Manuel Brug, a journalist with Germany's Die Welt, visited Cincinnati in March in advance of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra's visit to Germany as part of its 2008 European tour (now underway).  Here are his observations about the city, the CSO and music director Paavo Järvi as published in Die Welt April 4. English translation by Mary Ellyn and John Hutton.
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Main Building, Tartu University, Tartu, Estonia, where students placed Estonia's blue-black-white striped flag during its War of Independence (1918-20) (photos by Mary Ellyn Hutton)

The Republic of Estonia is 90 years old in 2008. Elam Pitkjaan, president of the Estonian Heritage Association of Cincinnati, delivered this address at a birthday lunch held by the association on the country's 90th birthday Feb. 24 in Florence, Kentucky.
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Music in Cincinnati received a beautiful letter from Greenup County, Kentucky resident Vera Virgin, who accompanied her music teacher to Cincinnati in the 1930s to hear the great violinist Fritz Kreisler perform at Music Hall.  Vera, an accomplished pianist who still plays for church services at Oldtown Church of Christ in Oldtown, Kentucky, was a teacher and school administrator in the Greenup County schools for 42 years.
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An eloquent tribute to arts patroness Patricia Corbett from Cincinnati Opera general director Patricia K. Beggs. 

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Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist Stacey Woolley offered a prescription for Cincinnati's over-sized Music Hall during the orchestra's tour of Southern California in April, 2007.   - [Read more]

Good things do happen on Friday the 13th.  One of them was Black Violin, featured on "The Mayor's 801 Plum Concert” held in Cincinnati city council chambers at City Hall in April.
The African-American duo – violinist "Kev Marcus” (Kevin Marcus Sylvester) and violist "Wil-B” (Wilner Baptiste) brought a new perspective to the municipal arena, not by beating city hall, but by bringing a beat to it.
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Kommentaar: Üks palve ja tungiv soovitus.  "An appeal and an urgent suggestion."  A guest column written in support of the David Oistrakh Festival in Pärnu, Estonia (first published in Pärnu Postimees Dec. 9, 2005).

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