Classical Music
The transition begins with the 2015-2016 San Diego Symphony season on Friday, October 9, at 7 p.m. The transition refers to Jahja Ling’s stepping down as the music director for the symphony after the 2016-2017 …
I’ve mentioned the asinine quality of the artist bio a few times in the past but it’s time to take this thing on like bighorn sheep butting heads during the spring rut. That is to …
After the René Barbera concert I was tempted to compare the young phenom to other singers. It’s a typical response. Yet comparing one singer to another is not a fair game. Some singers might even …
How do we get to music video number zwei in our curated playlist? We started with Beethoven's Fifth and then we found out about Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic creating a Fifth virtual …
Tweet seats? The Los Angeles Philharmonic thinks that’s cute. “You’ve got tweet seats? We’ve got Beethoven in 3-D virtual reality.” That’s right. The L.A. Phil has developed a virtual reality performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. …
René Barbera gave his North American professional debut recital at the Balboa Theater on Saturday, September 19. The concert opened San Diego Opera’s 2015-16 season. Mr. Barbera started the concert with a piece by Rossini …
If there is a piece of music for late summer, it is The Ripening by Josef Suk. Suk worked on the music over the course of five years or so from 1912 to 1917. Yet …
I just heard that an American orchestra is offering “tweet seats” at its concerts. See there? It even rhymes. This is a good thing — I think. After googling “orchestra twitter seats” and scrolling through …
“In music, the present is a perpetual genesis. The ‘now’ is always bound up with the start and the end,” said Sergiu Celibidache. We could spend hours exploring the ramifications of such a statement. We …
This is the first of a series of curated YouTube videos. As videos are featured they will be added to a playlist here. The first piece to be featured is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Don’t …
Alexander Scriabin was the composer who wanted to compose us all into nirvana. Sergiu Celibidache was the conductor who wanted to conduct us into enlightenment. Celibidache brought Zen Buddhism to the conductor’s podium along with …
The Divine Poem is the Esoteric Pick of the Week. Written by Alexander Scriabin, The Divine Poem is his third symphony. Scriabin was best known for his piano compositions and was one of the most …
Suddenly Labor Day Weekend is upon us. The ship is turning. Summer is slipping toward the western horizon and frivolous activities are being replaced with serious endeavors. The pastoral Major League Baseball begins to yield …
The BBC Proms is taking up the cause of Franz Schmidt in a concert on September 10 at London’s Royal Albert Hall. A performance of Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 will be given by the Vienna …
Politics in classical music is not new. Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shostakovich, and countless other composers were politically active and, at times, censored. Almost every mid-20th-century conductor, singer, and instrumental soloist was politicized by World War …
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. This is the title of a piece of art from 1991 by Damien Hirst. The work of art is a tiger shark in a …