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
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
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
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
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
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
No official announcement from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but it looks like their recent Second Horn audition was won by Gregory Roosa. Mr. Roosa is currently horn player with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He joined that orchestra in 2003 after having held similar positions with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony. … Continue reading
For their season finale, the Los Angeles Philharmonic ordered up a world premiere of a major new work from John Adams, their Creative Chair and one of the most prominent American composers currently living. Once again, the orchestra was thinking big and taking risks. You’ve gotta appreciate their moxy. Audentes fortuna juvat — “Fortune favors the … Continue reading
I’m killing time before this evening’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert by drinking an old fashioned — a really good one, BTW, care of the bartender at the Omni Hotel near Walt Disney Concert Hall. Anyways, I started thinking about tonight’s world premiere of The Gospel According to the Other Mary, a modern bit of social … Continue reading
The Los Angeles Philharmonic recently held auditions to find a new Principal Cello to replace Peter Stumpf, whose name still appears on their roster as being “On Leave” but who hasn’t been with the orchestra all season. The required repertoire list for the audition included some excerpts that would be expected (Haydn Concerto, Don Quixote, La … Continue reading
Following up regarding my last post about Friday night’s Los Angeles Philharmonic concert, here’s one extra little tidbit about Mozart’s Posthorn Serenade and the orchestra: As stated in both printed and online version of the program notes, the first performance was March 26, 1942, with George Szell conducting. Until this season, the most recent performance … Continue reading
It wasn’t supposed to be an all-Mozart program. What was originally announced as a Tchaikovsky/Sibelius program morphed a couple of times over the course of this season before landing on its final form. One of the subscribers wasn’t happy about all the repeated changes and made her opinion known during the “Casual Friday” post-concert Q&A. With … Continue reading
All is Yar 