Mark MacNamara

Of course, there was the music, but it was also the summer she first fell in love. In Lima, Peru, in the middle of August 2003. His name was Ernesto. They both played the viola in the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. He played third tier, she played principal. He, from Lima; she, from North Royalton, Ohio. He couldn’t speak much English; she couldn’t speak much Spanish. But under the circumstances, what difference could that possibly make?

Last July, after the board of the San Francisco Girls Chorus announced that the contract of the artistic director, Susan McMane, would not be renewed, a great brouhaha arose. Many of the girls wept. Parents threw up their hands. An online petition asking that the board reverse its decision drew 281 signatures. “What are you thinking?” came the cry.

It should not be forgotten that long before she became famous in New York, Montserrat Figueras Garcia was a great hit in Berkeley.

“She had a huge following here,” remembers Robert Cole, the former director of Cal Performances. “Always very popular. I think she performed here more than anywhere else in America.”

Next month the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in the case of Golan v. Holder. The case was originally filed in 2001 as Golan v. Ashcroft, and has been recaptioned several times as new administrations and attorneys general came and went.

In the Bleak House history of copyright law, Golan is but one bleak hall of legality. This particular case is about whether the U.S. Constitution allows for copyright protection of foreign works to be restored to works that previously had been in the public domain.

Here’s the postmodern life of an English maestro: He’s just back from Basel and Leipzig. Catches a breath. Plays full-on dad with the children, talks to his wife, gazes at the cherry blossoms in the garden. Invites people down from London to talk about how the arts are being undermined by uncultured politicians, and shakes his head.