The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page E2

Today Page 2e Tuesday, March 5, 2002 The Sun Classical Music People And Places Diverse season planned for NSO Musk Many premieres, both world and U.S., are scheduled. By Tim Smith SUN MUSIC CRITIC No medals, but Sarah gets more 'gold' Olympic champion Sarah Hughes got the key to New York City and rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday as part of the extended celebration of her figure skating gold medal. In her hometown of Great Neck on Long Island, the 16-year-old is particularly big. "A lot of the stores have little pictures in their window," she said. A parade there in her honor is scheduled for next weekend.

But all good things must end. Tomorrow Hughes resumes classes at Great Neck North High School. Heche gives birth to boy It's a boy for Anne Heche and her husband, Coleman Laffoon. The 32-year-old actress gave birth to Homer Heche Laffoon over the weekend, said her publicist, Brad Cafarelli. The baby weighed 7 pounds.

Heche and Laffoon, 27, were married in September. The couple met while working on a documentary about Ellen DeGeneres' return to stand-up comedy. Heche's high-profile, three-year relationship with DeGeneres ended in August 2000. ASSOCIATED PRESS Life's a beach Tyler Davis, 3, exults in the surf at Lido Beach in Sarasota, Sunday. Clarinet Concerto (with Richard Stoltzman), Cindy McTee's Ballet for Orchestra, Jeffrey Mumford's amid the light of quickening memory, and five more encores commissioned by the John and June Hechinger Fund for New Orchestral Works.

Noted guest artists will perform with the NSO, including: violinists Pamela Frank, Midori and Hilary Hahn; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Yefim Bronfman and soprano Heidi Grant Murphy. Carmen Jones, based on Bizet's opera with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammer stein II, will be presented separately by the Kennedy Center. The cast is headed by Vanessa Williams and Harolyn Blackwell and will feature the Harlem Boys Choir along with the NSO. For information, call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kenne-dy-center.org. Cowboy tragedy Looking for something a little unusual? How about Oedipus Tex? No, not Oedpius Rex by Stravinsky.

Oedpius Tex by who else? P.D.Q. Bach. This cowboy version of the ancient Greek tragedy is just one of the attractions on the Baltimore Choral Arts Society's upcoming "Peter Schickele Meets P.D.Q. Bach" program. Schickele, of course, is the brilliant mastermind behind "the last and least" of J.S.

Bach's children. For decades, Schickele has delighted classical music fans with his parodies and send-ups under the alias P.D.Q. Bach. Other Schickele creations, including Songs from Shakespeare and Beatleset (arrangements of Beatles hits) will be on the concert at 8 p.m. March 16 at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Cathedral and Preston streets.

Tickets cost $15 to $50. Call 410-523-7070. A cappella program The choral contingent of the Concert Artists of Baltimore offered a wide sampling of a cappella repertoire Sunday in the super-reverberant Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. Conductor Edward Po-lochick is well known for generating a sensitive response from a chorus; he did so here. There were a few setbacks; in selections from Rachmaninoff Vespers, for example, intonation became increasingly diffuse.

But, for the most part, the choristers held firm, offering particularly beautiful performances of Elgar's There is Sweet Music, Stanford's The Bluebird, and four settings of Ave Maria that spanned five centuries. The National Symphony Orchestra's 2002-2003 season, unveiled yesterday by music director Leonard Slatkin, will include works by a dozen American composers, at least six world premieres, a couple of U.S. premieres, a cycle of Brahms concertos, a festival of film music, a new "Composer Portrait" program, and a new series of post-concert discussions. Oh yes, and a concert version of Carmen Jones, the Broadway and movie musical, conducted by Placido Domingo. Here are some of the highlights: The season will see the return of NSO laureate conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Prokofiev's death with a program containing the Classical Symphony, Symphony No.

5 and Sinfonia concertante for cello and orchestra. The latter, originally written for Rostropovich, will feature Xavier Phillips. Two much-touted guest conductors will spend extra time with the NSO in the Kennedy Center's Concert Hall. Osmo Vanska, newly appointed music director of the Minnesota Orchestra, is due in for three weeks, leading such novelties as Kalevi Aho's Symphony No. 9 for Trombone and Orchestra and Franz Xaver Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No.

4 (with Steven Hough). Roberto Abbado, who makes his Baltimore Symphony Orchestra debut this week, has two NSO weeks scheduled, conducting works by Mozart, Strauss, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Others on the podium will include: Vladimir Fedoseyev (conducting Tchaikovsky's under-appreciated Manfred Symphony) Emil de Cou (for the NSO's Labor Day concert at the U.S. Capitol); and Itzhak Perlman. Slatkin's distinctive programming stamp is all over the 2002-2003 lineup, especially with "Soundtracks: Music and Film." "This is not a pops thing by any means," says Slatkin, who will co-direct the festival with pre-eminent film composer John Williams.

"We will explore the history of how music has been put together with film from the beginning." Programs will focus on American and European movie music, Setzers splitting Twist: Baltimore Choral Arts Society's "Peter Schickele Meets P.D.Q. Bach" features a cowboy take on the Greek tragedy. and on Williams' film scores and concert works. As part of the festival, Fritz Lang's 1926 classic Metropolis will be screened while the NSO plays the premiere of new score for it compiled by John Goberman. Slatkin will conduct the four-week series that offers a survey of the Brahms concertos.

"We have all the right people with the right pieces," he says. Those people are Garrick Ohlsson (Piano Concerto No. 1), Andre Watts (Concerto No. 2), Frank Peter Zimmermann (Violin Concerto) Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Lynn Harrell (Double Concerto) Slaktin will introduce "Composer Portrait," a program concept planned for annual presentation. This initial one will be devoted to Tchaikovsky.

"The first half of these programs will be scripted, with musical examples providing a comprehensive look at the composer's life through their music," Slatkin says. "The second half will contain a major work with a little analysis." The conductor sees the NSO being involved in more such educational projects in the future as a way of making up for what is not being done in schools today. (Slatkin has just renewed his contract with the NSO a year early, taking him through 2006. That year will mark his 10th anniversary with the orchestra and the NSO's 75th.) World premieres in 2002-2003 include Einojuhani Rautavaara's sembled prose from three other books. She settled privately with one of the authors soon after publication.

Today's birthdays Actor James Noble is 80. Actor James B. Sikkingis 68. Actor Dean Stockwell is 66. Actor Fred Williamson is 64.

Actor Michael Warren is 56. Actor Eddie Hodges is 55. Singer Eddy Grant is 54. Violinist Eugene Fodor is 52. Rock musician Alan Clark (Dire Straits) is 50 Actress Marsha Warfield is 48.

Magician Penn Jillette is 47. Rock singer Craig Reid is 40. Rock singer Charlie Reid is 40. Rock musician John Frusciante (Red Hot Chili Peppers) is 32. Singer Rome is 32.

Actor Kevin Connolly is 28. Actress Jolene Blalock is 27. Model Niki Taylor is 27. Actor Jake Lloyd is 1 3. From staff and wire reports In a March 3 letter to board chairman John Carroll, the historian said "because I am so distracted by the media focus on my work, I do not feel capable of giving the considerable time needed to make the proper judgments." The 21 Pulitzers for journalism, the industry's highest honor, are awarded by Columbia University on the board's recommendation.

Pulitzer board administrator Seymour Topping said it was the first time any board member had withdrawn under such circumstances and no replacement will be named. Carroll, editor of the Los Angeles Times and former editor of The Sun, said, Goodwin's withdrawal would "allow this year's judging to proceed without distraction. It would also give the board time to weigh the issues and determine what action, if any, should be taken." Goodwin acknowledged in January that The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, released in 1987, contained passages that closely re Brian Setzer's wife of nearly eight years has filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences with the singer. Brian and Christine Setzer were married in September 1994, according to the documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. They have two daughters.

"It's a private, family matter," said Setzer's manager, Neils Schroeter, after Thursday's filing. The 42-year-old musician co-founded the rockabilly group the Stray Cats and heads the swing band the Brian Setzer Orchestra Goodwin bows out Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who recently admitted copying passages from other works in one of her best-selling books, has withdrawn from judging the Pulitzer Prizes next month. Koppel defends 'Nightline' Page 1e There's Ozzy, but no Harriet in sight pf! TV: The new MTV reality series mat) be edgy, but it's great television, unlike UPN's 'The Random Years' and 'As If to that analysis. "Over the past years, with the arrival and evolution of cable television and 24-hour news networks, our audience has diminished, our role has changed," Koppel writes. "But Nightline's viewership remains, to this day, four or five times that of the highest-rated programs on cable." As U.S.

troops execute a global battle against terrorism, Koppel writes, "when, in short, the regular and thoughtful analysis of national and foreign policy is more essential than ever, it is simply wrong to describe what my colleagues and I are doing as lacking relevance." Zenia Mucha, senior vice president of corporate communications for ABC, did not return messages left late last night seeking comment. While Letterman is said to feel slighted by CBS in recent years, the ABC's talks with Letterman, angrily told news staffers on Friday that Nightline made $13.1 million last year in profits. Letterman's program is said to have made tens of millions of dollars more by people inside the industry. In an article in Friday's Times detailing the network's pursuit of Letterman, an unnamed ABC official explained his network's thinking: Nightline lacked relevance in the age of cable news. While Koppel's half-hour show typically draws larger audiences than Letter-man's Late Show, the hour-long CBS talk show pulls in a slightly younger audience, generating far higher advertising income.

(Both lag behind NBC's Tonight Show.) Koppel takes strong exception By David Zurawik SUN TELEVISION CRITIC network remains anxious to renew him. That anxiety has been significantly heightened by the disclosure of the willingness of ABC and Disney, its corporate parent to dislodge one of television's most familiar and distinguished news anchors. While current staffers are limiting comment, Koppel's former colleagues say the network's actions undermine the news division's credibility. "Just the idea that this would be a choice between Koppel and Letterman is indicative of the erosion of the network news concept," said Fox News Channel Washington bureau chief Kim Hume, a former senior producer at ABC News. "The idea of an elite, gold-plated and world-wide newsgathering organization supplying news for a relatively small window of network time seems to make less and less sense to the entertainment-oriented media companies." "In the end, Disney's culture is entertainment," Hume said.

"It no doubt would see Letterman as a unique opportunity and Koppel as a semi-retired fading star." Right now, the notion of dropping Koppel's show would be as if CBS Radio had dropped broadcast news reports in March 1942, right after the outbreak of World War II, said former Nightline producer David Bohrman, now at CNN. In his op-ed piece today, Koppel grants that it is "perfectly understandable that Disney would jump at the opportunity to increase earnings by replacing Nightline with the more profitable David Letterman show." But he warns, "when Nightline is gone from the ABC schedule, and should the occasion arrive that our work might again seem relevant to the anonymous executive, it will not then be possible to reconstitute what is so easily destroyed." I swear, Ozzy is practically in a coma. But he's hilarious as this heavily tattooed, somnambulant, anti-TV dad. Wait until you hear him lecturing on the evils of cigarette smoking: "You don't even cop a buzz off it." And, yet, there's love here, and the family functions. More than functions, in fact.

The series not only subverts the family sitcom, it questions the very notions of American patriarchal success. Sure, Ozzy's almost in a coma, but his family loves him, and he owns a mansion in Beverly Hills. Can more traditional dads, in their business suits and corporate straitjack-ets, say the same? Maybe they should 5439 Pulaski Hwy. Route 40 4IP HONDA 410-575-7249 Family affair: Ozzy Osbourne, with his wife, Sharon (center), daughter Kelly and son Jack open up their home and lives to TV crews. JB We finance your Your Past! Even with past credit problems, you can ride TODAY! Just call our 24-Hour Credit Hotline! It's available 2 hours a day, 7 days aweeH The Osbournes, a new MTV reality series on the family life of rock star Ozzy Osbourne, is the most refreshing, funny and subversive 30 minutes of television I have seen this season.

Understand that The Osbournes isn't for everyone. Even though it is bleeped, a certain vulgar four-letter word is used more often and in more innovative ways than on even HBO's The Sopranos. Sex and drugs are discussed frankly with the two Osbourne teens who appear in the series, 17-year-old Kelly and 16-year-old Jack. But I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard at a new series, and part of the fun is the wicked way it explodes one of the most fundamental genres of American television: the family sitcom. This is Father Knows Best in a death mask, or The Cosby Show with Cliff Huxtable waggling his tongue suggestively at the camera.

The producers get it from the opening credits, with chirpy, family sitcom music playing as a camera offers the establishing shot of the Beverly Hill city limits sign. Then it's all sunshine, boulevards and palm trees until we come to the new home that the Osbournes are moving into. Among the first things the camera shows us are three boxes being unloaded from the moving van. The first says "pots pans." The second, "linens." And the third, "death heads." For those unfamiliar with Osbourne (and if you are, this series probably isn't for you) he is perhaps most widely known for biting the heads off bats on stage. Some call him "The Godfather of Heavy Metal." He's definitely in the godfather age range.

While neither he nor Sharon, his wife and manager, will give their ages, there is a reference in the pilot that puts Ozzy on the dark side of 50. Sharon, the first Osbourne we R-LOAN I 1 -800-CA 1 8 2 7-56 On A Stannah Stairlift Staiiiilih, Protect Your Home and All You Have Invested In It. meet, could almost pass for an upper-middle-class soccer mom, although she does use a certain word a lot with her children. She is definitely as close as it gets to sane in this household. As she is explaining how this is their 24th house, and that all the crucifixes they are having carved into the woodwork might make it impossible to sell, dad walks by carrying a rifle.

"Where do you want me to put my gun, Sharon?" Ozzy asks. "Under the bed?" "Wherever you want," she says as if talking to a child. Later in the episode, Ozzy finds a bayonet, and he and Jack try to attach it to the rifle. Talk about a father-son bonding moment. Ozzy can do almost nothing by himself.

Jack has to show him how to work the TV remote, while Sharon has to lead him by the hand from the studio's break room to the makeup room during a Tonight Show appearance. Ozzy is wearing a crocheted top for the Tonight Show gig that looks as if it had been stolen from Morti-cia Addams' closet. But the droopy, stringy sleeves get tangled every time Ozzy sits down backstage, and Sharon has to keep cutting him free with scissors. have tried eating bats instead of chasing that MBA. The Osbournes premieres at 10:30 tonight.

Shows debut on UPN UPN also premieres two new series tonight aimed at young audiences: The Random Years, a sitcom about three male roommates in their early 20s, and As If, an ensemble drama based on a British series about six young people aged 18 to 20. Neither shows much sign of intelligent or even interesting life. The most noteworthy aspect of The Random Years is the producers' attempt to create a Kramer character (the idiot savant played by Michael Richards on Seinfeld) for a new generation. Here he's called Wiseman (Joshua Acker-man), but he can't even get the idiot part right. As If mainly is about who's got the hots for whom among the six leading characters and their various acquaintances.

The most noteworthy aspect of this pilot: how poorly written and vapid it is by the standards of network drama. As if airs at 9 p.m., and The Random Years at 9:30 p.m. on WUTB (Channel 24). Gutter Helmet, the original gutter protection system, keeps debris from gathering in gutters, eliminating the hassles, the damage and the dangers caused by clogged gutters. The 1 Gutter Protection System in the World Rain goes in, Leaves stay out Four season, all-weather protection Installs over existing gutters Ends costly and dangerous gutter cleaning forever Best warranty in the Business! 20 Years Proven Reliability Make climbing stairs easy again with the world's top selling stairlift in your home.

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