My $0.02  on the LA Phil’s 2014-15 Walt Disney Concert Hall season and 2014 Hollywood Bowl season
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical

My $0.02 on the LA Phil’s 2014-15 Walt Disney Concert Hall season and 2014 Hollywood Bowl season

Yesterday, the good folks at the Los Angeles Philharmonic made public the plans for the upcoming 2014-15 season at Walt Disney Concert Hall (details available HERE).  This comes on the heels of last week’s announcement of the coming 2014 summer season at the Hollywood Bowl (HERE are details of that). Unlike last year, there was … Continue reading

Ojai Music Festival announces Music Directors for next three seasons
Music News & Info: Classical / Other classical music concerts and recitals (in So Cal and beyond)

Ojai Music Festival announces Music Directors for next three seasons

Ojai Music Festival Artistic Director Tom Morris and the other good folks on his team are still ramping up for this summer’s fun, featuring pianist (and blogger) Jeremy Denk as Music Director.  But that didn’t stop them from giving us a little advanced notice about who’ll be taking the reigns in the future.  According to the … Continue reading

Spending time with Grant Gershon (Part 1 of 2):  how a pianist and conducting skeptic became a choral maestro
Interviews / Los Angeles Master Chorale / Music News & Info: Classical

Spending time with Grant Gershon (Part 1 of 2): how a pianist and conducting skeptic became a choral maestro

“Bach’s B-minor Mass? Wow. That is the mountaintop,” says Grant Gershon. He should know. When it comes to choral music in Southern California, likely even the entire country, there isn’t a more prominent musician than the man who is both Music Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Resident Conductor & Chorus Master of … Continue reading

The LA Master Chorale to celebrate its 50th Anniversary with impressive 2013/2014 season
Los Angeles Master Chorale / Music News & Info: Classical

The LA Master Chorale to celebrate its 50th Anniversary with impressive 2013/2014 season

I was very happy to see this very promising information show up in my inbox this afternoon: The Los Angeles Master Chorale announced their 2013/2014 season, a year which celebrates a pair of anniversaries: 50 years since it’s founding by the legendary Roger Wagner as one of the Los Angeles Music Center’s resident companies. 10 … Continue reading

LA Phil tuning up the programs they are taking on tour (part 2 of 3):  Dudamel swings for the fences with “La mer” & “Firebird”
All Reviews / Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical / Reviews 2012/2013

LA Phil tuning up the programs they are taking on tour (part 2 of 3): Dudamel swings for the fences with “La mer” & “Firebird”

“I think that Debussy is, perhaps,  the most important composer of this century.  I also happen to think that today, the future of classical music has a lot to do with Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and less to do with Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. The relationship between Debussy and Stravinsky is particularly interesting.  First of all, … Continue reading

Listen online now to upcoming release of Lutosławski symphony cycle by Salonen and LA Phil
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical

Listen online now to upcoming release of Lutosławski symphony cycle by Salonen and LA Phil

If you missed Esa-Pekka Salonen’s visit to So Cal a month ago to play some Lutosławski with the Los Angeles Philharmonic — or if you were there and are currently missing the thought of those concerts — you now have reason to rejoice a little:  on January 25th, the recording of the First Symphony made at … Continue reading

Five concerts, four conductors at different stages of their relationship w/ the LA Phil (part 3 of 4):  Esa-Pekka Salonen then and now
All Reviews / Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical / Reviews 2012/2013

Five concerts, four conductors at different stages of their relationship w/ the LA Phil (part 3 of 4): Esa-Pekka Salonen then and now

When Esa-Pekka Salonen comes back to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, you expect finely polished performances of complex programs.  In two weekends of concerts earlier this month, that’s exactly what you got and then some.  E-P was in town to help the orchestra celebrate Lutosławski’s centenary, with both sets of programs featuring major works by the … Continue reading

Five concerts, four conductors at different stages of their relationship w/ the LA Phil (part 2 of 4):  Lionel Bringuier and the latest Green Umbrella new music concert
All Reviews / Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical / Reviews 2012/2013

Five concerts, four conductors at different stages of their relationship w/ the LA Phil (part 2 of 4): Lionel Bringuier and the latest Green Umbrella new music concert

The first time I learned about Lionel Bringuier was in November 2006.  The late great Alan Rich wrote about how the powers-that-be at the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the time — among them, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Deborah Borda, orchestra musicians, and board members — were blown away by Mr. Bringuier and named him Assistant Conductor at … Continue reading

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra / Los Angeles Master Chorale / Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical

Upcoming concerts that will hopefully make it a musical December to remember

Here are the Southern California musical events happening in the coming month which are grabbing my attention, and that should be grabbing yours too: Jacaranda’s holiday-ish “Winter Dreams” Concert this Saturday Yes, ’tis the season for Messiah and The Nutcracker, but if you’re looking for something a little different, the intrepid folks at Jacaranda offer up this mix of … Continue reading

Salonen, Philharmonia bring a vivid “Wozzeck” to Walt Disney Concert Hall
All Reviews / Music News & Info: Classical / Other classical music concerts and recitals (in So Cal and beyond) / Reviews 2012/2013

Salonen, Philharmonia bring a vivid “Wozzeck” to Walt Disney Concert Hall

Esa-Pekka Salonen is certainly among the most popular of classical musicians world-wide, but here in Southern California, it’s on a slightly different level.  You’d expect the current Conductor Laureate and former Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to have a strong following among the locals, and sure enough, he got a loud and prolonged … Continue reading

Twitter: where Esa-Pekka Salonen and The Rite Offspring (?!) coexist
Humor / Music News & Info: Classical / Music News & Info: Rock, Jazz, World Music, etc.

Twitter: where Esa-Pekka Salonen and The Rite Offspring (?!) coexist

For the longest time when it came to Twitter, I fought the power.  I thought it served best as a source of comedic fodder for late night talk shows and their friends (e.g. how could anything ever top this brilliance?  I gained a newfound respect for Josh Groban after seeing it). I finally jumped into … Continue reading

Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical / Other classical music concerts and recitals (in So Cal and beyond)

Anniversary of Bernstein’s last day as NY Phil Music Director

Care of the folks at Composers Datebook at American Public Media: On today’s date in 1969, Leonard Bernstein conducted his last concert as the Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. Bernstein had been named the orchestra’s Music Director in November of 1957, and was the first American-born and trained conductor to hold the position. … Continue reading

A familiar voice expands his reach
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra / Los Angeles Opera / Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical

A familiar voice expands his reach

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

Music News & Info: Classical

Happy Birthday, Jean Sibelius

On this date in 1865, Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer and nationalist, was born. In his honor, below is a brief excerpt of his Second Symphony played by the Gothenburg Symphony, conducted by their Music Director, Gustavo Dudamel. If you want to hear the whole thing, here’s also a live recording of the whole Second Symphony conducted by Esa-Pekka … Continue reading

Fashionably late:  Salonen and the LA Phil take on lost-and-found Shostakovich
All Reviews / Los Angeles Philharmonic / Music News & Info: Classical / Reviews 2011/2012

Fashionably late: Salonen and the LA Phil take on lost-and-found Shostakovich

Esa-Pekka Salonen was back for his second week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With a world premiere of the abandoned opera, Orango, paired with the withdrawn-for-25-years Symphony No. 4, his all-Shostakovich concerts were a study of two contrasting works that had both been hidden and eventually brought to new light. To add to the lost-and-found theme, E-P himself … Continue reading