San Francisco Classical Voice

On November 12-14, David Amado, 37, music director of the Delaware Symphony, will be on the Santa Rosa podium as the next candidate to appear during the Symphony's "Choice Season." Amado will conduct works by Toru Takemitsu, Sibelius, and will be joined by soloist Navah Perlman in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2. For information, visit www.santarosasymphony.com.

Scheduled to appear in subsequent concerts are Michael Güttler, 37, of Munich and St. Petersburg; Steven Smith, 44, assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra; and Bruno Ferrandis, 44, guest conductor with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Also in the running, two conductors from the last season: Joana Carneiro, 28, from Portugal, and Christoph Campestrini, 37, from Austria.

In an unusual gesture, the Symphony's search committee is inviting feedback from audiences, promising to review survey sheets from listeners before making a choice. It's strange that the statement underlying the call for "audience participation" hasn't motivated other music organizations to do likewise. Printed above the survey form it says: "Your attendance and your participation are critical to our success."

A popularity contest alone is obviously not enough to make the selection, but how much a conductor appeals to the audience — not just to the board and the players — is a factor. The survey includes questions about how "engaging and connected with the audience" the conductor is, how he or she appeared to have "related to the orchestra" and was "enthusiastic about the music," and if the respondent would go to another concert directed by the conductor being evaluated.

National Security and the Talich Quartet

Prague's Talich Quartet has just canceled its scheduled appearance at UC Santa Cruz, being unable to get a visa in time. This is just the latest case of artists running afoul of glacial U.S. government procedures aimed at protecting the country from terrorist infiltration. Luckily for UCSC's Arts & Lectures, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, in residence at Stanford University, was available to appear at the October 14 concert. See www.artslectures.ucsc.edu.

This is the second such episode in the young season. The Santa Cruz season was to open with the Asturian folk group Llan de Cubel last month, but no visa was forthcoming.

From Fez with Love

The sublime experience of the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music (www.sfcv.org) is now fully alive on screen, in San Francisco film maker Stephen Olsson's documentary, Sound of the Soul, to be shown in the Mill Valley Film Festival (www.mvff.com), on October 13, before its commercial release.

It's heartening, especially in today's world of strife, to revisit the city (Fès in French, Fez in English), steeped in an ancient tradition of tolerance, where Muslim, Jewish and Christian residents have lived side by side for centuries under benign Sufi regimes. And then there is the music festival, with generous examples of early Christian music from France, North African Berber women, a Portuguese Fado singer, musicians from Afghanistan, Russia, Ireland, England and, of course, Moroccan Sufis. All this in and around Al Qaraouine University, the world's oldest, founded in 970 A.D.

In the best tradition of selfless concert films, Sound of the Soul is of, about, and for the music, albeit in its "exotically" picturesque setting (shown in great detail), featuring — among others — Afghanistan's Faridah Mahwash and the Kabul Ensemble, Francoise Atlan singing Ladino and Sephardic songs, France's Venance Fortunat, the Sirine Choir from Russia, the Kudsi Erguner Ensemble of Turkey, Ghana's Madjoulin, Morocco's Tariqua Harraquia and Samaa Sahraoui, Mauritania's Dimmi Mint Abba, and New York's The McCollough Sons of Thunder.

Met Broadcasts: the Little Station That Could, and Does

Even among college stations, the University of San Francisco's KUSF-FM is a small one. It has a staff of four (assisted by a perhaps over-enthusiastically estimated volunteer corps of 300), with a broadcasting power of 3,000 watts (compare that with the commercial biggies and their 50,000 watts), and generally thwarted by the city's terrain. And yet, KUSF pushes on, providing the area's only FM broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, the new season beginning on Dec. 17. For the station schedule, see www.kusf.org; for Met broadcast information: www.operainfo.org.

In addition to the Saturday Met broadcasts, KUSF is also featuring (year-round) a Sunday night "World of Opera" program, from National Public Radio, hosted by Lisa Simeone. The programs include broadcasts from various U.S. and European companies, as well as several world and U.S. premieres. Upcoming: Samson and Dalila, from the Washington National Opera, October 16; Madama Butterfly, from Houston, October 23. For information: www.npr.org.

`Inner Thoughts' from The Artist Formerly Known as Kennedy

Violinist Nigel Kennedy, who went by his last name only for a while (not quite as complicated as "Puff Daddy" to "P. Diddy" to "Diddy" or Prince substituting a symbol for his name), is now making news by restructuring music to create "Inner Thoughts." That is the name of a new EMI CD, which "has broken centuries of tradition by stripping landmark concertos of their outer movements," according to the recording company. The result: "a unique hour of haunting, slow, inner movements." Perhaps adding movements stripped by KDFC-FM from the fragmented symphonies it broadcasts to the CD could re-create music as a whole. See www.crotchet.co.uk.

Down-Under Opera May Go Under

Opera Australia, a coalition of regional companies, is unable to plan its next season because the government of New South Wales will not make a promised contribution, expected to ease the organization's operating deficit of $1.2 million. Chief executive Adrian Collette says Opera Australia is now unable to sign contracts for the 2007 season, in light of the shortfall.

Opera Australia, which was formed by a merger of Australian Opera and Victorian State Opera in 1996, performs at Sydney's Opera House for eight months each year, but spends the remainder of the time at the Victorian Arts Centre in Melbourne. The Victorian state government has reportedly not been asked to contribute to the debt-relief of Opera Australia, despite its presence in Melbourne.

Palumbo Takes Helm at Deutsche Oper

Italian conductor Renato Palumbo will become the new musical director at Berlin's Deutsche Opera next year, succeeding Christian Thielemann, who quit last year in a dispute with authorities responsible for running the city's opera companies. The appointment is something of a surprise because Palumbo's experience is with relatively minor companies, at least, in comparison with the Berlin opera. He has served as music director at Istanbul's and Cape Town's opera companies, and he made his Deutsche Oper debut, as a guest conductor, only last year.

The rest of the musical-chairs business: Thielemann (leaving the opera company early and suddenly) took over the Munich Philharmonic from James Levine, who left (also prematurely) to become music director of the Boston Symphony (in addition to his post with the Metropolitan Opera).