Writing about music, like the art itself, is alive and well in this country.
Photo by Diane AlancraigTHE INDOOR CONCERT SEASON DIDN’T begin with the customary orchestral spectacular at the Music Center or Royce, but with charm and intelligent small-scale music making in a friendly and informal setting: Gloria Cheng-Cochran’s recital at Pasadena’s Neighborhood Church to begin the sixth run of the valuable series known as “Piano Spheres.” The [...]
This was the week of Los Angeles’ annual identity crisis. On Tuesday and Thursday, in shorts and T-shirt, I loaded the picnic basket and made it to the Hollywood Bowl. On Wednesday I fished out my matching socks and headed downtown to the Music Center, where the Los Angeles Opera began its season with the [...]
With the grand, brassy rhetoric that ends Johannes Brahms’ First Symphony, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic also sounded the final notes last Thursday for the 78th season of “Symphonies Under the Stars” at that one-of-a-kind piece of real estate known as the Hollywood Bowl. There was more to come at the Bowl: two [...]
This is the week of Los Angeles’ annual identity crisis. On Tuesday and Thursday, in shorts and tee-shirt, I load the picnic basket and head for the Hollywood Bowl. On Wednesday I fish out a pair of matching socks and head downtown to the Music Center, where the Los Angeles Opera starts off its season [...]
“I still don’t know much about early music, Monteverdi, or even Bach,” said Esa-Pekka Salonen in May 1996, in an interview in these pages. Apparently he‘s a fast learner; his all-Bach program at the Hollywood Bowl last week was a fascinating essay in the variety of approaches to the music, and in the sociology of [...]
Sellars, Kevin Higa; Grimaud, J. Henry FairFINALLY, THERE WERE SIGNS OF LIFE AT the Hollywood Bowl — onstage, and in the audience as well. Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to his rightful podium to kick off his three weeks in the Tuesday/Thursday “classical” series that brings the season to a close. His first program was a daredevil [...]
Alan's Poppies and Sage, photographed by Paul Cabanis, Spring 2010.