In the mailbox

Don't forget tonight's concert with the Takacs String Quartet, 8 p.m. in Corbett Auditorium at CCM. The quartet won the 2005 Gramophone Award for Best Chamber Music Recording of the Year for their powerful performance of the late Beethoven Quartets. They'll perform quartets by Debussy, Mozart and Shostakovich. Tickets: $25; $10 students, CCM students are free. Need more info? Here’s the Web site.

Tessa Lark, 16, a student of Kurt Sassmannshaus at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, has won first prize in the Johansen International Competition. The contest, held in March in Washington, D.C., awarded Lark $10,000.
The violinist is a native of Richmond, Ky., and has played in the Starling Preparatory String Project at CCM since 2001.

"The three of us (judges) are stunned at not only the physical prowess, but at thelevel of musical sophistication," said judge Joseph Silverstein, former concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Here's a tasty note from Ethan Sperry, conductor of the Miami University Men's Glee Club, Collegiate Chorale and Global Rhythms. He and his wife will be in the November issue of Bon Appetit in the "Entertaining with Style" feature. The dinner will be hosted in their Oxford home, and will include another Miami couple and relatives as guests.

And this from Jeff Evans, who is proud to be the new conductor of the Queen City Concert Band. The band is planning a concert to celebrate the life of founding music director Dottie Kemp on Nov. 12 in Memorial Hall.

More about Dottie later. Right now, he needs YOU to take out that horn and join the band! Contact Jeff at: 513-476-8741 or e-mail him at cincybandroom@fuse.net.