The first in a series of articles I’ll be writing for OC Music & Dance: Music writer takes on the piano: Lesson One. OC Music & Dance blog, July 12, 2017.
Miscellany
(Curated news and views from around the web. Click on the highlighted links to read the full articles.) In The New Yorker, David Denby writes a fine summing up of the career of conductor Arturo Toscanini, on the occasion of
Kleiber conducts ‘Thunder and Lightning’
An old standby. If this isn’t my favorite classical video, I can’t think which one is. The great Carlos Kleiber conducts the “Thunder and Lightning” Polka by Johann Strauss, Jr. This is stupendous conducting but most everything has already been
Symphony in the Cities program
The musical agenda for this summer’s Symphony in the Cities concerts has been announced, a nice mixture of light classics and patriotic fare. Carl St.Clair, who, as always, will conduct, has selected two works each by several composers. Leonard Bernstein
Playlist: Neglected symphonies
Here’s a neglected symphony sampler for your listening assessment. What, exactly, is a “neglected symphony,” you ask? In this case, these are works which your curator — me — has decided are worthy of at least a few more performances
Word: ‘Crescendo’
(One in an occasional series) Let us now consider an oft-misused and misunderstood word: Crescendo. Musicians get it, of course, but others don’t. Take this recent example: “After seven years of political fireworks over the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a
Orchestra selfie
Pacific Symphony at the Pacific Amphitheater last night. That’s flutist (and photographer) Cindy Ellis in the front. Conductor Richard Kaufman is back left.
Happy 4th: Horowitz plays ‘Stars and Stripes’
Everyone should hear this at least once in their life: Vladimir Horowitz plays his own arrangement of Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” on April 23, 1951 at Carnegie Hall.
Sunday book review: ‘Toscanini: Musician of Conscience’
Review: A Life of Toscanini, Maestro with Passion and Principles. The New York Times Book Review, June 27, 2017.
Video: Overture to ‘Candide’
As part of their annual Symphony in the Cities concerts this month in Newport Beach, Irvine and Mission Viejo, Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony will perform Leonard Bernstein’s rambunctious Overture to “Candide.” Here’s Bernstein himself conducting the New York