The vampire lurches to a live score: NOSFERATU @ Villa Aurora

Film · Music
Markus Horn, known for his intense symbiosis of film and music made clear in his score for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has done it again. With Nosferatu he presents his second soundtrack to a German silent classic, which opens this year’s San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. Now the house on haunted hill gets its turn. ...

John Clayton’s jazz continuum prospers 1

Music
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Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
above: jazz musicians John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, Jeff Clayton The California Jazz Foundation has been investing in the jazz community for a decade, with a generous track record of financial, counseling and material aid to 200 musicians in need. The Foundation doesn’t take its role, especially as an aid organization, lightly. “Give the Band a ...

March means chamber music

Music
Well, Jacaranda. The blossoming bushes that seduce with the color purple reinvented as a cutting-edge contemporary classical music presentation series. On monthly Saturday nights in Santa Monica, there convenes the cognoscenti, a considerable who-is-who of Los Angeles’s serious music universe. They meet, greet, and eat (cookies served during the break). The thirteen-season-running series, a labor ...

Architects discuss the art (and politics) of performing arts centers

Architecture & Design · Ideas & Opinion · Music · Theater
Performing arts centers define our cities and serve as architectural landmarks. These landmarks can rapidly transform the cultural and economic fabric of a city, bringing renewed prosperity as well as design inspiration. What is the essence of an iconic performing arts center? Enjoy a lively discussion combined with a memorable concert, and light refreshments. Moderator Thomas Small, ...

Jazz masters soon to play Theatre Raymond Kabbaz

Music
Guitar supremo John Scofield and masterful saxophonist Joe Lovano, both illustrious practitioners of their respective instruments, call upon drummer Louis Nash and bassist Ben Street to complete a galactic quartet offering two concerts at the cozy Theatre Raymond Kabbaz. John Scofield is considered one of the most important jazz guitarists and composers in Jazz, a ...

Class! John Pizzarelli’s Sinatra tribute at Valley Performing Arts Center

Music
I missed vaudeville. But I am making up for that loss by enjoying the rich artistic performance combos that Thor Steingraber is staging — he’s been inviting multifarious artists to share the stage of the sublimely intimate Valley Performing Arts Center where he is executive director. Anyone lucky enough to toast Frank Sinatra on the ...

Classical Underground in holiday mood

Music
Classical Underground, the highly personal and pleasantly renegade performance series housed in an loft in the industrial heartland of Los Angeles, has a cozy evening of chamber music on tap Monday night. Sakura, an ensemble of five cellists — Jonathan Dormand, Michael Kaufman, Yoshika Masuda, Peter Myers, and Sarah Rommell — attributes its name to ...

Infectious holiday fun: “Salsa Navidad” at VPAC

Dance · Music
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Oscar Hernandez came of age in the burgeoning New York Latin music scene of the 1970s and ‘80s, when the Fania label recorded many of the greats canonized today: Willie Colón, Bobby Valentín, Pete Rodriquez, Johnny Pacheco, Cheo Feliciano, Larry Harlow, Hector Lavóe, Ray Barretto, Luis ‘Perico’ Ortíz, and Papo Lucca among others. It was ...

Buffalo Bill Cody, Maurice Chevalier, The Police played Bataclan

Architecture & Design · Film · Music
The charming and playful website for the Bataclan Concert Hall lists bookings for rock acts through May 2016. The Chinoiserie-style building dates from 1864, ironically, right when European powers were having imperial adventures in the Far East. Located at the sage address of 50 Boulevard Voltaire, The Bataclan ports a noble history as a cafe ...

Pick your Sugar Plum Fairy NOW!

Dance · Music
Hey, you Sugar Plums and Snowflakes! Stop dancing in our heads, and start whirling ’round the Segerstrom Hall stage. This will occur sooner than you can shake a candy cane. In a real first, Segerstrom Center of the Arts is presenting a big-city-style, lengthy run of American Ballet Theatre’s “The Nutcracker” at the esteemed Orange ...