Police questioned the Grammy-winning soul diva for nine hours last week over a January video that appears to show her smoking a pipe usually used for crack cocaine during a party at her north London home. Police began an investigation after photos from the footage were published in The Sun newspaper.

Spokesman

Chris Goodman said police had finished their investigation and confirmed no charges would be brought against the 24-year-old singer.

“Amy is pleased to be able to move on and concentrate on music and particularly looks forward to seeing her fans again at eagerly awaited festival performances this summer,” he said in a statement.

London police confirmed that no further action was being taken against a 24-year-old north London woman arrested last week on suspicion of possessing illegal drugs. British police do not release the names of suspects who have not been charged.

The singer, best known for her breakthrough hit “Rehab,” has seen her rapid rise to fame overshadowed by media attention on her turbulent private life studded with wild nights out and run-ins with the law.

Last month she was cautioned by police for assault after she slapped a man during a night out. That means no charges were filed, but the incident was placed on her record.© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this

The 39-year-old singer/actress/entrepreneur is also thinking about the 93,000 sick and seriously injured children treated annually by Childrens Hospital Los Angeles — and how she can help.

Lopez announced Wednesday that she’ll host and help coordinate the third Noche de Ninos benefit gala. This year’s star-studded party, to

be held Oct. 11 at the Nokia Center, will feature performances by Lopez, Anthony, Alejandro Sanz and Latin rockers Juanes and Mana.

Lopez, who was Noche de Ninos’ first honoree in 2004, said her twin son and daughter inspired her to get more involved.

“Doing something where I was proactive … where I was the one pushing and making something happen, that just became very important to me,” Lopez told The Associated Press. “I don’t know if it was because I was pregnant and thinking about children, thinking about the world. Definitely my children inspire me very much in so many ways, even just in the past two and a half months of their little lives.”

“They inspire me to want to be better, to be a better person, to do something for the world, to set an example for them, to make them proud of me and to know that there’s a certain way that you should live,” she said. “I’ve been very fortunate over the years, but I’ve also worked very hard, and that’s the example I want to set for my children.”

Lopez said she was looking for ways to contribute more to the charity.

“I kind of fell in love with the kids,” she said, “and it’s just magnified now that I have my own children.”

Working with her sister Lynda and Noche de Ninos founder Giselle Fernandez, Lopez came up with the idea of a concert and started asking friends for help.

“They’ve been very forthcoming with their time and, in this case, their talent to make this really a one-of-a-kind concert,” she said, adding that she rarely calls to ask for favors. (”I don’t ask for a glass of water when I’m on the set. It’s just not my style.”)

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On the Net:

http://www.childrenshospitalla.org

http://www.jenniferlopez.com/© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this

Paparazzi had cameras rolling when the pop star’s white Mercedes-Benz coupe rear-ended a red Ford Explorer Tuesday in Beverly Hills.

The video, posted on TMZ.com, shows Spears in the driver’s seat. Wearing a ponytail and aviator shades, she covers her mouth with her hand after realizing she hit the car in front of her.

No one was injured and police were not involved. Photos and video do not reveal any visible damage to either car.

The 26-year-old’s bodyguard, who was riding in the passenger seat, gave Spears’ information to the female driver of the SUV, People.com and TMZ reported.

Spears was involved in a separate fender-bender on April 12. No one was injured or cited in that accident.

——

On the Net:

http://www.tmz.com

http://www.people.com© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this

The afternoon’s

printed program also contained a bit of ensemble news: This chamber troupe, staffed by principal players from the orchestra, will perform aboard the Queen Mary 2 this September in connection with a Tanglewood sponsorship by the Cunard cruise line. That voyage will be trans-Atlantic, but Sunday’s excursion in Jordan Hall stuck mostly to American ports of call.

The first piece was Fine’s 1948 Partita for Wind Quintet, a genial specimen of midcentury neoclassicism at its most colorful and elegantly crafted, here given a lucid and graceful presentation by Elizabeth Rowe, John Ferrillo, William R. Hudgins, Richard Svoboda, and James Sommerville. BSO assistant conductor Julian Kuerti was on hand to lead the next two works - Foss’s “For Aaron” and Golijov’s “Zhuang Zhou’s Dream” - both of which required additional forces from the BSO.

Foss’s work, premiered at Tanglewood in 2002, is a leisurely, big-hearted tribute to Copland, his longtime friend and colleague. The processional pacing of its opening, its extroverted flute writing, and its closing brass flourishes, among many other touches, make it feel unmistakably like music of wide-open spaces - as bright, crisp, and Coplandesque as a work could be while still retaining Foss’s individual stamp. By contrast, the Golijov, adapted from portions of the composer’s recent score to Francis Ford Coppola’s “Youth Without Youth,” is a brooding, introverted meditation aimed at more liminal spaces, full of expressive woodwind lines welling up above dark, turbulent strings. Kuerti and colleagues took expert measure of both pieces.

The program finished strongly with Gandolfi’s septet for strings and woodwinds titled “Plain Song, Fantastic Dances.” The opening movement, “St. Botolph’s Fantasia,” ingeniously refracts a Gregorian chant melody; the middle movement, “Tango Blue,” is full of smoky woodwind lines and plucked string commentary; and the finale, “Quick Step,” bustles over fresh terrain before looping back to the opening chant material. The Chamber Players dispatched the piece as if it were written for them to play. Actually, it was. They gave the premiere in 2005, after a commission from the St. Botolph Club. It deserves to stay in their repertoire.© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

Boston Symphony Chamber Players

At: Jordan Hall, Sunday afternoon more stories like this

“Madame White Snake” is co-commissioned by Opera Boston and the Beijing Music Festival. It represents the first main-stage opera commission for the local company and the first American partnership for the festival. After the Chinese premiere in October 2010, the opera may be performed in Shanghai and in Boston’s sister city of Hangzhou, where the ancient legend is set. Robert Woodruff, former artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre, will direct the production. Soprano Ying Huang and male soprano Michael Maniaci will be among the cast conducted by Opera Boston music director Gil Rose.

“I think it’s an acknowledgement of the adventurous audience we have at Opera Boston, and a testimony to their appetite for interesting work,” said Opera Boston general director Carole Charnow by phone. The budget for “Madame White Snake” is projected to reach $2.2 million, roughly equivalent to the company’s entire operating budget for a typical season. Charnow says fund-raising efforts have begun, and State Street Corp. has pledged its sponsorship. The mayor’s office is assisting with publicity and contacts in Hangzhou, says Julie Burns, director of the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events.

Zhou, 54, came to this country in 1985 and teaches at the conservatory of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He and his wife, Chen Yi, are prominent members of a generation of émigré Chinese composers who lived through the Cultural Revolution and have emerged as an animating force in contemporary classical music. This will be Zhou’s first opera.

The idea for “Madame White Snake” actually originated with Jacobs, a Chinese-American attorney with no experience working in opera. Growing up in Singapore, she often heard the Chinese Opera versions of the Madame White Snake legend, about a demon who transforms itself into a woman and falls in love with a mortal man. Speaking by phone about her English-language libretto, Jacobs said that despite its mythic origins, “This is really a story about choice, brought down to a human psychic, emotional level.”

Jacobs first showed Zhou the libretto over a dinner meeting early last year in New York City. He too had grown up with the legend and was immediately attracted to the subject, he said by phone: “I already felt the melody as I read.”© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company. more stories like this

A four-foot tall ASIMO is scheduled to conduct the Detroit Symphony Tuesday evening in a concert featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma. ASIMO will conduct Mitch Leigh’s “Impossible Dream,” a song from the musical “Man of La Mancha.”

Honda Motor Co. designed ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. Honda has been developing walking robots since 1986. The latest version of ASIMO debuted last year.

ASIMO can run, walk on uneven slopes and respond to simple voice commands, but Honda says this is the first time ASIMO has ever conducted an orchestra.

ASIMO can’t respond to the players, but will be mimicking the actions of a conductor who was videotaped beforehand.© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this

Levine’s wife, Lyn, said he died at his Encino home on May 8. He had suffered from severe emphysema, according to relatives.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Levine recalled meeting Spector in the 1960s and beginning a collaboration that lasted for many years.

“He said to me he had the sound in his head that he wanted to create,” said Levine, and the engineer set out to build the lush sound that involved dozens of musicians and instruments as well as echo chambers.

Their first collaboration was on the teen anthem, “He’s a Rebel,” which Levine helped Spector record in 1962. It would bring stardom to the girl group, the Crystals, just as “Be My Baby” would do for the Ronettes.

Levine was the engineer on such Spector produced classics as “Da Doo Ron Ron” and the Righteous Brothers’, “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling,” the song cited by BMI as the most played in the history of U.S. radio.

Levine was born in New York on May 8, 1928, and grew up in Los Angeles. After serving in the Army during the Korean War he learned to be a recording engineer from his cousin, Stan Ross, who was co-owner of Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood.

“He made Phil Spector a genius by applying the simple logic of using echo chamber,” Ross once told the Los Angeles Times. “Phil had a tendency of overbooking the room, and there were more musicians than there should have been in the studio.”

Ross said he showed Levine how to use echo to make the small room sound larger.

“It gave it dimension,” Ross said. “It sounded like it was a football field.”

In his interview with the AP, Levine said Spector’s sessions began with a few guitar players but would eventually involve dozens of instruments, including pianos. Session guitarist Carol Kaye recalled people being packed shoulder-to-shoulder into a studio for the session that produced the 1966 Ike and Tina Turner classic, “River Deep-Mountain High,” another Spector-Levine collaboration.

Levine said it was difficult to mix all the sounds together under those circumstances but it was that mix that created the Wall of Sound.

He and Spector remained close for decades and he said it was sad when Spector was arrested on a murder charge in 2003.

Although Levine’s name was indelibly linked with Spector in music history, Levine also worked with Eddie Cochran, the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, Wings, the Carpenters, Dr. John and Herb Alpert. He won a Grammy for best engineered recording for Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ 1965 hit, “A Taste of Honey.”

Besides his wife, Levine is survived by his sons, Rick, Rob and Michael, four grandchildren and a sister, Joyce Black.

——

AP Writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this story.© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this

The awards, patterned after the NEA Jazz Masters honors that were established in 1982, will be handed out during a ceremony Oct. 31 at the Harman Center for the Arts in Washington.

Speaking at a news conference to announce the prizes, tenor

Placido Domingo said he hopes it’s a step toward establishing “the Oscars of the opera.”

What would they be called?

“The Mozarts,” he suggested. “The Verdis?”

NEA Chairman Dana Gioia said only living Americans will be eligible for the NEA honors. While Domingo was born in Spain, he helped launch the awards because he is general director of the Washington National Opera and the Los Angeles Opera.

Price was among the top American sopranos and a breakthrough African-American singer, starring at the Metropolitan Opera from 1961 to ‘85. Levine has been the leading force at the Met as chief conductor and then music director since 1973, and in 2004 he became music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Floyd is best known for composing “Susannah,” “Of Mice and Men” and “Cold Sassy Tree.” Gaddes is general director of the Santa Fe Opera and in 1976 founded the Opera Theater of St. Louis.

Gioia said authorization for the honors was given by Congress in legislation that was signed by President Bush. Gioia said the United States had always been shy about national honors for living artists, and that the country should be more active in celebrating its artistic heritage.

He wanted the honors to be specific to opera, not to classical music in general.

“You don’t want to lose focus,” he said.© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this

Alan Chinula said Madonna’s legal team and government representatives would be in Lilongwe High Court on Thursday.

The pop star and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, are not required to be present. Judge Andrew Nyirenda will review two reports by Malawian officials overseeing the adoption of 2-year-old David Banda.

“We are confident he will grant the Ritchies permanent custody order,” said Chinula.

Chief social welfare officer Simon Chisale wrote two glowing reports, describing Madonna a “perfect mum” for David, who was sickly and malnourished when she found him at the Home of Hope Orphanage. His mother died shortly after childbirth and his father was too poor to take care of him. He has since been with Madonna and her family in Britain.

Nyirenda said in court proceedings in October 2006 that he would automatically revoke the temporary custody order if he was convinced David was being treated differently from the Ritchies’ other children, Lourdes and Rocco, or that his human rights were being violated in any way.

Some child’s rights groups have criticized the adoption, saying it would be better to provide more resources so that children can be cared for in their native countries.

Madonna has set out to prove she is helping to do that. She has set up a charity called Raising Malawi, and she is funding six more orphanages outside the capital, Lilongwe, that provide education and food for about 4,000 children.

She produced a documentary “I Am Because We Are,” which shows poverty and disease devastating the lives of Malawi’s children, and urges people to volunteer to help.© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. more stories like this