I heard Maestro Falletta on a radio interview. She was lucid and deft with her language. Speaking extemporaneously. I wondered if she was more truly a verbal maestro than a musical one. She made me realize how good it is to live a life immersed in music, something redemptive. Not clogged with bitterness or bottom lines. Stress? Sure. But in the service of something eternal. The music. Which lasts when administrations and trends are gone, and flashes in the pan are revealed as pyrite. Speaking of eternal, the particular piece she was discussing was Beethoven's fifth. And I learned something! Real pros don't call it Beethoven's fifth. They call it "Beethoven Five". Can you imagine composing something that the best talents of subsequent ages compete with each other to try to do honor to? She also discussed the ruddy earthy tambre of another piece, and those words resonated because I was careening across a stretch of Arizona's ruddy desert at that point and I felt her words echo the landscape. She was more lyrical and relevant and hard hitting with her prose than many self-styled prose gurus and 97% of talking heads. As a Virginian, I was proud to learn that she is a director at the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, also. Attaboy (or girl) JoAnn!