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Music Review: COME FLY WITH JIMMY VAN HEUSEN (Songbook Sundays at Dizzy’s)
THE ROAD TO DIZZY’S (DETOUR: PALM SPRINGS, COCKTAILS & SINATRA) If you’ll allow some wild exaggeration about the Great American Songbook, let’s say that “All roads lead to Jimmy Van Heusen.” The work of that composer (1913-1990), the focus of the August 3 installment of the series called Songbook Sundays at Dizzy’s, includes melodies created…
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Jazz Music: SARAH VAUGHAN INTERNATIONAL JAZZ VOCAL COMPETITION (Registration Closes September 2, 2025)
The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) continues to accept applicants for the 14th annual Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition. The search is on for the next great jazz singer! Solo vocalists from around the world are encouraged to submit their entries before September 2, 2025, by visiting Sarah Vaughan Competition. In the Fall, the Top Five…
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MAKE TOURING EASIER WITH BACKLINE INSTRUMENTS
Touring is one of the most exciting parts of being a musician. Hitting the road, connecting with new audiences, and playing your music in different cities can be an incredible experience. But anyone who has spent time on tour also knows the less glamorous side—packing up heavy gear after a late-night show, squeezing amplifiers into…
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THE SNARE DRUM REVEALED: FROM CLASSIC CRACKS TO MODERN POPS
Are you familiar with that piece of drum with straps hanging around the shoulders of drummers in a marching band? That drum that produces the beats of songs like the popular holiday beat, “Little Drummer Boy”? No doubt, it’s the snare drum. Snare drums are your versatile percussion instruments, widely used in various musical genres….
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Film Obituary: LALO SCHIFRIN (1932-2025)
COMPOSER OF COPS, CRIMINALS, AND COOLNESS Few musical phrases have achieved such cultural penetration as the opening bars of Mission: Impossible. The theme’s distinctive 5/4 rhythm, written by Lalo Schifrin in 1966, became sonic shorthand for covert operations, stylish danger and the promise that impossible missions might yet be accomplished. The composer, who died on…
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Obituary: CLEO LAINE (Jazz Singer and Theatre Actress)
A VOICE THAT SPANNED CONTINENTS AND CENTURIES The trouble with singers who insist on being versatile is that they make everyone else look lazy. Dame Cleo Laine, who died on July 24th at her home in Wavendon, England, aged 97, was particularly guilty of this sort of thing. Her nearly four-octave voice wandered from gravelly…
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HEAVENLY SOUND, ZERO GLITCHES: CHURCH AUDIO SOLUTIONS THAT WORK
In today’s world, crystal-clear sound isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity for any church looking to connect meaningfully with its congregation. Whether you’re delivering the weekly sermon, leading worship with a live band, or streaming to viewers at home, the quality of your audio can either uplift the experience or distract from it. Church leaders…
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London Opera Review: SEMELE (Royal Opera House)
THE SERVANT PROBLEM: OLIVER MEARS STRIPS HANDEL’S SEMELE TO ITS DISEASED CORE There’s something deeply unsettling about watching gods behave badly in a conference hotel. Oliver Mears‘ production of Handel’s Semele at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, which conquered Paris earlier this year, doesn’t just update the myth; it performs surgery on it,…
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Music Obituary: SIR ROGER NORRINGTON
THE METRONOME REVOLUTIONARY Sir Roger Norrington, who died on July 15th at the age of 90, spent his career making enemies of the right sort. Traditionalists loathed his brisk Beethoven. Period purists found his scholarship insufficiently dogmatic. Modern orchestras discovered, to their dismay, that he expected them to actually read what composers had written in…
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GIG BAG OR HARD CASE? WHAT MUSICIANS SHOULD REALLY BE CARRYING
When it comes to protecting your instrument, the bag you carry is more than just an accessory—it’s a lifeline. Whether you’re a weekend gigger or a full-time touring artist, your gear takes a beating from tight venues, bumpy rides, and unpredictable weather. That’s why the debate between soft gig bags and hard cases keeps coming…
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Obituary: CONNIE FRANCIS (Dec. 12, 1937 – July 16, 2025)
THE VOICE THAT BRIDGED WORLDS The obituaries flooding social media following Connie Francis’s death on July 16th focus predictably on her record sales (over 200 million albums worldwide) and her historical firsts—she was the first woman to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960 with “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool” Yet such statistics, impressive…
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Album Review: PHILIP GLASS VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 (Anne Akiko Meyers with the LA Phil; Gustavo Dudamel, Conductor)
The Glass House Violin: Anne Akiko Meyers Illuminates a Minimalist Classic In the sprawling landscape of Philip Glass‘s output, his Violin Concerto No. 1 occupies a peculiar position. Written in 1987 as his first major venture into non-theatrical orchestral territory, the concerto emerged from a period when Glass was being nudged by conductor Dennis Russell…
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Obituary: ALFRED BRENDEL (1931-2025)
THE LAST OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AT THE PIANO The fingers were careful, almost tentative. Not cautious, a word Brendel would have objected to, but curious. Each phrase felt like a question. The silences in between rang louder than the notes. At the keyboard, Alfred Brendel–who dies on June 20 at 94–did not try to astonish,…
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WHAT MAKES A GREAT WEDDING DJ STAND OUT?
Imagine this: Your wedding night finishes as everybody continues dancing. You get an ache on your cheeks due to smiling. The rhythms are electric, and all the songs are spot on. Imagine the contrary now; an empty dance floor, stiff silence, and music playing just like the previous weddings you attended. So, what is the…
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Music Announcement and Commentary: ALEXANDER SHELLEY (Incoming Music Director of Pacific Symphony in Costa Mesa)
Alexander Shelley and the Turn No One Saw Coming at the Pacific Symphony When Carl St.Clair steps down, after thirty-four years of quietly shaping the Pacific Symphony, will most people notice? That’s not a dig. It’s just the reality of classical music in Southern California — always slightly off to the side, just out of…
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Obituary: BRIAN WILSON (June 20, 1942 – June 11, 2025)
Brian Wilson: A studio perfectionist who heard symphonies in surf music Brian Wilson, whose crystalline harmonies and studio innovations redefined popular music, died on June 11, 2025, aged eighty-two. Known to millions as the creative engine behind the Beach Boys, his early work captured the youthful optimism of California in the early 1960s. But Wilson’s…
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Concert Review: VERDI’S REQUIEM (Pacific Symphony)
St. Clair’s Swan Song: Pacific Symphony’s Volcanic Verdi’s Requiem Last night, the walls of the Segerstrom Concert Hall didn’t merely vibrate. They braced. Verdi’s Requiem opened not with reverence but with rupture. What followed wasn’t a farewell so much as a reckoning. Carl St. Clair’s final appearance as Pacific Symphony’s Music Director arrived wrapped in…
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Opera Review: THE CAMP (JACCC Aratani Theatre in L.A.)
A PROMISING AND AMBITIOUS THE CAMP Los Angeles has had a flurry of new operas within the past few years. Among the most promising and ambitious I’ve seen is The Camp, by Lionelle Hamanaka (libretto) and Daniel Kessner (music), which just had a two-weekend run at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center Aratani Theatre….
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Concert Review: VIENNA PHILHARMONIC (Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Yefim Bronfman, pianist; Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa)
The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt. — Karl Kraus Of the world’s major orchestras, few are more traditional than the Vienna Philharmonic, which performed its first concert in 1842. It has had no music director for many years, another of its distinguishing features. The outcome is…
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Concert Review: LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (Yunchan Lim, piano; Antonio Pappano, conductor; Philharmonic Society of Orange County)
A NIGHT OF THUNDER AND ELEGANCE Presented by Philharmonic Society of Orange County, the London Symphony Orchestra, among the most disciplined and savagely expressive classical orchestras in the world, arrived in Costa Mesa at Segerstrom Concert Hall on Feb. 19, 2024, with Antonio Pappano conducting and a young firebrand at the keyboard. Yunchan Lim, the…
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