Admit it: the first time you heard that Los Angeles Opera had decided to pair the Baroque charms of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the expressionistic horrors of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, you didn’t exactly say to yourself, “Oh yeah, that makes total sense.” No, at best, you probably thought, “Hmmmm — that’d be interesting.” If … Continue reading
Back by popular demand: our annual look at the changes in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s roster of musicians at the start of this year. As usual, we’ve had a mix of arrivals and departures, some expected and explained, some . . . well, not so much. Let’s start with the percussion section. Principal Percussionist Raynor Carroll … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
As part of their 50th Anniversary festivities, The Los Angeles Master Chorale is celebrating their long-running relationship with composer Morten Lauridsen this weekend. The partnership is, without a doubt, one of the most important between a composer and a chorus in the entire world. It began with a performance of Mid-Winter Songs during Roger Wagner’s last … Continue reading
All is Yar 