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.
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
For George Walker, 1922-2018
The Lyric for Strings by George Walker.
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
Book review: ‘Famous Father Girl’ by Jamie Bernstein
Being the child of Leonard Bernstein was like having a nuclear blast for a dad. You practically had to stand back and wear protective goggles when he came into a room, and even then the gale wind and blinding light
Bernstein’s ‘On the Town’: ‘Ya Got Me’
If your only knowledge of Leonard Bernstein’s musical “On the Town” is the famous movie, then you don’t know it. The film cut most of Bernstein’s music and the composer ended up boycotting it. Here’s a great bit from the
William Grant Still: Symphony No. 5, ‘Western Hemisphere’
Written in 1945, Still’s Fifth is an attractive, easy to listen to and evocative American Symphony. The movements are described thusly: 1. “The vigorous, life-sustaining forces of the Hemisphere” (briskly) 2. “The natural beauties of the Hemisphere” (slower, and with
Bernstein at the Skirball
I went to the “Leonard Bernstein at 100” exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon, an entertaining way to beat the excessive heat. The exhibit, which runs through Sept. 2, is organized by the GRAMMY Museum
Neglected symphony: Walter Piston: Symphony No. 2
Walter Piston’s Symphony No. 2 was given its premiere by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Kindler in March of 1944. Leonard Bernstein chose the remarkable Adagio of this work to perform with the New York Philharmonic as a