The ten-week parade of guest conductors at the Los Angeles Philharmonic has begun. First in line: James Gaffigan, the American-born Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony and previous right hand man to Michael Tilson Thomas in San Francisco and Franz Welser-Möst in Cleveland. His program featured one favorite, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Simon … Continue reading
Gustavo Dudamel’s final Walt Disney Concert Hall appearance of 2014 was all about himself, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and what they could do together. The program featured three orchestral showpieces laden with built-in imagery for him to exploit. No daintiness was required. No soloists got in the way. A good time was had by all. Continue reading
(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
Continuing my efforts to clear my mental backlog of things I’ve wanted to write about during the past two weeks but couldn’t, below are my (slightly abridged) thoughts on three Los Angeles Philharmonic concerts from last week, specifically: Gustavo Dudamel’s multimedia concert featuring Ravel and Knussen The first Green Umbrella concert of the year, with … Continue reading
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