Ornette Coleman via Shirley Clarke via Ross Lipman

Film · Music
arts·meme friend Ross Lipman, a primo art-film restorationist, clues us into a very cool screening of a documentary directed by the feminist filmmaker Shirley Clarke (Lipman is an expert and advocate of her work) next weekend at the Billy Wilder Theater. It’s “Ornette: Made in America,” to be screened in the mid-stream days of UCLA ...

Superb exhibition “Stravinsky and L.A. Dance” to close 2

Dance · Music
Stravinsky & L.A. Dance, located on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s sunlight-strewn mezzanine celebrates the composer’s creative influence on Los Angeles dance-makers of the past. The photos (several by Otto Rothschild) are presented together with reconstruction materials of The Joffrey Ballet’s The Rite of Spring. Curated by Lorin Johnson and Mark Konecny and instigated and overseen by Music ...

Culture clash: Dino & the Stones

Music
From “Life” by Keith Richards (Little, Brown, 2010) page 151: “The first show we ever did in America was at the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino, California. Bobby Goldsboro … was on the show, and the Chiffons. But earlier, we’d had the experience of Dean Martin introducing us at the taping of the Hollywood Palace TV show. ...

British diva, Dame Shirley Bassey, to appear on Oscars 2

Film · Music
We learned from arts·meme‘s friends at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences that Dame Shirley Bassey will make a special appearance on the Oscars® show broadcast on Oscar Sunday, February 24, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center. The sublime chanteuse, a prima diva, Bassey is best known for recording the ...

Stravinsky in West Hollywood, 1967, captured by photog Bobby Klein

Music · Visual arts
I had been invited back to the Maestro’s house one evening to show him some of my previous work. He took me into his study and locked the door. Beethoven was playing on these huge Voice of the Theater speakers really loud. Stravinsky had been ill and was being watched like a hawk by his ...

Meredith Monk muses on “our intimate connection to nature”

Dance · Ideas & Opinion · Music
Perusing program notes after enjoying Meredith Monk’s wonderful ensemble of songbirds at CAP-UCLA last night, I was moved by the veteran performance artist’s statement. After a bruising week of human destruction, with cataclysms in Algeria and Moscow, where the head of the Bolshoi Ballet was horribly attacked, the essay struck me as tonic. Writes Meredith ...

Eötvös’s noir quartet, “Korrespondenz” (1993), by Calder Quartet @ Jacaranda

Music · Reviews
What a strange and intricate moment when composer Peter Eötvös’s Korrespondenz, Scenes for String Quartet opened Jacaranda’s “Fierce Beauty” program Saturday night in Santa Monica. The Calder Quartet played the 1993 work with Eötvös in the room, making the occasion extra special. The global music luminary is visiting Los Angeles from Hungary for a week of ...

Hungarian maestro Peter Eötvös to conduct @ Jacaranda

Music
We’re super fascinated to learn that the acclaimed Hungarian composer-conductor Peter Eötvös (pronounced urt-vursh) will soon take part in a mini-residency in Los Angeles. It all kicks off with Eötvös’s personal participation in FIERCE BEAUTY, the January 12 edition of contemporary music series Jacaranda, Music at the Edge. He’ll conduct the U.S. premiere of his ...

Little drummer boys at Lula Washington Dance Theatre 1

Dance · Music
Interspersed amongst the thundering herd of kickin’ African drummers that propelled Kwanzaa madness at Lula Washington’s Crenshaw Boulevard dance studio over the holidays was a passel of tiny tots … young gentlemen. They banged the drum, and not slowly. I asked our friend Erwin Washington, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Lula Washington Dance Theatre, for ...

Esa-Pekka, Especially-Pleasurable, at HEAR NOW benefit 3

Music · Reviews
Posing with The Lyris Quartet (Alyssa Park, Shalini Yijayan, violins, Timothy Loo, cello, Luke Maurer, viola) is our marvelous and much-missed Los Angeles Philharmonic Conductor-Laureate, Esa-Pekka Salonen, on a return visit to our town. Salonen’s now London-based where he’s principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. His presence at a house party in Culver City proved ...