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LA Phil 2013-14: By the Numbers
Much has already been written about the LA Phil’s new 2013-14 season, just announced yesterday at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (In my estimation, the most insightful summations come from Mr. CK Dexter...
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Remembering Van Cliburn: “The Texan Who Conquered Russia”
“I do not have fingers. I have ten voices and they must all sing.” Van Cliburn Against the backdrop of the Cold War and the Space Race, a lanky 23-year-old classical pianist burst onto the scene as...
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Ah, mes amis [Goat Edition]
It’s entirely possible I made a goat video. This is it. Tagged: Donizetti, goat, opera, tenor
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Arrival in London
Greetings from London! After a long, bumpy flight–complete with a two-hour line for a manual check-in with handwritten boarding passes (ask me about that later when I’m not grumpy)–I, along with 10...
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Postcard from London: The Music of the Future
On KUSC today, you’ll hear me mention an ensemble called Future Band. Future Band is a group of a couple dozen musicians, ages 8-14, from all over London. The ensemble has no set instrumentation, the...
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Postcard from London: A Candy Conclave
In addition to the music-making here in London, the LA Phil is hosting a symposium about music education. They’ve put together an orchestra comprised of students from all over Great Britain, plus ten...
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Postcard from London: Discover Dudamel
Yesterday was a moment several months in the making for the 10 traveling musicians from YOLA (Youth Orchestra LA). It’s why they wrote two essays, gave an interview, and played an audition just for the...
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Postcard from London: The Gospel Truth
Last year, at the world premiere of John Adams’ passion-oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,” I wrote an extensive review. At the time, I said I was “less interested” in seeing how Peter...
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Peter Sellars on the Threat of Cultural Impositionalism
On the flight to London last week, Air New Zealand had loaded up a bunch of James Bond movies on the monitors in our seats. An appropriate gesture, I think, to get us in the mood for our final...
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Orchestra Musician: It’s Not a Cush Job
A couple of days ago, an article appeared in Bloomberg that was so misinformed, so short-sighted, so petty, so ignorant, and so utterly ridiculous that to let it go unchallenged would be irresponsible....
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Pulitzer Partita
Yesterday, composer Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her a cappella composition Partita for 8 Voices. At age 30, she is the youngest winner in the prize’s history. The jury described...
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Happy 200th, Richard Wagner
“I write music with an exclamation point!” -Richard Wagner There’s no middle ground on Richard Wagner. You either love him or hate him. Correction: there is a kind of middle ground that most people,...
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Wagner, According to His Critics
“One can’t judge Wagner’s opera ‘Lohengrin’ after a first hearing, and I certainly don’t intend hearing it a second time.” -Gioacchino Rossini “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” -Edgar Wilson...
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Arrested Development & Recapitulation
First of all, credit where credit is due: my puntastic colleague at KUSC, @JamiePaisley, created this, and many other, TV ad posters during our recent pledge drive. As a rabid fan of Arrested...
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Remixing the Rite
It’s not every day that electronic music DJs dabble in the classical music realm…but often, when they do, the results are less than thrilling. Okay…Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won an Oscar for that...
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Departures from The Rite
On the 100th anniversary of what Leonard Bernstein called the most important piece of music in the 20th century, here are a few of my favorite adaptations of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring....
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About the other night…
This is not a review of Gustavo Dudamel and LA Phil’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Hollywood Bowl last Thursday night. Just a few thoughts about my experience: When the summer season was...
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Yo-Yo Ma: “Part of creativity is accepting all the things we don’t know,...
The Urban Dictionary definition is as follows: goat rodeo (noun): 1. A chaotic situation, often one that involves several people, each with a different agenda/vision/perception of what’s going on....
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7 Operas that Make the VMAs Seem Chaste
On Sunday evening, millions of Americans tuned in to the MTV Video Music Awards. They were treated to a show that included, among other things, Lady Gaga’s butt and Miley Cyrus twerking on Beetlejuice....
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Dude Looks Like He Likes Pianists
For a violinist who wanted to be a trombone player, Gustavo Dudamel sure does love his superstar pianists. Awhile back, I crunched the numbers on the LA Philharmonic’s 2013-14 season (in terms of...
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