Musicians Sound a Note of Hope for Quake Survivors

--Leading musicians rearranged their plans in order to appear at a London benefit for the victims of Armenia’s deadly earthquake, and a like-minded celebrity concert was being hatched in the United States. Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, an American of Armenian descent born in the Soviet Union, postponed a performance in India to play at the London charity event with conductor Andre Previn, flutist James Galway and about 450 other musicians. Rostropovich also played piano as his wife, soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, sang. About 2,000 people, including Prince Charles and Princess Diana, attended the concert. Meanwhile, Soviet U.N. Ambassador Alexander Belonogov was to meet today in New York with the Rev. Jesse Jackson to discuss plans for a celebrity benefit for victims of the Dec. 7 quake, which killed an estimated 55,000 people. A spokeswoman said Jackson had contacted business managers for Bill Cosby and Cher in hopes that they would participate. She said the concert might be in Los Angeles, although that was uncertain. An official at the Soviet Mission to the United Nations said more details would be available after the meeting.

--An ailing English boy’s Christmas wish last year brought a gift that has proved to be too much. In 1987, when leukemia was believed to be threatening his life, Mario Morby, 13, asked for post cards in an effort to collect the most and be placed in the Guinness Book of World Records. He achieved that goal months ago, and his cancer has been in remission for a year. But now Christmas cards are piling up at the U.S. Postal Service in Spring Hill, Fla., and at the home of the founder of Florida Child’s Wish Come True, an organization that helped him collect the post cards. Founder Frances Keefe said that her pleas to stop the cards have only brought more and that misinformation changed the type of cards. Last week alone, 500,000 pieces of mail for the boy arrived, forcing the Postal Service to add workers and modify equipment. One day Mario received more mail than all the 35,000 residents of the town combined. He has already gotten more than 2 million cards since September, 1987, and, though he and his family are grateful, they wish the mail would stop.

--The Dec. 17, 1903, first airplane flight by Orville and Wilbur Wright was commemorated as a B-1 bomber and 13 other jets roared over North Carolina’s Outer Banks. “The B-1 bomber was earth-shattering,” said Lawrence Greco, park ranger at the National Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. About 500 people gathered in cold and snow for the fly-over.