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Concert Review: MERRY & BRIGHT WITH JESSICA VOSK (New York Pops at Carnegie Hall)
WHO COULD VOSK FOR ANYTHING MORE? I can think of no better way to celebrate the holidays than at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops’ Merry and Bright, featuring Jessica Vosk (Wicked, Fiddler on the Roof, Finding Neverland and soon to join Broadway’s Hell’s Kitchen) and the chorus of Judith Clurman’s Essential Voices USA. Steven…
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Concert Review: GURRELIEDER (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
In an era when orchestral programming often shies from excess, the Los Angeles Philharmonic last weekend plunged unapologetically into the extravagant labyrinth of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. Under the baton of Zubin Mehta—paying homage to his tenure as the orchestra’s lionized music director emeritus—the performance resuscitated Schoenberg’s early, sprawling epic, a two-hour monument to the late-Romantic…
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Concert Review: KRISTIN CHENOWETH HOLIDAY CONCERT (LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
SMALLTOWN ROOTS, BIGTOWN PERFORMER Personable Kristin Chenoweth – the original Glinda in the Broadway musical Wicked – was a delight last night in L.A. This is Kristen as a regular gal from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, but her stage presence is phenomenal and her vocals are stratospheric. She dazzled us with holiday classics old and new…
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Jazz Preview: BLUE NOTE JAZZ FESTIVAL (Hollywood Bowl)
LEGENDARY BLUE NOTE JAZZ CLUB TO OPEN IN L.A. ANNOUNCING THE BLUE NOTE JAZZ FESTIVAL AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL IN 2025 Well, if this isn’t the best news for all of us jazz fans. The iconic Blue Note Jazz Club is expanding to Los Angeles, bringing the legendary reputation of its renowned New York flagship…
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Highly Recommended Theater: ANYTHING GOES IN CONCERT (Wayne Brady, J Harrison Ghee, Jinkx Monsoon; Pasadena Civic)
YOU’LL GET A KICK OUT OF THIS [EDITORS NOTE, January 10, 2025: Given the extensive impact of the fires on Playhouse staff, artists, and audiences, Pasadena Playhouse has cancelled the upcoming In Concert productions of Anything Goes and Follies at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. No remount dates have been announced.] Oh, no, no, no. A musical in…
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Highly Recommended Concert: A CHANTICLEER CHRISTMAS (National Tour at Walt Disney Concert Hall)
LET ME MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CHANTICLEER I may be enamored by the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Messiah, I may be enthralled by Pasadena Symphony’s Holiday Candlelight, I may be excited by the Gay Men’s Chorus’s Holiday Spectacular, but A Chanticleer Christmas, which plays Disney Hall on Dec. 17, is always the best choral show of…
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Concert / Film Review: THE PHILIP GLASS ENSEMBLE: POWAQQATSI (Town Hall in New York)
A STUNNING COLLABORATION OF FILM AND MUSIC I saw a special gem at the Town Hall last Monday, a viewing of Godfrey Reggio’s Powaqqatsi with its celebrated score – created by Philip Glass, who was in the house, and performed live by The Philip Glass Ensemble. The non-narrative film is the second of the Reggio/Glass…
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Concert Review: ONE NIGHT ONLY: AN EVENING WITH MAX VON ESSEN (New York Pops at Carnegie Hall)
MAX VON ESSEN HAS A KNOCKOUT CARNEGIE HALL DEBUT Max von Essen is no spring chicken, having made his Broadway debut in the 2000 revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. Nevertheless, when he bounced onto the stage at Carnegie Hall with The NY Pops orchestra for One Night Only: An Evening with Max von Essen on…
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Music | Film Review: STAR WARS IN CONCERT (LA Phil)
THE STAR WARS COME OUT AT DISNEY HALL The force of the LA Phil is definitely with you. When Star Wars in Concert began last night, fittingly, with the iconic “Star Wars (Main Theme)”, it filled Disney Hall with a palpable excitement (so did the deep-note sound of the THX trailer). The crowd roared and…
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Concert Review: VENETIAN SPLENDOR: Vivaldi Four Seasons & Gondola Songs (Avi Avital and SF’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, SoCal Tour: Soka, Granada Theatre, The Soraya)
BRAVO, AVI! As part of a SoCal tour, Israeli Mandolinist Avi Avital and San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra stopped at at Soka University Concert Hall on Sunday, Nove 10, 2024. The concert’s main feature was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, with the solo violin part transcribed to Mandolin by Avital himself. The program repeats tomorrow night Nov…
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Highly Recommended Opera: AIDA and THE OPERA GALA (Boston Lyric Opera at Emerson Colonial Theater)
Stefan Egerstrom (King of Egypt), Brian Major (Amonasro) and Morris Robinson (Ramfis) On Sunday, November 10, 2024, Boston Lyric Opera’s one-performance-only of Giuseppe Verdi’s triumphal masterpiece Aida preceded the return of its annual fundraiser that supports access through community initiatives. Following the 3pm staged concert performance of Aida, the stunning Opera Gala 2024, which will…
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Concert Review: RUFUS-RETRO-WAINWRIGHT-SPECTIVE (Rufus Wainwright at The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
A RUFUS CONVERT During Rufus Wainwright‘s homey, intimate concert last night at the packed 500-seat theater at The Wallis in Beverly Hills, he chuckled that he didn’t really want to do A Rufus-Retro-Wainwright-Spective again. Constantly appearing in different shows, he noted that the three-night engagement here was “a lot.” And he ain’t kiddin’. Over three nights,…
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Highly Recommended Concert: WE ARE VERY BIZET (The Verdi Chorus Fall 2024 Concert Celebrating Verdi and Bizet)
“VOTRE TOAST” TO THE VERDI CHORUS The Verdi Chorus’s 41st season begins with its Fall 2024 show, We Are Verdi Bizet, led by Anne Marie Ketchum, who is has been, well, very busy as the Artistic Director for 41 consecutive years. The Verdi Chorus is the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily…
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Concert Review: T BONE BURNETT LIVE IN CONCERT (Tour at The Barns at Wolf Trap)
A BARE-BONE GIG Last night, October 28, a packed house at The Barns at Wolf Trap enjoyed a mellow and introspective concert as T Bone Burnett performed his latest album The Other Side, his first solo release in nearly 20 years. (Another show was added tonight, but that is sold-out.) Describing the evening as a…
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Concert Review: FROM MEXICO TO HOLLYWOOD: GOLDEN AGE CINEMA (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
FROM MEXICO TO HOLLYWOOD TO DISNEY HALL, THIS PROGRAM OF FILM SCORES ENTHRALLED With John Williams’s name attached to the program that played last weekend at Disney Hall, I knew had to attend. From Mexico to Hollywood: Golden Age Cinema contained some of the most memorable scores from the best films of Mexico’s Época de…
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Highly Recommended Screening: NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF HORROR (Disney Hall on Halloween)
A SILENT SCREAMS One of the spookiest horror films ever made was completed before most of today’s audiences were born. Nosferatu, a 1922 German Expressionist horror film about the vampire Count Orlok directed by F. W. Murnau may be far better known for its creepy-ass make-up given to the vampire, but horror buffs understand that…
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Highly Recommended Concert: RHAPSODY IN JAZZ: ORIGINAL 1924 VERSION OF RHAPSODY IN BLUE & MORE GERSHWIN (Conrad Tao; Christopher Rountree/wild UP; The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra at The Soraya, Saturday November 16)
GERSHWIN’S RHAPSODY IN JAZZ Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue turns 100 this year, so the piece is receiving a fair amount of attention: Just this week, CBS Sunday Morning ran this segment, and earlier this year, columnists for the The New York Times and Los Angeles Times debated the merits of a work entrenched in the American psyche….
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Recommended Concert: OPENING NIGHT WITH BERNADETTE PETERS (Pacific Symphony Pops at Segerstom Concert Hall)
Let her entertain you! Legendary Broadway, film and TV star Bernadette Peters returns to Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Concert Hall for two nights — Friday-Saturday, Nov. 1 and 2, at 8 — to open the 2024-25 Pops Season, led by Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yaí±ez for the second year. Dazzling with show tunes and masterpieces…
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Recommended Jazz Concert: IMPROMPTU (Teodora Brody and Stanley Jordan at Carnegie Hall)
On Friday, November 8, 2024 at 7:30pm, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall will host Impromptu, a captivating evening of spontaneous performance featuring the acclaimed Teodora Brody and the renowned American guitarist and pianist Stanley Jordan. For the first time at Carnegie Hall, they will perform an entirely unrehearsed concert, without a setlist or score. This is…
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Concert Review: AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (U.S. Tour at Jordan Hall in Boston)
MAKING THE OLD NEW “Make it new,” Ezra Pound urged the poets of the early twentieth century. For Modernists such as T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, H.D., Amy Lowell, and Pound himself, making it new meant innovating to produce something never before seen or read. Yet Boston’s Celebrity Series has now brought us two concerts…
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