all sorts of rights over them. This hits home to me because, every once in a while, I receive an unsolicited CD that is watermarked - i.e., given a digital imprint that is supposedly designed to trace it to me.

But what if I never wanted or asked for that CD. If I toss it in the trash and the janitor comes by and burns 4,398 copies of the new Celine Dion stinker, am I in some kind of trouble? I've always figured the answer is... maybe. So I either keep the watermarked discs or cut them up into teensy pieces.

What does all of this get at? I'm not sure. This story doesn't mean I'm heading down to Nuggets with a box of promos. But it does mean I perhaps won't worry so much when I'm handing out an unwanted CD to my mechanic.

Apparently, somebody has been putting signs on poles in Davis Square that quote poems from "As You Like It." We have been promised that they were not placed there by the Citi Center's marketing department.

Harry Connick won't be coming. And neither will "Bridagdoon," which was going to play a pre-Broadway engagement at the Colonial from Oct. 21 to Nov. 16. The musical, to be directed by Rob Ashford, has been delayed "due to the lack of an appropriate Broadway theatre in the Spring of 2009," a press release reads.

There's a new disc of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's work with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music. The music was recorded between 1992 and 1999, and features works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel.

The word out of Boston University...

Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is retiring after teaching and leading Boston University's graduate playwriting program for 26 years. Just a few of the people he's mentored: John Kuntz, Karen Zacarias, Russell Lees, Joyce Van Dyke, John Shea, Kate Snodgrass and Wesley Savick.

Two of his former students - Ronan Noone and Melinda Lopez - have joined the faculty of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.

The composer, who studied at Tanglewood and taught at Mannes College of Music and Boston University, died last week at his home in East Hampton.

Once again, if you weren't there, you will feel as if you should have been. Jeremy Eichler has a wonderful review and overview of the Carter extravaganza, and why it seemed to work so perfectly.

The Boston Phoenix critic has sent a response to the criticism of his role at the Tanglewood Music Center.

Given that so much relevant information I willingly supplied to the Exhibitionist blog was inexplicaly absent from the public post, I'm not surprised that there has been so much confusion and controversy, although the level of personal hostility surprised even me. At least, let me try to set the record straight:

First of all, I was paid only a very small (make that VERY small) token honorarium to cover my time and expenses driving back and forth from Boston to Tanglewood and working with six young composers who are studying with the composer-in-residence at the Tanglewood Music Center (the separate educational branch of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) this summer. The composer-in-residence, whom I had never met before and never reviewed, assigned these students to each write a musical setting for one of my poems. The idea was to have these students working on--and with--a single living poet. Since I am both a poet and creative writing teacher and someone knowledgeable about music, it was fortuitous that I was the poet chosen. It was a very good fit. I would spend a total of six days working with the six composers, six student singers, and six student pianists, going over with them their short settings of my poems. In fact, I've already spent two extra days with them with no further remuneration because they were so talented and the project was so productive and moving. Unlike what many people have assumed after reading the Exhibitionist, these settings of my poems are not going to be played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; there is no recording contract; and there are no residuals. I was not paid for the use of my poems.

I've known about this appointment since January. It was not a secret. I have been completely forthright about it. I disclosed it publicly myself, in a blog I was invited to write by The Best American Poetry, who thought it would be particularly interesting for other poets to read about this experience. None of this would have been public knowledge if I hadn't mentioned it myself. As for my favoring the BSO, I wonder if anyone responding to the blog has bothered to read my reviews of the Boston Symphony Orchestra during the last few months, let alone compared them to what I've written about the BSO in the past 30 years? I've always been honest in my reviews and have always said, sometimes indiscreetly, what I think. Anyone who reads my reviews knows this. And I will continue to say what I think as long as I write.

I'm surprised that some people think that artists shouldn't write criticism. Hasn't some of the most valuable criticism in the history of criticism been by other artists, poets, musicians, who may or may not have something personal at stake? Of course I try to be objective, but is "absolute objectivity" really possible under any circumstances? I'm not putting myself in the same league as Berlioz, Debussy, Eugenio Montale, or Virgil Thomson, but I think I'm at least in the same category. One blogger, a respected critic himself, mentions that I'm likely to give better reviews to the BSO because I will surely hope for another opportunity to work for that organization. I wonder what that opportunity--given that only one has come up in the 30-plus years of my reviewing them--might possibly be?

By the way, to the blogger who reported that I submitted my own work for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize, that is categorically untrue (although anyone is allowed to submit his or her own work). My work was nominated , as is most journalistic work, by the editors of the newspaper I write for. I would like to receive (though I don't expect) an apology for this complete fabrication.

It's difficult to sum up all my reactions to the Exhibitionist blog. Can this be thorough or serious reporting when readers are deprived of facts I unhesitatingly supplied and are misled by those omissions? Still, I can't believe that there is anything wrong with anyone, let alone a teacher and artist who also happens to be a critic, taking part in a worthy educational enterprise such as this one, a modest effort to further the education of a handful of young classical musicians. It's a sad state of affairs that anyone thinks this service to a new generation of composers and musicians compromises my standing as a critic.

A newspaper spells its own name wrong.

"Nice Work If You Can Get It,'' the Harry Connick, Jr., musical slated for a Boston run on the way to Broadway, has been pulled from the 2008 schedule.

Broadway Across America -- Boston president Drew Murphy sent a letter this week telling subscribers that the show, scheduled to open in December, has been "officially postponed" with no new date yet scheduled. Drawing from the George Gershwin songbook, the musical was set to reunite Connick with director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall, who directed him in a much-praised 2006 revival of "The Pajama Game" in New York.

The postponement came after Marshall dropped out of the project. Murphy, who said the organization would be in touch with subscribers when new Boston dates were scheduled, said other directors had expressed interest in overseeing the show. "It just takes time to work out the details,'' he said.

And we thought the Cowboy Junkies were wild...

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is readying "Dead Symphony No. 6," inspired by the music of the Grateful Dead and to be performed on what would have been Jerry's 66th birthday.

The performance will include a psychedelic light show along with the 12-movement piece, which was composed by Lee Johnson. Expect to see Jerry's second wife, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Adams at the gig, er, premiere. Oh, and one request: No 37-minute versions of "Dark Star."

KAL
Friday, September 19, 8pm
Somerville Theatre

AL-KINDÎ & THE WHIRLING DERVISHES OF DAMASCUS
Saturday, September 20, 8:30pm
Sanders Theatre

VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ
Saturday, September 27, 8pm
Somerville Theatre

LO CÒR DE LA PLANA
Friday, October 3, 8pm
Somerville Theatre

CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS
Saturday, October 4, 8pm
Somerville Theatre

LURA
Sunday, October 12, 8pm
BerkleePerformance Center

CELTIC TAP: An Evening with James Devine
Friday, October 17, 7:30pm; Saturday, October 18, 8pm; Sunday, October 19, 3pm
Institute of Contemporary Art

TOUMANI DIABATÉ
Saturday, November 1, 8pm
Somerville Theatre

PHILADANCO
Friday, November 14, 7:30pm; Saturday, November 15, 8pm; Sunday, November 16, 3pm
Institute of Contemporary Art

HUUN HUUR TU
Saturday, November 22, 8pm
Somerville Theatre

So should a music critic allow an institution he covers to set his poems to music – and pay his expenses? I say not, as does the Boston Globe’s ethics policy. The Boston Phoenix disagrees.

I raise this after reading these blog entries from Lloyd Schwartz, the alternative weekly’s music critic. In them, he mentions the “delightful invitation from the Boston Symphony Orchestra” to have his poems set to music by the Tanglewood Music Center’s composition fellows. Schwartz signed a contract with the BSO-run TMC, according to his blog ("The Tanglewood Music Center was actually paying me for my services"), and, in anticipation of his visit, noted that he would be staying for free at the Tanglewood guest house Seranak, the former home of legendary BSO music director Serge Koussevitzky. “I was even going to be reimbursed for my gas mileage!” Schwartz wrote.

Am I being too harsh in calling out Schwartz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1994 and is also an accomplished poet?

Peter Kadzis, the Boston Phoenix executive editor, clearly thinks so. In an e-mail response, he stated that Schwartz “works in the now waning tradition of artist/critic, not unlike Virgil Thomson. That the Tanglewood fellows would choose to set his poetry to music is a mark of distinction, not a compromise. Narrow minds, of course, might think otherwise.”

I guess that’s me. And, apparently, I found another “narrow mind” in Al Tompkins, a faculty member at The Poynter Institute whose specialties include ethics.

“Is democracy going to come undone because of this? Probably not,” he told me. “But it presents, if not a conflict, the appearance of conflict of interest. You can avoid this conflict by, at minimum, paying your own way or having the paper pay your way. That would be of some value.”

I related to Tompkins what Schwartz told me over the phone.

Namely, Schwartz said, “It seemed to me that it didn’t involve any kind of compromise on my part. I have always written what I think. I have written good things about the BSO and bad things about the BSO and have continued to do that after the person at the Tanglewood Music Center told me that they had selected [me].”

“Over time,” said Tompkins, “we do build our reputation. And no doubt, he has. However, as the old saying goes, you make your reputation over time and you lose it overnight. Why would you take the risk of harming a long-term reputation by having a relationship that some might perceive as being too cozy?”

The Boston Symphony has released an update on maestro James Levine's condition:

The statement reads, in part:

"Tom Levine, James Levine's brother, reported to Mr. Volpe that doctors "found the growth to be malignant, but it was very small and confined to the central area of his right kidney, which was then removed. Fortunately, because of early detection, it had not spread to the surrounding tissues, blood vessels, or lymph nodes. Doctors reported the surgery was completely curative and no further treatment is necessary." Tom Levine also stated that his brother was very relieved by the doctors' report, is in very good spirits recuperating at home, and looks forward to conducting the opening events of the 2008/2009 seasons of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera in September.