By BRYAN G. ROBINSON Sun-Gazette Correspondent - MANSFIELD - About 20 years ago Kenneth Sarch, now professor of violin and viola at Mansfield University, was invited by the U.S. State Department as part of a United States Information Agency program to conduct the National Youth Orchestra in Panama. He returned the following five years to direct a camp and 15 years ago he was the guest conductor at the 10th anniversary celebration of the National Youth Orchestra. Now 68, Sarch of Williamsport was invited once again to Panama, this time by the Panama National Concert Association, to conduct two youth orchestras at the 25th anniversary celebration of the National Youth Orchestra Camp and Concert Festival at the end of January. Asked last Monday if the concerts were as highly emotional as he anticipated, Sarch said, "More so than I imagined." He said the rapport he had with the nearly 200 students during the two week camp, of which he was one of nearly a dozen faculty members, added to the emotions. Helping with that rapport was that he was able to conduct all the rehearsals in Spanish, since he had been to Central and South America and the Caribbean a number of times. (more)
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By Larry Rohter for the New York Times - Rubén Blades has a very specific reason for calling his current tour “Todos Vuelven,” or “Everybody Returns.” After suspending his music and film career for five years to serve as a cabinet minister in Panama, his homeland, Mr. Blades is back, on the road and with a new album, testing the waters and trying to figure out whether the entertainment business still has a place for him. “Yes, I’m back in it, but with discrimination and focus,” Mr. Blades said this week over lunch at a Cuban-Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side that he has frequented since the mid-1970s, when he experienced his first success as a salsa star with “Pablo Pueblo,” “Pedro Navaja” and other socially conscious songs. “The world changed while I was away, and the idea now is to see how to fit in.” Mr. Blades, 61, and Seis del Solar, the band that has recorded with him since the 1980s, will be playing Saturday night at the United Palace ballroom in Washington Heights. But his formal reintroduction to American audiences occurred this month at the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas, where he sang with Calle 13, the Puerto Rican reggaetón and hip-hop duo that won five awards that night and may be the hottest act in Latin music right now. “Rubén is one of the few artists who can disappear and come back with the hope of attracting a young audience, and that’s because of the quality of his songs,” said René Pérez, 21, the lead singer of Calle 13. “I wasn’t really following his political life, but in musical terms, it’s like he’s the teacher and we are his students. I’ve listened to his music since I was little and have learned from him not just how to write but also political awareness. We believe in his message.” (more) 
FMQB: Metallica has announced a handful of South American and Central American tour dates for 2010. Metallica will play Lima, Peru on January 19, then visit Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia and Venezuela in early March. The band said in a statement, "We are looking forward to visiting cities we have never played before . . . San Jose, Costa Rica and Panama City, Panama to be specific. And as we've only had the chance to visit Caracas and Bogota once before in 1999, this leg of the 'World Magnetic' tour is sure to be a memorable one." (Editor's Comment: I can only hope they close this concert with "Sandman" - with Mariano Rivera on the stage...)
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