Areas We Cover
Categories
Music
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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….
-
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…
-
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…
-
Concert Review: SHOENBERG’S “PIERROT LUNAIRE” (Camerata Pacifica)
Camerata Pacifica began its February program at the Huntington Library with Lara Morciano’s Embedding Tangles, with flutist Sébastian Jacot, who premiered the piece in 2014. I don’t often get to hear works for solo flute, so this sounded promising. Alas, my initial excitement was instantly killed when we got attacked by a torrent of notes…
-
Opera Review: EL RELICARIO DE LOS ANIMALES (1979) (Long Beach Opera at Heritage Square Museum)
THE WHINE OF THE ANIMALS Long Beach Opera continued its season-long devotion to the work of Pauline Oliveros with El Relicario De Los Animales (The Shrine of the Animals), from 1979, with two performances last weekend at Heritage Square Museum, an open-air gem with eight Victorian-era buildings. Sara Andon and Sidney Hopson But before the…
-
Concert Review: BEETHOVEN & ROMANTICISM (Symphonies 1, 2 & 3 [Eroica]; Boston Symphony Orchestra)
THE PROGRESSION OF BEETHOVEN OVERCOMING ADVERSITY Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) is seen as not only one of the world’s great composers but also a bridge from the classical musical traditions of Mozart and Haydn to the romanticism of successors such as Johannes Brahms. Andris Nelsons conducts Beethoven Symphony No. 1 with the BSO While never…
-
Album Review: THE OLD COUNTRY: MORE FROM THE DEER HEAD INN (Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Paul Motian)
MORE DEER HEAD HIGHLIGHTS The Deer Head Inn is an historic jazz club in Pennsylvania’s Delaware Water Gap region, and it played a significant role in Jarrett’s early career. In the 1950s, pianist Keith Jarrett performed at Allentown, PA’s Deer Head Inn as a teenager, a venue pivotal to his musical growth. In 1961, it…
-
Highly Recommended Concert: FOUR SEASONS AND STRAUSS (Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Concert Hall)
MORE STRAUSS, LESS STRESS, INDEED Pacific Symphony rings in the New Year January 9-11 at 8 with Four Seasons and Strauss, featuring two inspiring masterpieces that are sure to uplift and calm the spirit. First, Concertmaster Dennis Kim takes the virtuosic solo role playing plays the 1701 ex-Dushkin Stradivarius to lead Vivaldi’s 1720 composition of…
-
Highly Recommended Concerts: THE MUSIC GUILD (2025 Season at St Alban’s Church, Westwood)
GUILD TO PERFECTION There is an outstanding music outfit in Los Angeles which offers a series of chamber music concerts, introducing world renowned artists to Los Angeles audiences. Having seen presentations of repertoire played at its premier level by sparkling chamber musicians for over 10 years now, it seems unthinkable to me that The Music…
-
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…
-
Music: THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN MUSIC: WHY VINTAGE SONGS CAPTURE OUR IMAGINATION
Music has always been more than just a combination of notes and rhythms—it’s a vessel for storytelling. The songs we cherish often tell compelling stories that resonate deeply with our experiences, dreams, and emotions. Vintage songs, in particular, have a unique ability to transport us through time, offering narratives that feel timeless and evocative. But…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
