Life with fewer responsibilities. It has been a long time coming, but I have a feeling that new challenges await. In the meantime, hitting the guest circuit has been a most refreshing change for me.

Not that there are not tasks to be accomplished as well as other goals to be achieved. After the heart procedure, I heard one thing loud and clear: lower stress. For this first season, after more than 40 years as the person in charge, I wound up working as hard as usual but felt freer to make music at a different level. No longer did I worry about making so many decisions that might impact others in either a positive or negative way. Just leading rehearsals and concerts seemed like plenty to do, and now I could do it in a more focused way.

This April was a month like no other, similar to a rollercoaster ride of emotion, conflict and elation.

On Easter Sunday, Cindy’s mother passed away. At age 89, Jackie was a bundle of energy. Over the past few years, that vitality began to dwindle. Although she remained strong in mind, her body was giving way to infirmities. Ultimately, she decided to forgo her medications, preferring to let nature do its thing and spare her from the inability to be a physically functioning presence in her home.

On the other side of the world, musicians are doing what they are supposed to do: connecting to the past, present and future.

It was the longest single period I have ever spent in Asia, five weeks working with five different orchestras. Although it would have been easier if the itinerary had not sent me from west to north and then east, jumping back and forth between countries was not as difficult as I expected. Three of the ensembles were new to me, not only because I had never conducted them, but also because I had never heard them.

It is usual at the beginning of the month for me to write a lengthy piece about what I have been doing, along with a bit of travel news. Indeed, that will occur in a couple days, as I am traveling and have not had the chance to put keystrokes to computer in a meaningful way.The reason I am posting this is because of the extraordinary occurrences that took place over the past 24 hours. Some of it was expected, but most came as a shock and surprise to me.It all started as routine, with breakfast in the restaurant at my hotel in Shanghai. As usual, I perused the local English newspaper, the Shanghai Daily. There were two headlines that caught my attention, but I moved on to other, seemingly more important articles. The first read, “Local temple acts to comply with garbage management regulations,” and the other, “Robot has power to perform.”