[contextly_auto_sidebar] When it comes to a classical concert, how long is too long? What do you do when you get restless? And what state -- one of heightened curiosity? a sharpened intellectual edge? greater empathy? physical relaxation? -- should a piece of art music put its audience members? In what way is art meant to be transformative? These are all questions addressed, implicitly, at … [Read more...]
Pianist Vijay Iyer and the Ojai Music Festival
[contextly_auto_sidebar] This year sees an unlikely but, I suspect, fortuitous paring: Pianist Vijay Iyer — one of the most inventive figures in jazz today — is curating the Ojai Music Festival, a friendly, mellow outdoor gathering dedicated to new, challenging, and rarely performed classical music. (The festival starts Thursday and runs through Sunday.) Part of Iyer’s emphasis is presenting … [Read more...]
A Musicologist Muses on John Adams
[contextly_auto_sidebar] One of the most insightful and eclectic thinkers on music I know is UCLA musicologist Robert Fink, who has written a book on minimalism -- Repeating Ourselves -- and both teaches music history and run the school's music-business program. On the occasion of John Adams' 70th birthday, and a series of related events in Los Angeles, I corresponded with Fink about the … [Read more...]
“Tears of St. Peter” and the Master Chorale
[contextly_auto_sidebar] HERE is a piece I had not even heard of: "Lagrime di San Pietro," a chorale work by the ambiguously Italian composer Orlando di Lasso (who is usually described as Flemish). The Los Angeles Master Chorale put on this Renaissance work, directed by classical wildman Peter Sellars, about a week ago at Disney Hall. Despite my lack of knowledge of most chorale music, I took … [Read more...]
The bizarre wonder of The Iceland Concert
[contextly_auto_sidebar] About a week ago I went to see a cryptically named sort-of opera called "The Iceland Concert" at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater. I went mostly because of a vague interest in Scandinavian culture, because I was curious about the renovation of one of my favorite LA theaters, and because I trust the taste of the publicist. It didn't hurt that the success of groups like … [Read more...]