Plácido Domingo, 77, has sung his 150th role. … Architect Frank Gehry has designed a new concert hall for L.A. Phil’s youth orchestra. … The music director of the Long Beach Symphony adds the Portland Symphony (Maine) to his resume.
Weissenberg plays ‘Petrushka’
Here’s one of my favorite concert videos. It features pianist Alexis Weissenberg playing Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka. The director is Ake Falck, and while he didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, the lighting and the camerawork here are superb. Notice
Lukas Foss: Piano Concerto No. 1
The neoclassical Piano Concerto No. 1 by Lukas Foss (1922-2009), recorded by Pacific Symphony, Carl St.Clair, conductor and Jon Nakamatsu, piano. Released 2001. The piece was first written as a clarinet concerto when Foss was 17. He made this version
Bernstein@100: Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3
Leonard Bernstein conducts the Royal Danish Orchestra in the Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonia Espansiva,” by Carl Nielsen.
For George Walker, 1922-2018
The Lyric for Strings by George Walker.
What’s that tune in ‘Outlaw King’?
We noticed the new trailer (kind of violent) for “Outlaw King” on Netflix uses a famous classical tune as underscoring. The tune? Albinoni’s Adagio, of course, which probably wasn’t actually composed by Albinoni, but by 20th-century musicologist Remo Giazotto. Here’s
Shostakovich’s ‘Festive Overture,’ for ocarina septet
Shostakovich composed his Festive Overture for full symphony orchestra, of course, and that’s the version that conductor Carl St.Clair and Pacific Symphony will perform at the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular on Sept. 8. Meanwhile, here’s another version, amusing but impressive all
Single tickets on sale, suggestions made
Tickets to individual concerts in Pacific Symphony’s 2018-2019 season go on sale today. This next season marks the orchestra’s 40th anniversary. The offer includes classical concerts, pops concerts, and special events.* Go to pacificsymphony.org or call (714) 755-5799. Go to
Books on classical music: Some essentials (4)
By TIMOTHY MANGAN Two autobiographies … “The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz” by Hector Berlioz. Berlioz was the archetypical Romantic — sensitive, poetic, experimental, nostalgic, given to flights of fantasy, easily wounded, progressive, dramatic verging on melo-. He was also a
Interview: John Williams
(Here’s an interview with composer John Williams that I wrote for England’s Gramophone magazine back in 2005. Richard Kaufman conducts Pacific Symphony in Williams’s Oscar-winning score to “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” for a screening of the film Saturday night. Tickets here.) By