MEXICO CITY (AFP) ― With her hair tied back, large hoop earrings and high heels, Isabel Aguilar stood confidently in front of her five fellow mariachi musicians, all men, and sang to a mostly male crowd in a Mexico City square.Aguilar, a violinist, is among the few female musicians in Plaza Garibaldi, a tourist spot famous for its roving mariachi bands, crowded restaurants and booze-fueled nightlife.For the past 16 years, the 32-year-old mother-of-two has defied the quintessentially macho cultur

KATONAH, New York (AP) ― It’s been called the “missing link’’ among Giuseppe Verdi’s operas, composed right after his three mid-career mega-hits ― “Rigoletto,’’ “Il Trovatore’’ and “La Traviata’’ ― and pointing the way toward the masterpieces of his later years.Why “missing?’’ It’s not as if “Les vepres siciliennes’’ (“The Sicilian Vespers’’), first performed in Paris in 1855, was lost or had to be reconstructed by scholars. Yet, despite its importance in the Verdi canon, the opera has remained

NASHVILLE (AP) ― Mac Miller had a quick decision to make when Kanye West jumped the street date for his new album: Move his “Watching Movies with the Sound Off” to a different week or stand firm in the face of “Yeezus.”In the end, it was a simple decision. The album was too good to wait.“I initially just wanted my own space for my album to drop and then Kanye’s date came out and it was kind of like, ‘OK, that’s probably the worst person to go up against to drop an album,’” Miller said. “But I’m

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Steinway, which has built the pianos used by some of the world’s greatest classical musicians for more than 160 years, on Monday said it was being taken private in a $438 million deal with private equity group Kohlberg & Co.New York-based Steinway Musical Instruments, Inc., which owns the iconic Steinway & Sons piano brand, said Kohlberg will offer to acquire all the outstanding shares of the company for $35 a share, a premium of 33 percent from the average closing price of the