Richmond Symphony Names Director

It's Steven Smith.

Here's the link to my review of last week's Masterworks performance conducted by Smith. If I had had just a few more inches, I would have also mentioned the incredible pianissimos of the timpanist in every piece.

I had a few minutes on Wednesday and was near the downtown library, so I stopped in and wandered among the 800s of Mr. Dewey. My eye fell on a collection of letters written by the American poet Anne Sexton, so I picked it up and read here and there. This is one thing I learned:

In the early 1970s, Sexton convinced the Boston Globe to send her to review an Ella Fitzgerald-Count Basie concert on Cape Cod. Not only did the newspaper pay for tickets and a hotel room for her and a friend, they gave her 1200 words for the review.

Do you know how much easier it is to write 1200 words than 430 words?!