MUSIC

A New Baton: Kent Nagano, a Berkeley native and University of California graduate, is the newly appointed music director of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, England, one of Britain’s oldest symphony orchestras. Nagano, 39, recently conducted the New York premiere of “The Death of Klinghoffer” opera and has conducted two Los Angeles Music Center Opera productions here: John Adams’ “Nixon in China” in 1990 and Kurt Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” in 1989. Nagano is also an associate principal guest conductor of the London Symphony.