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The first National Critics Conference in US history took place May 25–29 at the Omni Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Subtitled "Critical Unity in Critical Times," the gathering brought together US and Canadian members of organizations devoted to visual arts, dance, jazz, classical music, and theater criticism.

With new music download services, including the move to higher resolutions, one vital question still remains for the music business: Will the majority of consumers prefer to continue purchasing music à la carte, one track or album at a time, or will they prefer to subscribe to an unlimited library?

Starting on Sunday, June 4, and continuing through Friday, June 10, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will broadcast all of Beethoven's">http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethovenexperience/pip/archive/">Beethoven… compositions as "The Beethoven Experience."

Ruth Laredo, a classical pianist whose style combined passionate ferocity with refined elegance, died May 25 of ovarian cancer, which she had battled for four years. Her last performance was May 6 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in one of her long-running performance/lecture sessions known as "Concertos with Commentary," a format that was so popular that she had begun to offer it in other venues around the world.

The Home Entertainment 2005 Show, held April 28–May 1 at the New York Hilton in Manhattan, was a highly charged four-day event filled with live music, education, and the latest in convergence technologies combining the worlds of high-end audio, music, home theater, computing, and gaming.

May the Web be with you: You'd think that forward-thinking tech-savvy companies such as those involved in high-end audio would be among the first to get how well the Internet works at spreading the word about their products. In nine cases out of ten, you'd be wrong. Companies introduce new products, upgrade old models, and venture into entirely new technologies without ever changing their websites.

In my report on Red Rose Music's HE2005 debut of the Burwen">http://stereophile.com/news/050205red/">Burwen Bobcat, I complained about the lack of before and after demonstrations of the technology, as well as the difficulty of extracting information about what the product actually did. In the last week, I have received correspondence that sheds light on both cavils.