Michael McDonaghBerkeley,
Politics is everywhere these days. Make one "false" step and you're tarred and feathered without getting even a nanosecond to defend yourself. Jordi Savall and company stepped into this corrosive environment like a breath of fresh air with their ...
Michael McDonaghBerkeley,
What do we expect when we go to hear two repertory pieces played live, and is that expectation heightened when the musicians in Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are Israeli and Arab? Do their complex histories and conflicting narratives affect ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
No, Hansel and Gretel is not a children’s opera per se, but it is an opera, and a production, you can take children to. This hypothesis was well tested opening night when the audience was full of members of the ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
The LA Opera has kicked off its 2018-19 season with gusto. Verdi’s “Don Carlo” is grand opera with a capital ‘G.’ The music is lavish and all enveloping – orchestra and cast meet the challenge head on. The full LA ...
Michael McDonaghSan Francisco,
You're alone in your room and hear music.You're sitting in a room with other people and hear this same music. But does this change how you hear that music? These are just some of the questions which Philip Glass' piano ...
Michael McDonaghSan Francisco,
We love to put people in boxes. She's progressive, he's conservative. This music is twelve-tone, that music is minimalist. But the final concert of San Francisco's New Century Chamber Orchestra showed how artificial these divisions are. Music is supposed to ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
How do they do it? The Joffrey Ballet has two simultaneous gigs in LA: the Gluck opera, "Orpheus and Eurydice," and the ballet, "Romeo and Juliet." The consensus is that the troop is spectacular in "Orpheus," but their production of ...
David E. MorenoSan Francisco,
Philip Glass @ 80ish
When “Music With Changing Parts” premiered in New York in1970 it was at once revolutionary, persistent, repetitive, annoying, hypnotic, challenging, and otherworldly. People walked out while others were completely mesmerized. The future had arrived and ...
Karen WeinsteinLos Angeles,
The Candide credits make it look like opera designed by a committee. But what a committee. It didn't start that way. Lillian Hellman, in high dudgeon over the early activities of the McCarthy Committee and its followers, approached Bernstein with ...
Michael McDonaghSan Francisco,
The Austro-Hungarian empire may have died long ago but its musical products are still alive and kicking. Vide the San Francisco Symphony and its outgoing music director Michael Tilson Thomas pairing Mozart -- born Salzburg; Beethoven -- born Bonn; Richard ...
