No sooner have the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti unpacked their bags from their successful tour of Russia and Italylast month than they are making plans for two more foreign trips together next season.

The music director will take his orchestra on its first tour to Mexico in October, followed by their first joint tour of the Far East in January and February of 2013, the CSO announced Tuesday.

Muti had tipped the Asian tour at a CSO news conference in February during which the 2012-13 season was announced. However, this was the first official announcement of details.

This story appears in the May issue of ForbesLife magazine, dated May 21, as a feature entitled “In Chile: Deep-Desert Chic.”

Explora’s hotel de Larache, owned by food-and-wine entrepreneur Pedro Ibaacute;ntilde;ez and favored by well-heeled guests like billionaire Chilean President Sebastiaacute;n Pintilde;era, is an unlikely oasis in one of the world’s most challenging–and exhilarating–environments: Chile’s Atacama Desert. Shoehorned between the Andes and Salt ranges, the Atacama’s 40,000 square miles offer some of the planet’s most spectacular and untouched desert landscapes.

It’s also a good place to have an experienced...

A Quiet Symphony

2011 has seen some solo releases utilizing similar techniques: simple songs with lush, vibrant arrangements. Cass McCombs and James Blake meshed their distinct, subtle vocal styles with such well-crafted instrumentation, its no wonder Canadian singer-songwriter, Patrick Watson followed suit. Adventures In Your Own Backyard is charged with chilling, almost exciting tracks perfect for winding down in the summer.

“Lighthouse” and “Blackwind kick off the album with strings, piano, xylophone, the whole shebang. Rather than a “wall of sound” approach, Watson goes for big instrumentation while keeping each layer distinct and comprehensible....

What if every light bulb had an Internet IP address? Since NXP Semiconductors NV (NASDAQ: NXPI) first raised the question at LIGHTFAIR International (LFI) nearly one year ago, interest in IPv6-enabled smart lighting has soared. The potential energy and cost savings — as well as the comfort, convenience and lifestyle benefits for the consumer — have mobilized a growing ecosystem of innovators in lighting, connectivity, energy management and home automation to enable and support wirelessly controlled intelligent lighting.

This week at LFI 2012 in Las Vegas, NXP will showcase two wireless smart lighting solutions based on IEEE 802.15.4 standards, including: