I am actually leaving the Boston area after 16 years to move down to Baltimore to study at Peabody. It's a wonderful musical environment, especially for a student. You have 4 schools entirely devoted to music in the city alone, with many other strong programs in the area. Boston has a very reputable and venerable presence in every aspect/genre of music with the unfortunate exception of opera. Regarding the BSO, it's a little more complicated than what you've been hearing. The wind and brass are still exceptional-one of the best around, and the strings still have their distinctive Boston sound, compact and vibrant. The problem is putting this together, so where does the blame go? Naturally, the conductor. Now, the impression is that we have a conductor who is unworthy to conduct the BSO. Nonsense. Seiji is a wonderfully gifted conductor and musician. So where does the problem lie? It's in Seiji's committment to the orchestra. He always has too many other committments: Saito Kinen, BPO, VPO, etc. Look at any given program and you'll see his absence is quite conspicuous. The asst conductors get a lot of performance time in which is great for them, but not so good for the BSO and its audience. Also, there are terrible problems with the administration. Biggest example - the Tanglewood fiasco. Proof of how good the BSO is: Go listen to them when Haitink or Rattle's conducting them. They sound incredible-everything just comes together. Guarenteed magic when these conductors get their hands on them. They are frequent guests because they see this potential in the orchestra. They both acknowledged that the orchestra has special attributes amongst the orchestras of the world that keeps bringing them back. There's one more problem with Boston that puts everything into perspective. We suffer from what I call the "Boston mentality." This includes severe neurosis, inferiority complexes(especially when New York is involved), a twisted form of nepotism, all tempered by Boston's puritanical origins. The most famous manifestation of this is "the Curse of the Bambino." Yes, this curse is real in a psychosomatic sense. You say and believe something enough and people will believe you. Then, at a certain point, you start believing your own lie and thus, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. This is exactly the case for the BSO along with the Red Sox. Other symptoms of this affliction include preference for Pete Carroll over Bill Parcells, the city of Boston's hypocritical stance on their arts policy, the list goes on. Now I may sound really cynical, but I look at the city I'll be living in for the next few years. Boston, musically, is far superior than Baltimore, across the board-again with the exception of opera. Yet for instance, the people of Baltimore are much enthusiastic and proud of "their BSO" than the Bostonians are about theirs. I'm looking forward to growing as a musician in this healthy environment. When you get to NEC, try to enjoy everything as they are. Don't let this mentality get to you. As amazing as NEC is, they also fall prey to this affliction so beware!:-) Good luck! Recovering Bostonian, Bob Yoon [log in to unmask]