The program is all about storytelling in a very direct sense. Obviously any piece of music tells some kind of story, but these are concrete stories in a more literal sense. We’ll start with Alan Ridout’s “Ferdinand the Bull.” I

From time to time, we’ll bring to your attention articles about how music can improve your life. Here’s an interesting article about live concerts improving life expectancy.

Our program note annotator Michael Clive writes about the guitar’s most famous work, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. After reading about this beautiful piece, listen to Pablo Villegas playing the exquisite slow movement. So many of classical music’s great geniuses led

Why is there a squeezebox on stage with Pacific Symphony this week? Well, that’s not just any button accordion—it’s a bandoneón, the rich, dark-voiced squeezebox that was born to sing the blues of Buenos Aires: the tango. The bandoneon is

It is with deep sadness that I share with you the passing of our beloved Timothy Landauer, Principal Cellist of Pacific Symphony. As many of you probably know, Tim battled cancer over the last year with great determination and courage.

Pablo Villegas, who will be the featured soloist in our upcoming “Master of Guitar” festival on May 2-4, wrote a blog post last year about the inspiration he draws from his relationship with world-renowned opera singer Plácido Domingo. Villegas touches

It’s always a little humbling when you’re asked to direct a piece you don’t know. Since I’ve been working in the opera business for a while I pride myself on knowing the repertoire. So when I recently had this happen—with a

This is an excerpt of an article by Paul Hodgins, for Voice of OC. You can find the full article on their website here. [Murray Sidlin], who is in town to perform a work that uniquely honors victims of the Holocaust,

KUSC’s Alan Chapman interviewed Murry Sidlin who conducts the upcoming “Defiant Requiem” performance with Pacific Symphony on April 16 at 8 p.m. Listen to the extended Arts Alive feature on the “Defiant Requiem” on the KUSC blog.

Like many of us of a certain age, composer Michael Daugherty remembers watching the Apollo 11 Moon landing on television. It was the culmination of the Space Age, one of our era’s defining events, a moment that divided history into