L.A. Times - Music Reviews

Berlin Phil

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Berlin Philharmonic

John Adams is feeling festive

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The composer is organizing the Los Angeles Philharmonic's first festival for its new music director, Gustavo Dudamel.

What does a renowned, Harvard-educated, Pulitzer Prize-winning classical music composer say just after the standing-ovation world premiere of his new symphony at Walt Disney Concert Hall, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of its wildly celebrated new music director, Gustavo Dudamel? ¶ "That was rockin' , wasn't it?" says a beaming John Adams. ¶ Yeah, that's the way "we old boomers" talk, Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. President Deborah Borda, 60, jokes of her longtime friend and colleague Adams, 62. It doesn't seem to surprise her during a conversation at the gala party after the Oct. 8 premiere that Adams would use the phrase when talking about "City Noir," a work inspired by Hollywood's classic noir films of the 1940s and '50s. ¶ Besides -- it was rockin'. The buzz at the Latin-themed post-premiere affair seemed to have less to do with the generously distributed "Pasión" cocktail created in honor of Dudamel's first Disney Hall concert as Philharmonic music director -- an alarmingly sweet combo of rum, pineapple, coconut juice and grenadine -- than with the afterglow of the music. ¶ The heady sensation made it clear that 28-year-old Dudamel isn't the only new kid at the Phil: The other is Adams, in his inaugural season as the orchestra's creative chair and curator of the Philharmonic's first festival of Dudamel's tenure: West Coast, Left Coast, a three-week event launching Saturday and exploring California music.

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Los Angeles Philharmonic Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall,

The viola sings out

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reviews of recordings by Kim Kashkashian, Yuri Bashmet, David Aaron Carpenter, Eliesha Nelson and others.

Google "viola joke" and you'll be rewarded with thousands, an afternoon's worth of hilarity at the expense of one of the most expressive sound producing machines ever conjured up.

Andrey Boreyko leads L.A. Phil

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The program includes pieces from Tchaikovsky's 'Sleeping Beauty.'

Andrey Boreyko -- the chief conductor of the Bern Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland and as of this fall the music director of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra -- may not have the most glamorous, high-powered publicity buildup in the world. But you'll be hard-pressed to find a more absorbing program this season at Walt Disney Concert Hall than the one that the 52-year-old Russian put together Friday night.

Gustavo Dudamel starts off at a fast tempo

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The excitement is infections and he is, no question, a rare talent. But let's all keep our cool while he continues to grow.

Eléctrico Gustavo, writ large on the back of buses, appears to be the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's newest source of renewable energy. Radiante Gustavo flashing on electric billboards luridly illumines the Southern California sky in competition with Nature and Her sunsets. Pasión Gustavo, in giant letters on Walt Disney Concert Hall, stirs Frank Gehry's steel.

Herb Alpert donates to CalArts

Wed, 9 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The multi-Grammy winner has given $15 million to the School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts.

Eight-time Grammy winner and Los Angeles native Herb Alpert, who in November pledged $30 million to UCLA to establish the cross-disciplinary UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, has now given $15 million to the School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts. In recognition of the gift, to be announced today, the school will be renamed the Herb Alpert School of Music.

La La La Human Steps

Mon, 7 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Édouard Lock's Montreal company rethinks Tchaikovsky with 'Amjad' at Royce Hall.

WE can refuse history, but we can't forget about it, even with the new technologies. Those are Luciano Berio's words. They were also the theme of the late Italian composer's Norton Lectures at Harvard 15 years ago. Last week, I was sure I had long ago proved Berio wrong. Having shuffled dying swans and such into the category of ritual rather than renewable art, I not only, good Modernist that I am, refused Tchaikovsky's ballets but also had put them out of my mind. Would good reviews have made American Ballet Theatre's "Swan Lake" at the Music Center an event? Not for me.

Dylan, Hendrix DVDs show rock 'n' roll history in action

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0700

New DVDs show Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix performances that changed the course of pop music.

There haven't been that many nights in rock 'n' roll when you could say after a performance that music will probably never be the same again, but two marvelous new DVDs let us revisit two such evenings.

Reviews of James Blunt and Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0700

"All the Lost Souls" (Atlantic Records) "Playlist" (Mercury Records)

James Blunt AS oxymorons go, "soft rock" wields more power than most people admit. Largely dismissed as a watered-down, blown-dry corruption of liberated youth culture, it's been shoved into the category of "guilty pleasure" practically since its inception.