Pierre Boulez meets Aaron Copland
Something I created during the latter half of the 1980′s and quietly hung up around the UC San Diego Music Department. I greatly enjoyed learning that Keith Humble was incapacitated with laughter when...
View ArticleMaurice Sendak’s Opera Librettos
Karen Beardsley as Max in the 1990 LA Opera production of Where the Wild Things Are The great author and illustrator Maurice Sendak passed away this week. While most of his obituaries mentioned his...
View ArticleThe Gospel According to The Other Mary
The new John Adams/Peter Sellars collaboration, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, had its world premiere last night in Los Angeles. I wrote a preview for the LA Weekly which you may read here. I...
View ArticleBad Choices and Wilted Flowers
Shortly after I listened to The BasedGod’s new album, Choices and Flowers, my wife desperately attempted to revive me So my editor at the LA Weekly approaches me about reviewing a new release, Choices...
View ArticleWhat classical CDs do you recommend to your friends who know nothing about...
Over at the LA Weekly you may read my list of classical music recordings that one may give to just about any open-minded listener not familiar with the genre. Many of the usual suspects are on it, but...
View ArticleA rousing Rigoletto at the Hollywood Bowl, Aug. 12, 2012
I have a “hunch” you will like this review I did for the LA Weekly about a concert performance of Rigoletto at the Hollywood Bowl . BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA
View ArticleWhat does Frances-Marie Uitti remember most about John Cage?
The brilliant and lovely cellist Frances-Marie Uitti on John Cage: I remember John Cage laughing, always laughing no matter what happened. When the Frankfurt Opera House burnt down disastrously, right...
View ArticleHappy Birthday, John Cage
The page in Silence, by John Cage, which produced the title of my toy piano suite, Anything Therefore is a Delight. I was directed to this page and that particular line through a random number...
View ArticleAlways Nice to Get a Little Recognition
Well, 2013 has gotten off to a great start for me, thanks to Natalie Axton including my work for the LA Weekly in her roundup of the best criticism from 2012 at her blog, Living With Criticism. Ms....
View ArticleStravinsky recalls the premiere of The Rite of Spring
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the premiere of one of the essential musical compositions of the 20th century, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Below, from Stravinsky’s autobiography...
View Article“Hey Liszt! Check out those mazurkas!”
The Asiatic languor of Liszt’s shawty, handing down to her daughter the secret of the burning love potions possessed in the seraglios Leave it to Franz Liszt to write a book commemorating Chopin and...
View ArticleQueenie Pie, Duke Ellington’s neglected “opera”
I had no idea that Duke Ellington had ever composed an opera until I saw Long Beach Opera’s 2014 season. Turns out it’s not truly what could be called an opera, but it’s definitely the closest...
View ArticleSome Like It Cold
My thoughts on the U.S. premiere (and second production of) Marilyn Forever by Gavin Bryars. I am disappointed that my description of an obscene phone caller “twanging his telephone wire” was edited...
View ArticleMaurice Sendak’s Opera Librettos
Karen Beardsley as Max in the 1990 LA Opera production of Where the Wild Things Are The great author and illustrator Maurice Sendak passed away this week. While most of his obituaries mentioned his...
View ArticleThe Gospel According to The Other Mary
The new John Adams/Peter Sellars collaboration, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, had its world premiere last night in Los Angeles. I wrote a preview for the LA Weekly which you may read here. I...
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