Arts Blog

Victor Marshall, the mellifluous baritone voice of Dallas Symphony Orchestra broadcasts for 27 years, has been told WRR-FM can't pay him to continue this coming season. He was told he could do it for free, but otherwise the station would use one of its staff announcers for the broadcasts.

Victor has been a voice on WRR since -- gasp -- 1967, when he started out as an announcer. (Plenty of us remember him from then.) He went on to become the DSO's artistic administrator and a beloved figure both here and beyond. He's a legend among guest conductors and soloists for his knowledge of the field and gracious attentions to visiting artists. And, of course, there's that golden voice... At age 60, he's starting a phased retirement from the DSO this fall, but he'd planned to continue hosting the radio broadcasts.

American composer Donald Erb, who was the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's composer-in-residence for a time during the late 1960s and later taught composition at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, has died at age 81. An Ohio native, Erb received a doctorate in composition from Indiana University and later became a composition professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

"He arrived as a young, radical, ripsnorting innovator," SMU clarinet professor emeritus Ross Powell writes of Erb's DSO stint, "and talked the DSO into starting a Contemporary Music Series in McFarlin Auditorium at SMU. Getting to know Don inspired me to found Voices of Change with Jo Boatright later, and he remained one our most staunch supporters through 30 years. We performed his music all over the world and recorded much of it."

In a surprise move, the Dallas Opera has ventured outside the world of opera for its next general director. George Steel, 41, executive director of Columbia University's Miller Theatre in New York, will take the Dallas job Oct. 1. The job has been vacant since Karen Stone stepped down in September 2007. In 11 years at the Miller Theatre, Mr. Steel has been hailed for innovative programming, ranging from early music to jazz, ballet and contemporary opera, and bringing in new audiences.

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Waiting to be seated at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas' A Streetcar Named Desire Saturday evening, I noticed a tall, handsome fellow leaning on a cane. After a triple-take, I realized it was Brian Loncar (the organization's board chairman and husband of its artistic director, Sue Loncar).

A few months back, Brian -- one of the city's most visible tort lawyers, thanks to his TV ads -- collided his Bentley with a fully loaded fire truck. He almost didn't make it, and spent a long time in the hospital. He had already been exercising and losing weight -- probably a very good preparation for being so badly injured. But he hadn't looked this thin.

As I chatted with him, my wife came up and clearly was mystified as to my interlocutor's identity. I had to introduce him -- twice -- before it sunk in who this was. Brian, in fact, looked like Sam Shepard with a bit of a limp. After I said this was Brian for a second time, Suzanne said, "Or a third of Brian."

In the absence of Sue, who was taking a trip to L.A. with two of the kids, Brian gave the curtain speech, quite a memorable one in its emotional impact. He climbed up and down the stairs to the stage unaided -- not bad for someone the doctors worried might not qalk again, or even live.