When it comes to standard musical fare at the Hollywood Bowl, it’s tough to come up with two composers more iconic than George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. Besides having their music performed pretty much every summer in the Cahuenga Pass, the two Americans have other close ties to the Bowl: The 1937 memorial concert commemorating … Continue reading
Happy Friday. More importantly, Happy National Scotch Day. No, seriously, it’s National Scotch Day — for real. If you didn’t know that, you’ve admittedly lost a good chunk of your opportunity to celebrate on the actual day of honour (see what I did there by putting a “u” in, just like the Scots do?). Good … Continue reading
This past Tuesday, the Tokyo String Quartet played what first violin Martin Beaver said would almost certainly be their last concert at the Ravinia Festival. In all likelihood, it will also be their final appearance anywhere in the Chicago area. With Kazuhide Isomura (founding viola) and Kikuei Ikeda (longtime second violin) deciding to retire, the … Continue reading
This week at the Hollywood Bowl, conductor Stéphane Denève returns to Southern California to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in two different programs. Tuesday’s concert features two works not often heard at the Bowl (or anywhere else for that matter): Stokowski’s “Symphonic Synthesis” of Mussorgsky’s music from Boris Godunov and the lone violin concerto of … Continue reading
For the longest time when it came to Twitter, I fought the power. I thought it served best as a source of comedic fodder for late night talk shows and their friends (e.g. how could anything ever top this brilliance? I gained a newfound respect for Josh Groban after seeing it). I finally jumped into … Continue reading
Happy Friday. In case you don’t make it out to any concerts this weekend, the concert can come to you: Between now and Monday at 12noon Eastern Time, the Detroit Symphony is streaming their recent performance of Music Director Leonard Slatkin conducting the Mahler Fifth Symphony and the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 22 with Emanuel … Continue reading
I’m not able to make any concerts this week due to various conflicts, but that shouldn’t keep any of you from going, nor should it keep me from talking about them. . . . Hollywood Bowl, Week 2 The Los Angeles Philharmonic second week of summer classical concerts were programmed similarly to the way Week … Continue reading
It was time for musicians to break out their summer whites and for the audiences to try to not roll empty bottles of wine down concrete steps. That’s right: I’m talking about summer at the Hollywood Bowl. After a few concerts of playing back-up band to Barry Manilow, the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened the classical … Continue reading
In May 2010, a few months after Mathieu Dufour decided to return to his old chair in Chicago, the Los Angeles Philharmonic held auditions for a new Principal Flute to replace him. They ended up offering the position to David Buck, then principal with the Oregon Symphony, without requiring any kind of trial period. Fast … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, United States of America! The typical celebratory music for the occasion would be a march by John Philip Sousa. Certainly, Sousa marches such as The Stars and Stripes Forever, The Washington Post, and Semper Fidelis, are the very definition of patriotic marches for most Americans. Of course, there are other American marches by … Continue reading
I don’t remember the first time I had foie gras, but I definitely know when and where I fell in love with it: it was at Water Grill in Downtown LA, right before the turn of the New Millenium. Michael Cimarusti had taken over the kitchen from Allyson Thurber a year or two before. On this … Continue reading
All is Yar 