LATEST ADDITIONS

"Crafted out of aluminum and coated with nitrocellulose lacquer, this truly fascinating object is the ultimate analog medium."

On March 17, Japanese label Ottava will release the first MQA recording on compact disc, A. Piazzolla by Strings and Oboe. Recorded by the UNAMAS Piazzolla Septet, whose videos you can view online, the short disc was mastered by the Tokyo-based label's CEO, Mick Sawaguchi. The recording is also available for download.

The recently-released Audirvana Plus 3 has become the first desktop music player for MacOS to include an integrated MQA Core decoder. To quote the press release, issued jointly by London-based MQA and Paris-based Audirvana, Audirvana's MQA Core decoder "enables the first origami 'unfold' and also authenticates the file using a blue or green light to confirm that the sound is identical to that of the source material."

The Heart Collectors are an Australian band with a positive message.

Aside from the overnight sensation (after a career of more than a decade) of Beverly Sills at the New York City Opera as Cleopatra in Julius Caesar, the 1966–1967 opera "news" in New York was the Metropolitan Opera, newly opened at Lincoln Center. The 10 broadcasts included here feature some singers who still have no equals. In addition to seven starrily cast favorite operas and the premiere of Marvin David Levy's fine Mourning Becomes Electra, there were Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, composed to inaugurate the new house; the Met premiere of Richard Strauss's 1919 masterpiece, Die Frau ohne Schatten; and the first production in 20 years of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, with the incomparable Jon Vickers essaying the title role for the first time.

On March 13, May Belt of PWB Electronics announced via e-mail that Peter W. Belt, the company's founder and her husband of many years, passed away on February 17. He was 87.