Music

THE WHIMSICAL FLUTE How to illustrate such whimsy: Chaplin on a Seussian sleigh, perhaps, belting an aria from Metropolis into the bowels of Dante’s Inferno. That’s as succinctly I can describe the magic awaiting audiences this holiday season in LA Opera’s dazzling production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). The fact that…

HERE COMES L.A.’S COLOSSAL CHORALE WITH CHRISTMAS CHORAL CONCERTS AND CAROLS With the indefatigable Energizer Bunny of conducting, Grant Gershon, at the helm, Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) can easily be labeled one of the best choirs on earth, and you have a chance to see four separate holiday programs this year at Walt Disney…

GERALD CLAYTON SOLOS AT LACC ONE NIGHT ONLY There are few times in life that one witnesses an artist and knows immediately that something is different. I can even catch it on a recording. That specialness that can’t be replicated by imitation or study. Well, to quote Thelonius Monk: “Know it when you hear it.”…

GARRIFIC It’s been almost a half-century since Garrick Ohlsson won the International Frédéric Chopin Competition in Warsaw, so I attended his recital at The Wallis in Beverly Hills last Friday with a bit of trepidation. And seeing his large frame in person, I wondered at first that he should be hauling the piano not playing…

LIVE MUSIC IS ALWAYS SUSTENANCE I’m happy to report that Andrew Norman’s Sustain, an LA Phil centennial commission that premiered last year — and saw a second showing last weekend at Disney Hall — is far more agreeable than much of the atmospheric “new” music these days, and a much more promising avenue for this…

MAGIC CAN STRIKE THRICE IN THE SAME PLACE In 2013, a new production of  The Magic Flute from Berlin’s Komische Oper became a sell-out sensation, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera. In 2016, it returned just as magical as it was the first time. Now, it returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion starting Saturday, November 16,…

BELL, BAX, BACH: BEAUTIFUL, BRILLIANT, BREATHTAKING I first saw Italian pianist Alessio Bax five years ago when he made his Los Angeles premiere playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra. I remember thinking he has all the right moves but had yet to incorporate personality into his work. While he demonstrated…

CAMARENA HAS BELLAS ARTES IN HIS SOUL When I was 19, a friend asked if I’d like to drive to San Francisco from L.A. to hear Luciano Pavarotti in recital. Being a musical theater buff, it took quite a bit of convincing to get me into anything that smacked of opera, especially 400 miles away….

REAWAKENING A FAMILIAR CONCERTO As you may know, Composer and Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen is off to the Bay Area to become the San Francisco Symphony’s new music director. The Fab Fin will be leading a few concerts before he leaves. This weekend, he serves up the world premiere of his new work, Castor, a…

BISS IS IT What a splendid way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth year (the Sagittarian was actually born December 17, 1770): The great pianist Jonathan Biss played two separate programs of sonatas this week at The Soraya. I caught the latter, and it was all I could do to keep…

LA PHIL — IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela and the U.S. were represented in the sensational concert last night at Disney Hall. The program Dudamel Conducts Music of the Americas has the conductor collecting pieces that were inspired by folk music and celebrate peoples who came before. Two of the four pieces —…

THE ORIGINAL AMERICAN GRAFFITI It’s difficult to determine just what makes music American; and if a symphonic program is to be labeled “American”, which composers might be on the shortlist? Under the blanket title Dudamel Conducts Gershwin & Copland, this thrilling evening also included short works by Barber and Previn, all four composers giving us…

TRILLIANT The first time I saw Chick Corea play was at Disneyland on the Tomorrowland Stage in the mid-1970s. I was entranced watching the solo pianist with brown afro and mustache, as he was offering a type of jazz I had never heard before. My upbringing consisted of mostly big band and swing, so when…