Review: Diavolo’s “L’Espace du Temps” @ VPAC
Calling Diavolo: Architecture in Motion a dance company is like calling a monster truck a nice vehicle. It’s big. It’s brash. It’s loud. Sometimes it’s brilliant. The LA-based company performed its three-part “L’Espace du Temps” at the Valley Performing Arts Center (VPAC) September 19 and 20. Presented in partnership with the Ford Signature Series, it ...
Rock on, Timur, in “Collapse” at BAM
Sep
10
2015
Very jazzed to learn that our home-town band, Timur and the Dime Museum, will share its bodacious, electronic musical-offering to dear Mother Earth, COLLAPSE, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s venerable “Next Wave” Festival next week. COLLAPSE, an art-rock tour of the daily dump of ecological disasters, with songs composed by band member Daniel Corral, ...
Bringing ballet to Beethoven: Melissa Barak @ the L.A. Phil
We chatted recently with Melissa Barak, artistic director of Barak Ballet, concerning her upcoming choreographic contribution to the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s annual gala concert September 29 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The festive all-Beethoven program includes not only the Philharmonic but its conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, doing double duty with the Simon Boliivar Symphony of Venezuela. ...
A chat with The Broad Stage’s new director Wiley Hausam
Prominent in the crowded field of Los Angeles performing-arts houses is The Broad Stage, where a lively smorgasbord of arts offerings forged a high-profile presence since its debut — in an enviable Santa Monica location — in 2008. Wiley Hausam, a newcomer to Los Angeles, will soon take up the mantle of artistic and executive ...
Diavolo meets New West Symphony at Valley Performing Arts Center 2
We live in strong anticipation of DIAVOLO‘s season-opening “L’Espace du Temps” performance at the beautiful, acoustics-rich Valley Performing Arts Center. The performance will enjoy live orchestral accompaniment by New West Symphony, under the direction of Christopher Rountree, of a trio of scores by great composers: Foreign Bodies (2007, Esa-Pekka Salonen); Fearful Symmetries (2010, John Adams); ...
Washington family affair: dance by Lula, music by Kamasi
A new dance work by choreographer and dance educator Lula Washington, who heads up Lula Washington Dance Theatre, now celebrating 35 years of existence, will soon have its premiere. Nephew Kamasi Washington — he of the soaring brilliant career as a tenor saxophonist — provides the score. It’s Re-run home, from Kamasi’s EPIC cd on ...
Jazz the weekend away @ the Aero
Jazz on a Spring Day Stormy Weather Jazz’s greatest artists in vintage shorts, digitally restored by the Cohen Film Collection. Includes: “Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life” with Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday; “A Rhapsody in Black and Blue” with Louis Armstrong; “St. Louis Blues” with Bessie Smith; “Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho”; “A Bundle ...
Let’s rock the glass armonica @ Velaslavasay Panorama
When we last visited the Velaslavasay Panorama, the charming former ‘Union’ movie theater converted into exhibition hall/theatre/gardens, we were shivering on a sojourn to the South Pole at a screening of silent-picture “South” (1919). The ‘polarizing’ event was part of the “Mush to the Movies” series co-sponsored by Los Angeles Filmforum. Coming soon to the ...
Four (special) hands better than two @ Piano Spheres
Aug
10
2015
Piano Spheres, the new-music presentation series devoted to showcasing contemporary works for the piano, offers as the opener to its 22nd season a double-barreled send-off, “Two Pianos, Four Hands.” The recital features a world premiere and performances by two leading lights of contemporary music. Thomas Ades’s “Concert Paraphrase on on Powder Her Face for Two ...
Clarion voice of songbird Judy Collins fills L.A. night sky 8
Yes, a songbird, thrush, warbler, coloratura, balladeer … she self-describes as a ‘troubadour.’ But who knew that folk-rock legend Judy Collins is also supremely entertaining, a raconteur spieling salty, even ribald stories all while innocently strumming her guitar? Tonight in a delicious free concert at Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles, Collins lulled her audience like a ...