By Ted AYALA The Pasadena Symphony Orchestra (PSO), which has provided many memorable concerts in the past season and has admirably retained its superior quality despite a recent squabble with their former music director, announced their schedule for the 2011-2012 season. Among the notable musicians in this upcoming PSO season are violinist James Ehnes, cellist […]
By Ted AYALA Next week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (LAPO) will pay tribute to a man who fundamentally reshaped the orchestra and cemented its reputation as among the world’s very finest orchestral ensembles: their late executive vice president and managing director Ernest Fleischmann. Originally from Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany, the young Fleischmann and his family […]
By Charly SHELTON So you wanted a game for Christmas, but you didn’t get it. Now is the time to strike, my friends, to get the hottest games at low, low prices from used game sellers like GameStop. The hottest games of the holidays, and before, and even new games are bought at full price, […]
By Susan JAMES “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke takes another shape-shifting tale out for a spin in her new film, “Red Riding Hood.” The movie owes a large debt to Tim Burton’s 1999 classic “Sleepy Hollow,” all moody scenery, frightened villagers and scary supernatural beast. What it lacks is the star power of a Johnny Depp […]
By Ted AYALA John Cage has never been met with easy acceptance. His teacher at UCLA and USC, Arnold Schoenberg (himself a 20th Century musical revolutionary), was at once intrigued and puzzled by Cage’s music. “Of course he’s not a composer,” he is reputed to have said of his student. “But he is an inventor […]
By Ted AYALA It takes some work to take an oft-played chestnut like Felix Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Overture, polish it to a brilliant gleam, and allow the listener a glimpse as to how it must have struck the work’s first audience. But that is exactly what conductor George Stelluto and the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra […]
Pasadena Symphony presents an “Apotheosis of the Dance” where Germany and Armenia meet. By Ted AYALA Richard Wagner famously referred to the Beethoven 7th Symphony as the “apotheosis of the dance.” With its potent rhythmic intensity and dazzling harmonic modulations, the Beethoven 7th is definitely one of the Bonn master’s most propulsive and nearly visceral […]
By Ted AYALA Genius. Fraud. Visionary. Charlatan. John Cage’s music and philosophy has a quality that very few composers possess: the ability to inspire – even decades after his death – fiery debate and profound contemplation from his audience. Perhaps no other composer of the latter half of the 20th Century so fundamentally altered the […]
By Brandon HENSLEY It’s not every day jazz singers are asking around asking for help in calculus right before they’re about to go onstage, but Tricia Tahara is different. When the time came for her to take the stage Tuesday night at Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood, she pulled off her numbers with ease, […]
By Ted AYALA After a prolonged hiatus, the Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra (GPO) is back. Reorganized into a more robust organization, the GPO will once again bring their fiery artistry to the residents of Glendale. Many local lovers of classical music were stunned by the GPO’s sudden cancellation of its January concert mere days before the […]