The Pacific Symphony’s choice of Alexander Shelley as its next Music Director has been a solid so far. He has crafted compelling programs. He’s made concise yet informative pre-performance comments from the podium. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s young, dashing, personable, and therefore a marketing department’s dream. Most importantly, he’s shown the capacity for …
A week or so ago, I was having a discussion with a distinguished reader of All is Yar about evaluating conductors, and I was reminded of a rather amusing conductor rating survey that was circulated a few years back among members of an organization of which I was a part. The form itself was not … Continue reading
Brian Lauritzen — radio personality extraordinaire, under-appreciated cellist, and friend of All is Yar — is known primarily for his smooth, easy-going voice on Classical KUSC (that’d be 91.5FM for all of you who still listen to terrestrial radio in Southern California), as well as podcasts for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Opera, … Continue reading
Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème is as popular and reliable a seat-filler as you can get in opera. In Southern California alone, it has been programmed by both the Pacific Symphony and Los Angeles Opera within weeks of each other this spring. It shows up so often that opera-going veterans see La Bohème on the calendar and grumble and moan … Continue reading
I’ll be back in a Los Angeles Opera “Tweet Seat” for tonight’s final dress rehearsal of La Bohème. If you’re already on Twitter, you can follow along my observations along with those of the rest of the Tweet Seat crew (and even perhaps some of the opera cast) with hashtag #LAOBoheme. If you’re not already … Continue reading
There was a time not too long ago that had you mentioned that a fair-haired, mop top, wunderkind conductor was standing on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s podium, your image would have been of an Englishman rather than a Venezuelan. Simon Rattle (not yet knighted) was Principal Guest Conductor from 1981 to 1994, though as the … Continue reading
Since 2005, Martin Haselböck has been Music Director of Musica Angelica, Los Angeles’s premiere period instrument baroque ensemble. He’s been a prominent organist and conductor in his native Austria longer than that. So it was perhaps a little surprising that, until this past Thursday, he hadn’t yet appeared with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in any … Continue reading
I had been really looking forward to these concerts. It was supposed to feature two masterful Spaniards in a night featuring a good chunk of Spanish music. Unfortunately, that went by the wayside as Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, conductor and friend of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, cancelled for health reasons. Pepe Romero, the distinguished guitarist (not … Continue reading
Saturday’s Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concert in Glendale featured music about places (New England, Brooklyn, and London) as set in two older pieces and one West Coast premiere. The theme worked very well, each piece on the program setting up the next one nicely. Jeffrey Kahane led everything joyously. If you were paying attention, … Continue reading
Back in 2007, long before All is Yar was a mere Fig Newton of my imagination, Victoria Bitter (VB) beer company teamed with the Melbourne Symphony and Orchestra Victoria — playing together as the “Victoria Bitter Orchestra” — to create a unique commercial: it featured the combined orchestras playing VB’s jingle using variations on a theme … Continue reading
Thoughts of this coming weekend’s concerts of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra conducted by their tech-loving Music Director, Jeffrey Kahane, reminded me of how he has increasingly taken to using iPads instead of regular sheet music, especially when playing the piano. Among other reasons, it helps him avoid page-turning snafus. Timo Andres also used one … Continue reading
It was Holy Thursday and a few days before Passover, and therefore rather appropriate that the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra would serve up the final version of this year year’s food-themed “Westside Connections” concerts as a kind of last supper. Margarat Batjer, LACO’s concertmaster and series curator, mentioned that the initial premise for the evening … Continue reading
As I’ve mentioned in the past, classical music marketing and advertising can be a thankless job. If you think it’s easy, you try finding something new to say about music that’s been around for hundreds of years. Go ahead, I’ll wait. . . . See? Not exactly a piece of cake. No one likes doing … Continue reading
Anton Bruckner wrote multiple settings of “Christus Factus Est Pro Nobis.” This particular one is near and dear to my heart because it was the first Bruckner motet I learned to sing. In fact, it was the first Bruckner work of any kind to which I was introduced. Here’s a rendition by the Bristol Cathedral … Continue reading
Long before Madonna was the most famous American in self-imposed exile in the UK, another noteworthy American-turned-Brit wrote some unkind words about April (or at least that’s what the Thunder said). Whatever. Don’t believe the hype — April is a kick-ass month, and this one in particular is full of all kinds of stuff … Continue reading
I don’t remember the last time I heard the Los Angeles Master Chorale have a less-than-impressive performance, let alone a bad day. It’s had to happen; the group is only human, after all. The Master Chorale has a long and distinguished history, but ever since Grant Gershon took over as Music Director in 2001, its … Continue reading
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