The US composer collected the supreme accolade for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale on Sunday.

The ceremony was followed by a performance of his Nagoya Marimbas.

ASO president Stanley Romanstein’s attempt to impose cuts by locking out his musicians has begun to fail.

Hours after he announced that concerts were cancelled until November, a member of his board, Ron Antinori, made public his resignation, saying the musicians should never have been shut out.

Romanstein has now quietly proposed that both sides should meet a federal negotiator to find a way forward.

The mediator will be Allison Beck, deputy director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, who last month saved Peter Gelb’s skin at the Metropolitan Opera by giving away key executive powers in exchange for small wage cuts.

The Atlanta musicians have agreed to meet her.

This looks promising.

Protestors wearing yellow stars and carrying anti-Gelb placards failed to fill the plaza outside the Metropolitan Opera yesterday as blck-tie patrons arrived for a season-opening gala.

Despite busing in classes of schoolchildren from the outer boroughs, the number of demonstrators was estimated by our observers at barely one thousand. On the plus side, the demo was peaceful and light-hearted. One congressman called for cuts to Lincoln Center’s public funding (he will have to search hard to find any).

The Death of Klinghoffer will open next month.

photos (c) Shawn Milnes/Slipped Disc

Ivan Repušić, a Croat who served 2010-13 as first kapellmeister, will succeed Karen Kamensek next year at the opera house in Hanover, Germany. Repušić, 36, has led several operas this year at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin.