What the performing arts look like in Los Angeles

Dance · Music
A post-performance picture captures the youth and vigor of the performing arts in Los Angeles today. Review of the concert one post below, or click here. With Miguel Perez, Lillian Rose Barbeito, Ja-Young Jessie Kim, Merett Miller Shah, Melissa Bourkas, Hai Kai, Andrew Cowan, Andrew Wojtal and Tina Finkelman Berkett at The Walt Disney Concert ...

REVIEW: The Los Angeles Philharmonic dances! 2

Dance · Music · Reviews
A big week for dance in Los Angeles: first came the premiere of L.A. Dance Project under the direction of Benjamin Millepied. Then followed Thursday’s symphony gala celebrating what Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel called, in pre-concert remarks, “a union of the arts.” Dance shared the stage, rather marvelously, with our symphony orchestra. Grand ...

You up there in the rafters, stop chewing gum! Gustavo Dudamel conducts Mahler’s Eighth @ the Shrine

Music
We don’t have airs, we don’t have pretenses. We’re not Europe, we’re not New York. It’s the Wild West, and we like it like that. What we do have, in spades, is space. Yes, space. Room to move, grow, think, and innovate. And in our big barn of a Shrine Auditorium, with its hefty square ...

Boulez’s masterful “sur Incises” at Disney Hall 2

Music · Reviews
It was a privilege, last night, to watch Pierre Boulez conduct his own work from the late 1990s, “sur Incises,” written for a triplet of threesomes: three harps, three pianos, and three percussion clusters (xylophone, marimba, bells, tympani). A guided journey through a landscape of crystalline sound, the work clung miraculously to the air of ...

Los Angeles Philharmonic: Adieu, Esa-Pekka Salonen! 6

Music
Friday night I watched Esa-Pekka Salonen conduct the LA Phil for perhaps my last time. Esa has had a huge impact on my life, as I entered the symphony world under his tutelage. He is retiring as the Phil’s conductor after this season. Renowned for his special touch with 20th century music, he conducted Stravinsky and ...