The Ojai Music Festival announced this morning that Chad Smith will be their new Artistic Director beginning in 2020. Mr. Smith will take over for Thomas W. Morris, Ojai’s Artistic Director since 2004 and former top executive with the Cleveland Orchestra and Boston Symphony, who had previously announced his decision to retire after the 2019 …
The Los Angeles Master Chorale opened their 2016-17 season with staged performances of Orlando di Lassos’s Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of St. Peter), a Renaissance-era work unknown to most singers and audience members alike, even the most ardent aficionados of choral music. I spoke to Artistic Director Grant Gershon at the time. We discussed … Continue reading
Thirty-five years ago today, New Order released their seminal New Wave dance hit, “Blue Monday.” The song — along with its iconic packaging for the 12″ vinyl single as an over-sized floppy disc — represents a key moment in time for the band, the clearest indication that it had moved beyond its more austere roots … Continue reading
After teasing its 2018/19 season in November and postponing its originally planned announcement by an extra couple of days, the Los Angeles Philharmonic finally dropped the other shoe last week and released full details of its Centennial Season. It is, to use a word that is ubiquitous yet completely accurate and appropriate this time: awesome. … Continue reading
While everyone in the classical music space has been holding its collective breath waiting for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, that benevolent 800-lb. gorilla of the Southern California artistic landscape, to release details of the rest of its 2018/19 season, we should pause and examine next year’s season recently announced by the smaller yet artistically worthy … Continue reading
Expectations have been rather high for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2018/19 season. After all, they’ve had some rather impressive seasons leading up to it, and you’d guess that they’d make an even bigger splash for their 100th Anniversary season. The full season announcement was to have been made this morning Alas, we’ll have to wait … Continue reading
The multi-talented Arturo Sandoval, best known as a jazz trumpeter, is in the middle of a four-day residency at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. He plays a concert tonight, but the bulk of the “Sandoval Jazz Weekend” at The Wallis is devoted to showcasing and engaging young jazz talent … Continue reading
Los Angeles Opera and Plácido Domingo, their General Director, issued a press release last week announcing details of their 2018/19 (full details are below). In short, here’s what we’ve got to look forward to: Mainstage (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion) Six performances each of: Don Carlo (Verdi): September 22 through October 14, 2018; revival. James Conlon conducts. Ramón Vargas (Don … Continue reading
