Music

THE VERDI CHORUS IS A BEST BET The Verdi Chorus will present its Fall 2017 concert Love’s Passions and Potions for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on November 18 and 19, led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum. As the only choral group in Southern California that…

COME FOR MENDELSSOHN, STAY FOR Mí„LKKI There are three things to consider regarding LA Phil’s huge production of  Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which has music interlaced with scenes from one of Shakespeare’s most produced plays: the orchestra; the production; and the venue. Since this is, after all, the LA Phil, I’m happy to report…

INACCESSIBLE? MIRGA MAKES US THINK AGAIN The three composers that make up LA Phil’s current program—which opened last night and plays through Saturday—are not what one would call “accessible,” meaning easy to listen to for some folks. Laypersons will often find themselves searching for lyrical, easy-to-digest melodies, or possibly an introduction of a theme or…

DIVE INTO A GREAT OPERA Bizet’s most successful opera besides Carmen, The Pearl Fishers premiered as Les Pêcheurs de Perles at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris (1863). London saw it at Covent Garden under the title of Leila (1887); and Italy, Pescatori di Perle (1899). The New York premiere was at the Metropolitan Opera House…

THE HARD-HEARTED WILL TURN TO LOVE Few operas are more delightful than Mozart’s  Magic Flute  (Die Zauberflöte), which fuses fantasy and adventure with high ideals and memorable melodies. Emmanuel Shikaneder’s Singspiel libretto is suffused with masonic elements, emphasizing the triumph of reason, nature, and wisdom over the forces of darkness and superstition. But there are contradictions too,…

A HARBISON OF THINGS TO COME Well, lightning can strike twice in the same piece. Three years ago, the glittering Santa Barbara-based chamber music ensemble Camerata Pacifica premiered its commissioned String Trio by John Harbison. That, and the stunning Harmonia Mundi CD recording, cemented this awesome work as a major addition to the already limited…

AN EXTRA PERFORMANCE AND A SIMULCAST: SHE JUST KEEPS ON GIVING This isn’t the first time LA Opera has opened a season with Carmen, but it is the first time that ticket sales are so great that an extra performance has been added before performances began. The run remains as September 7 through October 1,…

WHERE DO YOU GET ORFF..? There are some entertainments that bear repeating:  Los Angeles Master Chorale has visited  Carl Orff’s pagan-fest,  Carmina Burana, under each of their music directors, but the splendid, massive, exultant and squeaky-clean  rendering four years ago under Grant Gershon  made me want to toss off my clothes and march triumphantly towards my smoke-filled sky of destiny,…

PINK MARTINI—I SAY “YES”! The last time I saw Pink Martini play the Hollywood Bowl, I was already wired after hearing them brilliantly execute an extended song list covering at least a dozen styles of music sung in eight different languages. But then this everlasting gobstopper of music turned the Hollywood Bowl into a festive…

DO NOT MISS  BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL THIS WEEK Pianist Behzod Abduraimov is coming to the Hollywood Bowl this Tuesday August 15, 2017, so prepare yourself for one of the world’s greatest pianists. In fact, the in-demand, rightfully popular 26-year-old Uzbek pianist, who was born in Tashkent in 1990 just before the collapse of…