When is an organ recital more than that? When the entire LA Phil brass section joins the fray, as it will this coming Sunday, October 12th, at 7pm, for a tenth birthday party of sorts. Continue reading
Category Archives: Music News & Info: Classical
LA Phil season opening gala concert shows off John Williams’ musical breadth and depth
The works of John Williams are as ubiquitous as orchestral music can be in our 21st Century pop-dominated, globally diffuse society. It’d be an interesting experiment to see if a random sampling of people on the street would be as successful identifying such classical music standards as Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik or Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture as they would the … Continue reading
A colorful 2014-15 season opener for Kahane and LA Chamber Orchestra
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and their Music Director, Jeffrey Kahane, can almost always be counted on to present compelling programming, interesting soloists, and thoughtful interpretations. For their 2014-15 season opener, Mr. Kahane and the orchestra rolled out more of the same, care of a new work by Cameron Patrick, an infrequently-heard bit of piano concerto sass … Continue reading
Gražinytė-Tyla surprises, deMaine stellar, Pogostkina solid: three make their Hollywood Bowl debut in Mahler & Brahms
When I got the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s email informing me that one of their former Dudamel Conducting Fellows, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, had been selected as the orchestra’s Assistant Conductor, the first thing I thought was, “Oh, good for her.” The second thing I thought was, as a diacriticly-challenged English-speaker, “Wait — how exactly do you say that name?” I reached out … Continue reading
Julien Beaudiment sees his American Dream become a reality as Principal Flute of the LA Phil
When Julien Beaudiment was still just a teenager in France, he was already a prominent enough flutist to warrant attention from his hometown newspaper. “I was doing a concert in my hometown, and I was saying that my dream was to work in America. For me it was always something that was really fascinating to … Continue reading
LA Phil gives two offers for new clarinet and trumpet
Gustavo Dudamel is in the midst of a two-week stint at the Hollywood Bowl, conducting an eclectic mix of music ranging from the usual summer classical offerings by Beethoven to less common Bowl fare such as verismo opera and Pan-American music of various genres. Tonight’s program even includes the premiere performances of Mr. Dudamel’s own score for … Continue reading
VIDEO: Carlo Maria Giulini rehearsing the LA Phil in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
Kudos and endless gratitude to Tim Mangan for originally finding and sharing this blast from the past: Carlo Maria Giulini rehearsing the opening of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. According to the voice over at the beginning of the video, this was filmed during one of ten(!) … Continue reading
Salonen, Wang, Hooten, and the LA Phil create their own fireworks at the Hollywood Bowl
A little bit of Esa-Pekka Salonen is better than none at all. And so it turned out this past week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The original plan was that the orchestra’s beloved Conductor Laureate was supposed to be at the Hollywood Bowl for two concerts, beginning Tuesday night when he and pianist Yefim Bronfman (long-time … Continue reading
RIP Lorin Maazel (updated)
American conductor Lorin Maazel died earlier today from complications of pneumonia at his home in Virginia. He was 84. The former child prodigy was born in 1930, began playing violin in “the Karl Moldrem Baby Orchestra” by the age of five, and was conducting at seven years old. In 1938, he made his first appearance on the … Continue reading
A chat with Ben Jaffe about Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s past, future, and interesting partnerships in their present
Preservation Hall Jazz Band returns once again to Southern California tonight, this time for their inaugural visit to the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. This makes about a half-dozen visits to the area since they released That’s It!, their first-ever album devoted exclusively to new compositions (notwithstanding the special editions that include some live versions of classics such as … Continue reading
Spending time with Grant Gershon (Part 2 of 2): what he looks for in singers, meeting Nelson Mandela, and more
This coming Sunday marks the final concert of the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s landmark 50th Anniversary Season. For the occasion, Music Director Grant Gershon has put together a typically forward-looking program of works by Shawn Kirchner, David Lang, Francisco Núñez, Gabriela Lena Frank, and – last but certainly not least – Esa-Pekka Salonen. All … Continue reading
My chat with Plácido Domingo about singing Schubert lieder, plus Renée Fleming ponders singing baritone too
It’s quite been quite a week for Southern California opera fans: Los Angeles Opera just finished a three-show run of André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire starring soprano Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois, a role she created in the original 1998 production for San Francisco Opera. Reviews have been mostly positive: Timothy Mangan (Los Angeles Register) generally liked it despite some … Continue reading
News about the LA Phil brass and a former principal flute, plus two guys named McGill and more
Over the past couple of years, my euphoria about the bad-assness of the three current brass principals of the Los Angeles Philharmonic — Andrew Bain (horn), Tom Hooten (trumpet), and Nitzan Haroz (trombone) — has been somewhat tempered by a fear that, for one reason or another, the trio might not stick together very long. … Continue reading
Shaham’s Bartók, Denève’s Rachmaninoff pair nicely at Walt Disney Concert Hall
(Publisher’s note: We’re very happy to welcome back Fiona Bryan, writer and violinist, to All is Yar for this concert review). In the short year and a half that I have lived in Southern California, I have come to expect the unexpected when it comes to programming presented by various cultural organizations around Los Angeles. The progressive landscape of … Continue reading
For Carlo Maria Giulini’s 100th birthday, FREE Bruckner download and video of Schumann 3rd
The late Carlo Maria Giulini, iconic Italian conductor and former Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was born 100 years ago today (May 9, 1914). In celebration, the good folks at Deutsche Grammophon are giving away a FREE download (click HERE) of the third movement of Bruckner’s 7th Symphony with Signor Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in a … Continue reading
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