Sir Edward Downes, one of Britain’s most distinguished orchestra conductors, flew to Switzerland last week with his terminally-ill wife and joined her in drinking a lethal cocktail of barbiturates provided by an assisted-suicide clinic.  He was not ill. I wish I had that kind of courage.

Summertime in the Steel City brings forth some pretty damn good concerts from the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, one of the best new music ensembles in the country, every year and this year isn’t any different. This summer PNME will be performing over twenty new works, including two commissioned world premieres by Houston’s Pierre Jalbert and Chicago’s Stacy Garrop, over the next four weekends under the direction of their executive artistic director, Kevin Noe. They had their first concert last night, but you can still catch them this evening at the City Theatre (1300 Bingham St.) for an 8pm concert,

Almost everyone on the web has seen this by now but if you haven’t, take a look.  It’s a classic example of don’t-get-mad-get-even. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo[/youtube]

We like to think that we live in the light, or as the current phrase goes — “it’s all good ” — when in reality everything really seems to happen in the dark where angels are wrestled with. This came forcibly to mind when I caught the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra’s Restless Dreams concert on the June 13th at San Francisco’s Old First Church. The program — 8 pieces by 8 composers–also bore out music director Mark Alburger’s from the stage quip that it was Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony in reverse — instruments were added instead of subtracted as it