Always ahead of the beat, the Irish airline has new storage arrangements for musical instruments, for a small add-one fee (as per usual). Courtesy of The Drone.

The Chicago arts world is in shock after the sudden death on Friday afternoon of the president and CEO of Lyric Opera, Kenneth Pigott.

A board member of the Lyric since 1998 and president/ceo for the past three years, Pigott was managing partner of Vaduz Partners, a private investment company specializing in IT. He  was 71.

Anthony Freud, Lyric’s general director, said:

We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn and to share the news of the death of Ken Pigott, president and CEO of Lyric Opera. In the few hours since his passing, we have only begun to grasp the depth and breadth of this unimaginable loss. Ken was a truly unique man. He was a visionary whose wisdom and passion transformed the lives of everyone at Lyric, and at the many organizations with which he was associated. He is irreplaceable.

All of us at Lyric Opera extend our deepest condolences to his wife, Jane, and to their family.

An Italian TV Christmas campaign for a supermarket chain proved so effective they kept it running into January. It features Cecilia Bartoli singing a Cimarosa aria. Decca will make sure they don’t keep her waiting at checkout.

It was in August 2005 that the levees burst and the Louisiana Philharmonic was driven from the Orpheum in New Orleans. This September it will return with Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. But why has it taken 10 years?

Read about the new season here.