Music for the Ages at Cal Phil
REVIEW….. The California Philharmonic Orchestra’s next-to-last concert for the 2010 summer series was held last week-end presenting a program more focused on musical dates than any particular mode or style. These concerts are presented at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Gardens and Walt Disney Concert Hall. For this review, I attended Disney [...]
Picture-Perfect Music at Norton Simon Museum
REVIEW… Like twentieth-century art, twentieth Century music takes many forms. Two ends of that spectrum were on view at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena last Friday night when the California String Quartet performed the music of Maurice Ravel and Bela Bartok in front of modern arts works in the museum’s 20th-century art gallery. The [...]
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet – Classically Groovy in CDs
Late note: Helios Quartet to perform at Sundays Live this Sunday, Aug. 1. Details at end of review. BP REVIEW… I have always been a purist about my CDs—only hearing one album at a time. But, a friend of mine insisted that I would enjoy a multiple disc player to hear various tracks of changing [...]
Gloria, Gloria, Hallelujah, Bowl Fireworks Sparkle at Classical series
REVIEW Deborah Borda, President of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, gave a heartwarming tribute to recently deceased Ernest Fleischmann who served as Executive Director of the LA Phil organization from 1969-1997 after which the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the performing group for the opening of the Classical series at the Hollywood Bowl, performed “Lacrymosa” from [...]
Good-sized Crowd Greeted Cal Phil’s First Summer Concert
REVIEW… A good-sized audience turned out for the opening concert of the California Philharmonic Orchestra’s 15th year to hear “America the Beautiful” as a pre-July 4 tribute in a highly entertaining program chocked full of a variety of musical forms. Everything on the program had an American platform, including, as Cal Phil’s conductor, Victor Vener [...]
Pasadena POPS Opener Something for Everybody
REVIEW… The new band shell erected by the Pasadena Symphony and and POPS for its new location for 2010 POPS Summer Series creates a great backstop to an otherwise dreary location, Lot H, outside Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. The tables with white linens turned the grass area into a festive party-like atmosphere for the estimated 2000+ [...]
Music Fulfills the Beauty of Sitka, Alaska
REVIEW… Sitka, Alaska is a special place. Surrounded by soaring mountain peaks and heavy forestation, the town of some 8,000 braces itself for the daily onslaught of cruise ship passengers that can add as many as 3,000 people to the small town during the summer and fall months—sort of like Catalina Island. But, after they [...]
Bach’s Music Explored in DVD “Bach and Friends”
REVIEW… Johann Sebastian Bach wrote hundreds of works of music in every idiom, for just about all the instruments of his day, and in fact he could—and did, perform on all of them. His first job was as a violinist. These are factoids revealed in an appealing documentary on the life of Bach that explores [...]
Young Cellist in Top 10 with Bach Cello Suites CD
RECORD REVIEW It’s hard to believe that a relatively unknown younger cellist could zoom to #3 on the respected Nielson Soundscan/Billboard list of classical genre CDs, but there it is, his latest release on the Telarc label, a two-disc CD “Zuill Bailey Bach Cello Suites”. Zuill (pronounced “zool”) Bailey comes out of nowhere—ok, not out [...]
Theater Organ with all the whistles and bells on DVD/CD
REVIEW… Cameron Carpenter is surely the bad boy of American organists based on his dress, behavior, and yes, even his artistry as observed and heard on a new combo DVD and CD Telarc is releasing next week. For starters, the album, Cameron Live!, carries two front covers both designed by Carpenter—of himself, by himself and [...]
