A doctor in the house: Doc Severinsen @ Valley Performing Arts Center 2
That Doc Severinsen is a natty dresser is well known. But when he hit the stage of the Valley Performing Arts Center Friday night clad in orange shirt, red pants and a blue, sequined paisley jacket, it took several moments for the rich visual effect to sink in. With unabated high energy, the 86-year-old trumpeter, ...
Lyris-ists land on LaBrea, for ‘Music & Conversations’ 1
A high-performance moment slated, this weekend, for Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, the stellar LaBrea Avenue art gallery. Chamber music presenter Music & Conversations will host the Lyris Quartet whose punctilious playing we have so enjoyed around town — and who have a wonderful upcoming engagement on April 5 with Jacaranda, Music from the Edge. Saturday ...
Flirting with Fascism, Sinatra: ENO’s Rodelinda
I’d been away from London, in New York, for Rodelinda’s Coliseum premiere but heard such good things about it that I arranged for one of its last performances and am so glad I did. Beyond the grace of Handel’s music conducted by baroque specialist Christopher Curnyn and played with usual panache by a reduced English ...
Cherbourg umbrellas pop with panache, fifty years later
The delicious, the divine, the delectable and digitally restored, THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, opens Friday at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles for a one-week big-screen viewing engagement. If you’ve not yet seen Jacques Demy’s candy-colored all-song French classic — yes, it’s an operetta à la française — on the big screen doing so at ...
Guilty pleasure? No, guitar pleasure from masters Gismonti, Towner
I was needing to hear some music but the last days before trans-Atlantic travel were beyond hectic. Nothing was fitting. Couldn’t get over to the Coliseum for an opera opening; despite all desire couldn’t fit in that last Vengerov, but the soul was saying “You gots to do something..” Egberto Gismonti at the Barbican. How ...
The ultimate Murray Perahia recital
In any great concert hall on the planet, this singular program with pianist Murray Perahia would be astonishing. At the height of his powers and maturity, he is one of our greatest living pianists. Perahia will perform Thursday evening at the Valley Performing Arts Center at Cal State Northridge, described by architecture critic Michael Webb ...
How green is Thor’s Valley
Thor Steingraber, former vice president for programming for The Music Center in downtown Los Angeles, has been named the new executive director of the Valley Performing Arts Center at California State University, Northridge. CSUN’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Harry Hellenbrand heralded the occasion: “Thor is credited with the vision to blend classical ...
Fred Astaire’s songs that dance 2
If all you know of Fred Astaire is his movie dancing, the new two-CD set “Fred Astaire: The Early Years at RKO” (Turner Classic Music/Sony Masterworks) will be a revelation. With the possible exception of Bing Crosby, Astaire introduced more good songs — first on the Broadway stage, then in his movie musicals — than ...
Sundays are for Chalifour
Jan
23
2014
I love hearing classical music on Sunday afternoons and there’s a particularly alluring recital upcoming Sunday Feb 9, when the sparkling and stellar concert master of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Martin Chalifour, accompanied by pianist Timothy Durkovic, offers a wonderful recital at Rolling Hills United Methodist Church in the south bay region of Los Angeles ...
Backstage intimacy from Phil Stern’s camera 1
Hollywood photographers have always had to walk a fine line. Their work is contingent on access to the celebrated, but entree hinges on trust and following implicit rules of privacy. Movie studios have always wanted their actors and directors depicted in the best possible light and they’ve rewarded those whose images flatter most. But good ...