The days dwindle down. For April we had only three remaining programs conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and after last night only two programs remain. Last night’s Green Umbrella concert gave us a look forward, plus just a touch of reminiscence. There could well have been a concert of Salonen’s works, but a retrospective of the man as composer (and as engine for the Green Umbrella series) can wait for a future year and a future visit. Instead, the program was a beautifully selected set of four world premieres by composers new to
Read moreVicki Ray put together an imaginative, clever program which was beautifully performed in last night’s Piano Spheres concert at Zipper Hall of Colburn School. She’s a marvel; she seems to be able to do any work in any style. In December she gave a tremendous concert, “Vic Ray Electric”, of electro-acoustic music. In January she was pianist for this Monday Evening Concert. I’ve never heard her play any Mozart, but this clip implies she just might do so some time. The theme of last night’s program was piano concertos without an orchestra; her program notes described her selections as forming
Read moreThe new season of the Phil was announced Thursday afternoon, accompanied by a press conference (with internet simulcast) by Dudamel and Deborah Borda, president of the board. This announcement was earlier than usual in order to fit into Gustavo’s schedule. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the Phil is using this opportunity to encourage people to submit their re-subscriptions early. Here’s the the index to the set of press releases. The Phil is welcoming Dudamel with a Bienvenido Gustavo” celebration — free — at the Hollywood Bowl and a performance of the Beethoven Ninth by the orchestra with the
Read moreJanuary has brought a richness of performances of contemporary music. At the half-way point on the calendar this has already been a marvelous month, but there’s much more to come. Each of the major music organizations across the county seems to have decided on some exceptional music. I haven’t been able to attend everything: too many tickets, too many nights. Wouldn’t it be nice to be paid to attend the concerts? Wouldn’t it be nice just to afford them all? Oh, well, the old suit will last another year or so before replacement. The Phil is leading the way, of
Read moreJacaranda Music opened its sixth season last night, but not in their usual home. Instead, they opened in Santa Monica’s lovely new Broad Stage, a 500-seat venue at the grounds of the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. The opening concert was given the title “Tipping the Scales” for works by Harrison, Cage, and Partch. The opening half of the concert comprised four late-period works by Lou Harrison, the period in which his core work explored use of the gamelan, implementing the sounds, textures, and scales into his music. The 12-person CalArts Gamelan Ensemble (see them in this short video
Read moreAnother full house at Zipper Hall, and we enjoyed ourselves with the music of William Kraft and his “Encounters” series of works for percussion. This was the third and final program in the Kraft/Encounters retrospective given by Southwest Chamber Music, honoring Kraft for his 85th birthday. By the end of tomorrow the whole series will have been recorded, and next year a 3 CD set will be available of this important set of compositions by a man who has been such a major participant in contemporary music in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the conversations with Bill Kraft will probably not be
Read moreGloria Cheng opened the Piano Spheres season last night at Zipper Hall. Much of the concert comprised selections from her recent recording, Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky and Lutoslawski, and if you don’t yet have this in your library, now is a good time to correct your omission. And here’s just one of its good reviews (just scroll down). Betty Freeman commissioned a new work from Gerald Barry for Cheng to perform, and this opened the second half of the program. Le Vieux Sourd [the old deaf one], Debussy’s nickname for Beethoven, starts with quiet fragments of classical themes, as
Read moreREDCAT, the CalArts outpost in Walt Disney Concert Hall, opened its fifth season last night with the first of two programs in a renewal of the Creative Music Festival. Wadada Leo Smith was curator of the festival once again; he chose and assembled creators for two programs: “Music and the Voice” (last night) and “Music and Video” (tonight, but we already had tickets for Howard Shore’s “The Fly”). Smith opened the festival conducting the premiere of a new Smith work, “Central Park”, written for scat-singing baritone, with piano, string quartet, trumpet, clarinet, contra-alto clarinet, and percussion. Thomas Buckner was just
Read moreThis Ojai Music Festival season was one of those to remember. When the low point is a screening of a Chaplin film with live orchestra, that means that the high points are pretty consistently high. And they were, this season. No full-sized orchestra, spilling out the bounds of the stage, but quantity of performers can’t hold a candle to quality. Saturday night’s concert continued the Festival’s subtheme of music for voice with two works from composers new to Ojai, Phillippe Manoury and Michael Jarrell, selected by David Robertson. The Jarrell work, Cassandre (1994) was termed by Manoury a “spoken opera,”
Read moreSaturday afternoon, already. We’re half-way through this year’s Ojai Music Festival, and I need some time-shifter to slow things down. Today’s mid-day concert was superb. Dawn Upshaw, but that’s redundant. It was a lovely program. Each song, seemingly, gave her a different opportunity to tell a story. Anyone there could pick a different set of highlights. My own included a simple, beautiful song by Ruth Crawford Seeger of a lyric by Carl Sandburg, “White Moon”. But then an absolute highlight came with the last set: a French song by Kurt Weill and three cabaret songs by William Bolcom. For each
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