An Israeli orchestra is set to perform a work by Adolf Hitler's favorite composer, Richard Wagner, in a taboo-breaking concert in Germany. The Israel Chamber Orchestra's concert in Wagner's hometown alongside the annual Bayreuth opera festival on Tuesday, July 26 will mark the first time an Israeli orchestra has played Wagner in Germany, Nicolaus Richter, the head of Bayreuth city's cultural affairs department, said Monday. The orchestra started rehearsing the Wagner piece, the Siegfrid Idyll, only upon their arrival in Germany Sunday due to the sensitivities in Israel. "They didn't rehearse it at home in order not to create any resistance," he said. "They rehearsed yesterday, they are doing it for all of today and tomorrow they'll be ready," Richter said. Music by composers banned by the Third Reich, including Gustav Mahler and Felix Mendelssohn, will also be played during the concert.
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=14150060

Works by Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and the contemporary Israeli composer Zvi Avni will be complementing Wagner’s music. The concert, scheduled for July 26 in Bayreuth’s Stadthalle (town hall), is part of „Lust auf Liszt“, a series of events celebrating the 200th birthday of Bayreuth’s famous son, Franz Liszt. http://english.getclassical.org/2011/07/21/the-israel-chamber-orchestra-in-bayreuth-%E2%80%93-a-conversation-with-principal-conductor-roberto-paternostro/

Q: Has the height of the pitcher's mound changed?
A: Not for 43 years. Its height helps keep the competitive balance between pitching and hitting. It was set at no higher than 15 inches in 1903 or 1904. After pitchers developed a statistical advantage over hitters, it was lowered to 10 inches after the 1968 season. historicbaseball.com. http://www.thecourier.com/Opinion/columns/2011/Jul/JU/ar_JU_072511.asp?d=072511,2011,Jul,25&c=c_13

According to a recent census, London planes represent 15% of the New York City's tree population and nearly 30% of its canopy. Despite its name, the London plane is actually a cross between the American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) and the Oriental plane of central Asia (Platanus orientalis), first propagated at the Oxford Botanic Garden about 1670. Though long known in New York, the tree was planted only sporadically prior to the 1930s. The London plane was planted in great numbers by King Umberto I after Unification in 1870. By 1900 it was the most common street tree in Rome, constituting 35% of the urban forest; the storied Pinus pinea made up only 1%. Respighi's "Pines of Rome" notwithstanding, the Italian capital is really a city of planes. It was via Rome that the plane came to have such universal presence in New York. The conduit was Michael Rapuano, a young landscape architect with Italian roots of his own. Son of Neapolitan immigrants, Rapuano studied landscape architecture at Cornell University and in 1927 won a coveted Rome Prize fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. He noted planes in his travels around Europe, and knew well the great trees shading Roman thoroughfares near the academy—on the Janiculum and Viale di Trastevere and along the Tiber. A latter-day Xerxes, Rapuano fell in love with the plane and carried his affections back to New York. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304314404576414091335186456.html

The producers of a Broadway musical about the 1960s all-girl Doo-wop group The Shirelles are accused in a suit joined by singer Dionne Warwick of pilfering the names and likenesses of the original members. Three of the four members -- surviving member Beverly Lee, who owns the trademark to "The Shirelles" name and the estates of Doris Coley Jackson and Addie Harris McFadden -- brought the suit April 26, 2011 in New York Supreme Court. The complaint targets "Baby It's You!" a play billed as the story of Florence Greenberg, a suburban housewife from New Jersey who discovered the all-girl group and created Scepter Records, according to the play's website. The four were high school friends from Passaic, N.J., when they formed the group in 1958. The fourth, Shirley Owens, was not part of the complaint. F ellow plaintiffs Warwick and singer Chuck Jackson were also signed to Scepter Records, the complaint says. They accuse Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures Inc., Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Broadway Baby LLC, of "cashing in on plaintiffs' stories and successes, while using plaintiffs' names, likenesses and biographical information without their consent and in violation of the law," the complaint says. Paul McGuire, a Warner Bros. spokesman, declined comment. The plaintiffs had been in discussions with Warner Bros., but they could not resolve their differences and took legal action, Warshavsky said. He said the timing of the suit on the eve of opening night was a coincidence. The bulk of the 11-page complaint touts the history of Warwick, Jackson and the quartet, "the first major female vocal group of the so-called 'rock-n-roll era,'" the suit says. The group is known for lyrics from the 1960s that include "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "Dedicated to the One I Love" and "Soldier Boy." They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. They accuse the defendants of violating the New York Civil Rights Law for using their likenesses for advertising and trade without the plaintiffs' written consent. They also allege unjust enrichment. The case is Beverly Lee et al, New York Supreme Court, No. 651100-2011. http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/New_York/News/2011/04_-_April/Shirelles,_Dionne_Warwick_sue_new_Broadway_show/ View complaint and information on the Shirelles' trademark at: http://www.lexisnexis.com/community/copyright-trademarklaw/blogs/musicindustrylaw/archive/2011/05/01/shirelles-sue-in-response-to-broadway-play-baby-it-s-you-play-allegedly-advertised-and-promoted-as-the-shirelles-musical-free-download.aspx

Books and other fetish objects by James Gleick I got a real thrill in December 1999 in the Reading Room of the Morgan Library in New York when the librarian, Sylvie Merian, brought me, after I had completed an application with a letter of reference and a photo ID, the first, oldest notebook of Isaac Newton. First I was required to study a microfilm version. There followed a certain amount of appropriate pomp. The notebook was lifted from a blue cloth drop-spine box and laid on a special padded stand. I was struck by how impossibly tiny it was — 58 leaves bound in vellum, just 2 3/4 inches wide, half the size I would have guessed from the enlarged microfilm images. There was his name, “Isacus Newton,” proudly inscribed by the 17-year-old with his quill, and the date, 1659. “He filled the pages with meticulous script, the letters and numerals often less than one-sixteenth of an inch high,” I wrote in my book “Isaac Newton” a few years later. “He began at both ends and worked toward the middle.” Apparently historians know the feeling well — the exhilaration that comes from handling the venerable original. It’s a contact high. In this time of digitization, it is said to be endangered. The Morgan Notebook of Isaac Newton is online now (thanks to the Newton Project at the University of Sussex). You can surf it at: http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/diplomatic/NATP00001
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opinion/sunday/17gleick.html?_r=1