Bill Peters Music News & Reviews » Events

Cellist Laszlo Mezo with Crown City Symphony May 13, May 19

billpeters — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:46:12 +0000

Crown City Symphony has attracted cellist Laszlo Mezo to solo with the orchestra at its May concerts. The first concert is at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, May 13 at the First Baptist Church of Pasadena; the second, 2:00 p.m. Saturday, May 19 at the Altadena Community Church.

Marvin Neumann is the Crown City Symphony conducts, however guest conductor Cynthia Nuñez will lead in the performance of Gabriel Fauré’s “Pavane”

Mezo, a cellist with Pacific Symphony , has been a regular performer locally. The highly respected musician has performed extensively in Europe, Asia, and in the United States. He was trained in Budapest and Germany and recently graduated from cello studies with Ralph Kirschbaum, the distinguished cellist at USCs Thornton School of Music. Mezo will perform Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.

In addition to Fauré’s “Pavane”, the program will include Tchaikovsky’s “Pezzo Capriccioso” and a portion of Edvard Greig’s “Homage to Sgurd Jorsalfar”.

Free admission to these concerts.

The First Baptist Church of Pasadena is located at 75 N. Marengo Ave., Pasadena. The Altadena Community Church is at 943 E. Altadena Dr., Altadena.

Mezo recently appeared at Casa Romantica, San Clemente’s Cultural Center and Gardens. Here is a video of his performance, accompanied by pianist Steven Van Hauwaert:

Donald Brinegar Heads New JPL Chorus

billpeters — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:14:40 +0000

Jet Propulsion Laboratories employees at the La Cañada Flintridge facility have joined with the Pasadena Symphony to create the JPL Chorus. Their inaugural performance is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 5 at Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena.

The new chorus, officially titled the JPL Chorus of the Pasadena Symphony Association, is under the direction of Pasadena Symphony Director of Choruses, Donald Brinegar. Brinegar will also be leading the Pasadena City College Chamber Singers at the performance.

JPL is the home of many employee musical groups which include a chamber ensemble, a jazz band, and several singing groups. The partnering of this group of about 53 JPL employees came about as a result of a conversation between Stephen Kulczycki, Deputy Director of Communications and Education at JPL, and Pasadena Symphony CEO Paul Zdudnek.

“I suggested that we might get good participation if we tried a chorus,” Kulczycki told Zdudnek. “We got about a hundred people to express some interest.”

The two then turned to Donald Brinegar to bring performance reality to the deal. Brinegar is no new-comer to the chorale arena. His Donald Brinegar Singers have graced every local performance venue singing with the Pasadena Symphony, the Pasadena Pops, the California Philharmonic Orchestra, and preparing singing choruses for performances in the Hollywood Bowl, Disney Hall, Ambassador Auditorium, and more.
Brinegar is Professor of Music, Coordinator of the Music Department and Director of Choral Studies at PCC as well as adjunct Professor of Graduate Choral Conducting at USC.

The combined choruses program will include a mixture of classical repertoire to the popular. The musical compositions will range from Benjamin Britten to John Lennon/Paul McCartney.

The concert is free and reservations are not required.

The Ambassador Auditorium is located at 131 St. John Ave., Pasadena.

Sarah Wallin Huff Reaches into the Soul of a Machine in Arcadia Concert, Apr. 28

billpeters — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:19:36 +0000

: Sarah Wallin Huff will have her 2007 composition recorded through a $7,500 KickStarter project.

A string quartet will perform at the Our Savior Lutheran Church, Arcadia at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, Apr. 28 playing works by Beethoven, Dvorak, and violinist Sarah Wallin Huff.

Huff, joined by violinist Doris Chiang, violist Miguel Cunanan and cellist Anne Sherrill, will give a reading of her 2007 composition “Anima Mechanicae: Soul of a Machine”. Huff, who seems otherwise reliable, reports that the anthropomorphic machine displays growing emotions through her music.

The approximately 12 minute piece allows the listener to experience the transformation of an advanced computer program through emotions expressed in musical sections “Mechanically,”, “Quixotically”, “Pensive”, “With impish behavior”, “Tenderly”, and “Surreal”.

The quartet will also perform Beethoven’s fourth movement of the String Quartet in G-major; and the entire popular Dvorak “American”, the Quartet No. 12 in F-major.

Tickets are $10.

The Our Savior Lutheran Church is located at 512 W. Duarte Rd., Arcadia.

Aiana String Quartet Apr 21 in Alhambra

billpeters — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:45:58 +0000

The Aiana String Quartet, winners of the Coleman Chamber Music’s Coleman-Barstow Prize for Strings in 2011, will present a concert at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, April 21 at Sage-Granada Park United Methodist Church’s Center for the Visual and Performing Arts.
This youthful quartet with Rosaminna Watson and Hannah Hurwitz, violins; Mario Andrew, viola; and Jillian Bloom, cello, began at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West in 2007. Since that time, the ensemble has garnered many awards and been named Quartet-in-Residence at San Diego State and University of Texas, Austin. Graduates of the leading US music schools, and mentored by top quartet personnel, this is a unique opportunity to hear this quartet in our neighborhood.
Aiana String Quartet moves on to the Los Angeles County Museum for an appearance at Sunday Live concerts, Sunday, April 22.
Tickets: Suggested donation of $15.
The Center for the Visual and Performing Arts is located at 1850 W. Hellman Ave., Alhambra. Information: (626) 230-543.

Local Handbell Choir at Nixon Library, April 22

billpeters — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:40:11 +0000

The Handbell Choir from Grace Episcopal Church of Glendora will appear at the Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, April 22.
Directed by Marilyn Scranton, the very active handbell choir will perform a wide-ranging program entitled “The Sounds of Grace”.
The group will perform the music of Fred Grammann, Timothy Waugh, Josef Strauss, William Gross, Kevin McChesney, Gioachino Rossini and Scott Joplin.
The Family concert at the library is free; however there is admission to the Richard Nixon Library. The Library is open Sundays from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Library Admission: $11.95, adults; seniors, $8.50; students, $6.95; Children age 7 to 11, $47.5; under age 6, free.
The Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace is located at 18001 Yorba Linda Blvd., Yorba Linda.

Mozart and Company Presents Pianist Mario Feninger, April 22

billpeters — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:36:48 +0000

The sweeping perspective of concert pianist Mario Feninger is the presentation of Mozart and Company at an intimate concert in a Pasadena home at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, April 22.
Feninger, a native of Egypt, is steeped in the European traditional piano pedagogical regime, but maintains a critical and devoted eye to 20th and 21st-Century sensibilities. He studied at Lycee Francais, holds degrees from the American University in Cairo and others.
Feninger is an advocate of the music of composer Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924). Busoni’s Piano Concerto is described in a January 2012 article in the New Yorker by Alex Ross as “over-the-top”, and “excessive”. Busoni’s music seems to reappear about every decade or so. If Feninger includes any Busoni works on the Sunday program, his pianistic abilities plus the Bosendorfer Imperial Concert Grand held by the hosts should make this a very special afternoon recital. Other composers to be represented are Scarlatti, Chopin and Feninger’s mother, noted pianist, guitarist, composer and teacher, Teresa De Rogatis.
Mozart and Company recitals are held at the home of Janet Colburn in Pasadena. Directions given with reservations.
Tickets are $85, and include a champagne and hor d’oeuvre reception.
Advance reservations are required. Information: (626) 791-8725.

Armadillo String Quartet with Peter Schickele—Again?

billpeters — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:30:44 +0000

The Armadillo String Quartet and Peter Schickele have put up with each other for 32 years. The winners are all of us.
For us locally, the Armadillo String Quartet has presented its annual Peter Schickele concert for over two decades and its 22nd annual concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 23 at the Neighborhood Church, Pasadena.
Quartet members Barry Socher and Steve Scharf, violins, Raymond Tischer, viola, and Armen Ksajikian, cello, will be joined by guest artists Joanne Pearce Martin and Gavin Martin, pianists.
The program includes Schickele’s String Quartet No. 6, “Shadow Mountain”, Piano Trio, “Alaria”, “Music for an Evening” for string quartet and piano four hands, “River Music” for viola and cello, and “Little Mushrooms” for piano four hands. “Shadow Mountain” represents a world premiere; the Piano Trio “Alaria” will be given its West Coast premiere. (Note: I assume that there is one Shakespearean ‘alarum’, and two ‘alaria’.)
Tickets are $25; seniors and students, $15.
The Neighborhood Church is at 301 N. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena. Information: (301) 446-6358.

‘Random Acts of Music’ Opens Tuesday, April 24 on South Lake Ave

billpeters — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:55:30 +0000

Carrie Kennedy, violinist with the Pasadena Symphony takes music to the streets.

Pasadena Symphony continues to surprise with innovative ideas to bring music out of the symphony hall and into the community.
Tuesday, April 24, a new program “Random Acts of Music” presents its inaugural program in the forecourt of Fidelity Investments office on South Lake Ave. This was rescheduled to this date following the drenching downpour of rain on the original date, April 13.

Two musicians from the Pasadena Symphony/Pasadena Pops Orchestra will perform. Carrie Kennedy, violinist and Ryan Sweeney, cellist, both with the orchestras, will perform from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. outside Fidelity’s main entrance at 123 S. Lake Ave., Pasadena.

No program has been announced, but in a tantalizing moment, we are told a surprise guest will appear during the event.

Kennedy frequently performs not only with the Pasadena Symphony/Pops, but also with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra as well as heard in studio orchestra as well.

Ryan Sweeney, cellist with Pasadena Symphony commits a "Random Act of Music" on S. Lake Ave., Pasadena, April 12.

Sweeney, a native Pasadenan and currently a resident of Altadena, performs with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and is an active performer for studio film scores. He has most recently performed for the scores of “Spider-Man 3″, “Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Man’s Chest”, “All the King’s Men”, and Click” among others.

The program is free.

In its announcement, the Pasadena Symphony promises performances of classical music throughout the San Gabriel Valley.

‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ Tickles Ivories all over town

billpeters — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:17:15 +0000

Braise Delaquoix sat at the piano decorated by Gino Gasparo in the plaza of One Colorado in Old Pasadena.

A small crowd gathered to enjoy the music. Delaquoix was assisted by a young player.

Others also played.

Here’s Bill Peters, editor of Peters Music News trying his hand at the piano at One Colorado…

and later at Vroman’s Bookstore in the Playhouse District. Chris Piper (l) of La Crescenta had just finished playing a Scott Joplin rag to much applause.

Pianists are invited to play any of the 30 pianos dotting the Los Angeles-Pasadena-Claremont area til May 30. The event honors Artistic Director and conductor of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 15th season.

Random Acts of Music Takes a Rain-Check to April 24

billpeters — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:01:46 +0000

Rain has caused the cancellation of Carrie Kennedy and Ryan Sweeney’s outdoor concert at Fidelity Investments on South Lake Avenue.

Instead, the inaugural concert of Pasadena Symphony’s “Random Acts of Music” has been rescheduled for April 24 – same time, same place.