It’s interesting how the Digital Age has made the world so much smaller a place than it ever used to be. With the click of a mouse or the swipe of a finger, you can watch up-to-the-minute coverage of a breaking story half-way around the globe. You can view satellite images of a rural road in New Zealand or simply take in the setting sun off the African Coast.

But one thing you still cannot download or translate into tiny little bits of code is the experience of immersing oneself fully into the culture or artistic life of another place. Oh, you can watch high definition video or listen to recordings of any number of performances and view art from artists the world over. But to truly experience a city’s culture, to get the whole picture, you have to engage the city and the life that burgeons everyday within it. Every aspect of any given place has some influence on the art it produces. To watch a video or download a clip only gives you part of the story, and that out of context. Take, for instance, the wildly diverse theater produced here in a city as varied as Chicago. Without realizing the wide array of voices at work in a city like Chicago, you might very well miss the true context in which that diverse artistic bent lives and what it really speaks to.

It’s the same anywhere you go. Local life both inspires and absorbs local arts and culture. And that's just one of the reasons we take great pleasure in publishing our annual Travel & Culture Issue.

It’s no secret that Chicagoans love to travel, and when we do, arts and culture can't be left behind. In this issue, we’ve chosen the stunning City of Angels, Los Angeles, CA, as our 2012 Destination of Choice. With $7.5 billion injected into L.A. arts and entertainment over the past decade producing such landmarks as Disney Hall, the Chinese Garden, and the renovated  

Getty Villa, L.A. welcomes vacationers with open arms extending incredibly diverse and high caliber arts experiences that will leave their mark on the most seasoned traveler.

We highlight Los Angeles’ abundant store of cultural institutions that make an arts-infused trip to L.A. a one-of-a-kind experience. But in scouring the globe for the best in culture 2012, we’ve also profiled some of the world’s other culturally rich destinations like incredible Vienna, the home of the Viennese Sound, and the historic Vienna Symphony, or the modern art lover’s paradise found in London’s Tate Modern.

But of course, you can’t talk world class arts and culture without talking Chicago. And should a "staycation" be in your future, you’re in the best city on the planet for one that’s culturally rich and artistically vibrant. We preview the Field Museum’s amazing new exhibit on Genghis Khan, and we take a look at the vital work that Brian Dickie, general director of the Chicago Opera Theater, has achieved in opera audience development—work that could easily serve as a model for opera companies the world over.

Travel certainly has its own rewards, but there is nothing like soaking in a little world culture, and Clef Notes Spring 2012 gets the ball rolling with some exciting options for culturally rich travel this year. So sit back, take a deep breath, and enjoy the ride while we launch you on a journey of some of 2012’s most exciting arts-infused destinations.

Bon Voyage!