Classical Music
I understand that everyone is amped up for beer week but there’s some great music lined up this week as well. Point Loma Opera Theater is giving the San Diego premiere of Nino Rota’s The …
Sarah Chang playing Bruch and Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6: Pathetique was the moon and stars on Saturday night at Symphony Hall. There was a sunny piece of new music by Judd Greenstein, but as soon …
A Martin Scorsese film about Leonard Bernstein has been confirmed as an upcoming project. Bernstein was the high priest of classical music in the United States and one of a handful of conductors who thrived …
For the esoteric pick of the week we’re going with Gavin Bryars and his epic 1993 remastering of his 1975 composition Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. When I first heard Jesus' Blood it was …
I haven’t taken umbrage with anything in a while. What good is a column without some umbrage? Today’s umbrage is brought to you by the term diva. Nowadays, we have three-year-olds wearing "diva in training" …
Valery Gergiev, our conductor in video number three, has been accused, in the media, of being pro-Putin and for anti-gay laws in Russia. An article of defiance showed up in The Guardian at the start …
Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre is a somewhat sterile version of the “Dance of Death”. In this version death shows up at midnight on Halloween and calls all the other dead folk together for a party. There …
We’re going to revisit the Halloween classic: Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bald Mountain. For years, Mussorgsky had been considering several large scale projects based on spooky Russian folklore. He looked at creating an opera …
“There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.” — …
Günter Wand isn’t a household name in the United States, but in Britain and Germany he is one of the most admired conductors on the 20th Century. Wand came into this admiration late in life. …
We haven't had an esoteric pick of the week for a while and it just so happens that the San Diego Symphony has selected one for us. They are performing Harmonielehre by John Adams this …
In this day and age of computer-generated sounds and images, as the precious bud of virtual reality starts to blossom upon our consciousness, it’s nice to be reminded that technique often trumps technology. On Saturday …
The overture to Die Fledermaus is usually reserved for New Year's Day but the San Diego Symphony decided to use it on a new season's day. This Viennese war horse, or Lipizzan stallion, as the …
It’s time for another video installment. This is video number three. Since Beethoven’s Fifth is the starting point for the playlist, how do a Russian composer and a Russian conductor fit in? Via the orchestra, …
There’s some opera happening this weekend. San Diego City Opera is performing Queen of Carthage as part of the La Jolla Playhouse Without Walls Festival. San Diego City Opera was founded by Cory Hibbs and …
What if, instead of a military industrial complex, we had an arts industrial complex? What if we had about a dozen for-profit, hard-core, unethical, manipulative corporations that ran music programs? I mean the dirty, money-hungry, …