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Concerts / Events
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Concert Review: FROM MOZART TO MAHLER (Pacific Symphony)
INTIMACY AND ENORMITY: MOZART AND MAHLER IN COSTA MESA Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488, is a peculiar piece to a classical program. It omits oboes entirely, replacing them with clarinets for a softer, more inward blend, and there are no trumpets or drums at all, no means of making a…
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Concert Review: PATTI LuPONE: MATTERS OF THE HEART (Carnegie Hall / New York)
LOVE, LuPONE STYLE A master performer balances tenderness and trademark wit On Groundhog Day, February 2, Patti LuPone fans emerged from wherever they were holed up during that cold winter week and made their way to Carnegie Hall for a concert of love-related songs called Matters of the Heart. The generous program, conceived and directed…
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Concert Review: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN AND LORENZ (LA Phil / Disney Hall)
THREE THEORIES OF WITNESS At Disney Hall with the LA Phil on February 12, Ricardo Lorenz’s Humboldt’s Nature opened the evening by staking out a proposition: that orchestral music can think, not merely illustrate. The piece follows Humboldt’s intellectual life not as biography but as cognitive event, a consciousness moving through accumulated observation toward something…
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Concert Preview: MISSA SOLEMNIS (Gustavo Dudamel and The LA Phil at Disney Hall)
Beethoven’s towering Missa Solemnis arrives at Disney Hall for a rare, monumental performance. Dudamel leads a massive musical and choral force in one of Beethoven’s most demanding—and least-heard—masterworks. “From the heart—may it go further to the heart.” That’s what Ludwig van Beethoven inscribed on the score of his Missa Solemnis, a work he labored over for four years—the…
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Concert Review: THE DOVER QUARTET (Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall)
TRADITIONS IN CONVERSATION From Mendelssohn to Chickasaw works, a program unified by thoughtful playing The Dover Quartet — Joel Link, Bryan Lee, violins; Julianne Lee, viola; and Camden Shaw, cello) — is small but mighty. Originally formed at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia in 2008, they are one of the greatest quartets you will ever…
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Concert Review: ESPERANZA SPALDING (Well-Being Concert at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Room)
ESPERANZA SPALDING’S HOMEMADE FIELD OF LOVE A communal cleansing at Carnegie Hall Stepping out at night this winter requires real chutzpah because New York City is absolutely freezing, but you can always find small treasures that warm you through both the weather and these bleak political times. I was lucky enough to stumble upon one…
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Concert Review: BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA (Carnegie Hall)
Budapest Festival Orchestra took the audience around the world and back in time during their February 6 concert at Carnegie Hall. They also proved themselves capable of choral work, as they performed the Carnegie Hall premiere of the chorus version of Arvo Pärt’s Summa. From the modernist and minimalist Estonian, Pärt, the orchestra went to…
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Concert Review: ISABEL LEONARD AND FRIENDS (Carnegie Hall)
A VARIED AND VOLUPTUOUS NIGHT OF SONG A night at Carnegie Hall always feels special and elegant, and the evening of January 15 was no exception. Applause was plentiful, cheers resounded, and moments of surprise and comic relief brought amused laughter that banished any fear that a heavy layer of formulaic formality would settle over…
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Concert | Theater Review: OKLAHOMA! IN CONCERT (Carnegie Hall)
OH, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL EVENIN’! RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN RIDE AGAIN AT CARNEGIE HALL With a full cast, full dialogue, and a glorious orchestra, this Oklahoma! concert leans into the classic’s warmth— exclamation point included. Ah, the classic musical Oklahoma! It begins with the offstage cowboy character named Curly singing about nature—“There’s a bright golden haze…
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Highly Recommended Concert: MARTIN CHALIFOUR & FRIENDS: THE ART OF CHAMBER MUSIC (The Music Guild at St. Alban’s, Westwood)
CHAMBER MUSIC IN AN IDEAL SETTING Glorious acoustics, a resonant space, and musicians who know how to listen to one another. There are few places in Los Angeles better suited to chamber music than St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, whose warm, luminous acoustics allow strings to bloom and piano lines to resonate without ever turning brittle….
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Concert Review: A PLACE CALLED HOME (NY Pops with Megan Hilty and Essential Voices USA)
THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE A PLACE CALLED HOME A late-season course correction that feels like a homecoming Christmastime is filled with traditions. And one of the best ones in New York City is the New York Pops Christmas Concert, when the stage is bathed in rosy light, a wreath hangs from overhead, and the hall…
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Concert Preview: THREADS OF GOLD—DOLLY PARTON GOES SYMPHONIC (National Tour)
THREADS OF GOLD—DOLLY PARTON GOES SYMPHONIC Her songs get the orchestral treatment in a cross-country concert experience Dolly Parton has never been one for half measures. When she says the threads of her life run through her songs, she means it. That idea is taken literally with Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony, a…
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Event Review: LA VIRGEN DE GUADALUPE, DIOS INANTZIN (Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels)
MIRACLE ON TEMPLE STREET Faith, fiesta, feathers, and unexpectedly fabulous ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ With candor, color, and ceremony, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin has become a Los Angeles holiday ritual — and after more than twenty years under the stewardship of Latino Theater Company, it’s a miracle…
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Event Review: A CONVERSATION WITH KAMALA HARRIS (“107 Days” Book Tour)
FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE You wouldn’t know that former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election if you’d been standing outside the Chevalier Theater in Medford, Massachusetts (a near suburb of Boston) early Saturday afternoon. The line to fill the 1900-seat theater had already formed by noon for a show slated to begin…
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Concert Review: DANNY ELFMAN’S MUSIC FROM THE FILMS OF TIM BURTON (San Francisco Symphony)
A SYMPHONIC CELEBRATION OF ELFMAN AND BURTON A visually and musically immersive concert that brings beloved scores thrillingly to life Music always enhances the moviegoing experience. It sets the tone, creates mood, and heightens the action and drama of a story. Long after a film has left theaters, its music often lingers in popular memory….
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Concert Review: LENNON AND NILSSON: SONGS FROM THE LOST WEEKEND (Live from Laurel Canyon at The Carpenter Center)
LOST WEEKEND, FOUND MAGIC Lennon and Nilsson Get a Vibrant Tribute Live from Laurel Canyon, known for blending storytelling with faithful musical tributes, returned to the Carpenter Center on November 9 with Lennon and Nilsson: Songs from the Lost Weekend, a two-act concert chronicling the music, friendship, and notorious misadventures shared by John Lennon and…
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Concert Review: LET’S GET AWAY FROM IT ALL (Michael Feinstein at Carnegie Hall)
NO PLACE LIKE HOME— UNLESS MICHAEL FEINSTEIN TAKES YOU THERE Let’s Get Away From It All proves the Great American Songbook is still first-class travel When Michael Feinstein opened his show Let’s Get Away From It All at Zankel Hall with the question, “Is there anybody that doesn’t want to get away?” the answer came…



















