For tonight’s concert of incidental music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Mendelssohn and Orff’s Carmina Burana, I decided to bring along a couple of 2004 wines: a Late Disgorged Brut from Domaine Carneros and a Ridge Lytton Springs. Both are drinking damn well. No matter how many times I drink “older” Lytton Springs, I … Continue reading
Back in May of this year, I had the good fortune to be able to attend the world premiere performance of John Adams’ new oratorio, The Gospel According to the Other Mary. In addition to posting a review of that concert, I posted some pre-concert musings on the new work’s title and the identity of the … Continue reading
There’s lots going in this weekend. Pick something you like and go check it out. World premiere production of The Face The world premiere staged performance of Donald Crockett’s new chamber orchestra, The Face, is tonight at 8pm at the Aratani/Japan America Theater in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. Subsequent performances will be … Continue reading
You hear of a night of Haydn conducted by the ever-sunny Nicholas McGegan, and you probably think, “That’s nice.” You notice that the Haydn Trumpet Concerto will be the centerpiece of the evening and you might say, “Hmmm, haven’t heard that performed in a while.” You realize that Alison Balsom is the trumpet soloist, … Continue reading
Anna Prohaska, recently appearing as Zerlina in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s production of Don Giovanni, is seen here at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Salzburg Festival singing some different Mozart: Exsultate, Jubilate (K. 165) What makes the performance more impressive is that she was only given a few hours notice that she’d be performing … Continue reading
Just to show that good things can actually happen to good people, music critic Timothy Mangan will once again be the classical music critic of The Orange County Register. According to his blog, Classical Life, Tim’s new/old job was definitely — if not yet publicly — confirmed by the newspaper’s new regime. No word … Continue reading
Inspired by the centennial of Pasadena-native, Julia Child, Southwest Chamber Music has been focusing on French music for their Summer Festival 2012 at The Huntington. Healthy portions of Debussy and Ravel are offered up in each concert. This past weekend’s programs, the third in the series, paired those two quintessential French composers with works from Vietnam. It … Continue reading
For last Thursday’s all Tchaikovsky concert at the Hollywood Bowl, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Hadley and Tatiana of Grub Street Los Angeles. They’re wonderful people — I say this for a great variety of reasons, only one of which is their willingness to share with me some of their wine: a … Continue reading
Tchaikovsky concerts at the Hollywood Bowl are common occurrences. Thursday night’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert was pretty typical, with a program featuring a pair of frequently heard warhorses: the Piano Concerto No. 1 and the Symphony No. 4. Then again, in some ways, this wasn’t all that typical. There were no fireworks, no 1812 Overture, … Continue reading
Different people have different habits, especially when it comes to how you like to consume information. Some of you like to watch Olympic coverage in real time online or read about the results on ESPN or Twitter immediately after gold medals are handed out, while others prefer to sit through NBC’s tape-delayed faux-suspense-laden Olympic coverage … Continue reading
There are few people I have ever known for whom all was truly yar, who really did live the good life in all of its many forms, more than Mark Anthony Petix. A gifted writer, he was most familiar to the world for his many years at The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, covering the Inland Empire in all … Continue reading
I have more than a few things to say about last Tuesday’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert at the Hollywood Bowl, as usual. But let’s get one thing out of the way, shall we? Yefim Bronfman is a bad-ass. Ok, perhaps this is old news, but even if that’s the case, it’s worth repeating. So many … Continue reading
All is Yar 