It's KBAQ's "This week in classical music" -- an update on what's happening in the classical music world... I'm Randy Kinkel.

Peter Oundjian will stay on for five more years as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Since Oundjian took over as MD in September, 2004, the orchestra's attendance and finances have improved greatly. Ounjian has also helped create three "festivals" in the symphony season, One devoted to Mozart, another to "New Creations" and another to Russian-american composers.

The New York Philharmonic is now offering entire live concerts through itunes, along with five ringtones featuring Mozart Symphonies, with more to follow. The Philharmonic's Executive Director Zarin Mehta said, "we were at the top of the itunes chart-along with Madonna". The orchestra also plans to expand its global reach with trips to China and Europe next season.

David Cronenberg's 1986 horror film "The Fly", about a scientist who mutates into a human-fly hybrid, will be made into an opera next year. The opera, to be directed by David Cronenberg awith music by Howard Shore and libretto by David Henry Hwang, will have it's world premiere in Paris in july of 2008 and then get a Los Angeles premiere in September. Says Hwang, "I thought it would be fun to do an opera based on The Fly, focusing more on the Kafkaesque, metaphysical, transformative themes than in the movie."

For more information on these and other items and events, go to the KBAQ website at KBAQ.org... be listening every week at this time for another update, and join me at noon every weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I'm Randy Kinkel, for KBAQ's "This week in Classical Music" on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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February 18th, 2007 by Randy Kinkel courtesy of KBAQ.

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Title: February 18th, 2007
Author: Randy Kinkel
Publisher: KBAQ 89.5 FM
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