February 2017 Valentine’s Day is here once again, and with it a host of new shows, including: “Every Brilliant Thing” tells a story spanning nearly three decades and several life-changing events, starting with a young boy’s eye-opening first brush with death (his childhood dog). Donahoe charms spectators into acting opposite him in various […]
For those who love it, it can be a maddening, painful thing to hear how classical music is dismissed by popular culture as relaxing, inoffensive pap. By no means is it high-brow elevator music. Mozart and Beethoven, I’m sorry to say, didn’t sweat and slave over their scores so some kid 200-odd years later could […]
By Charly SHELTON n America and many westernized countries worldwide, the coming New Year is celebrated on Jan. 1, the beginning of the Gregorian calendrical cycle. In China, the widely used calendar is the lunar calendar, based on the phases of the moon. It is very foreign and complicated to the uninitiated but it has […]
By Charly SHELTON It’s that time of year again … the time in mid-February to indulge in cookies and candy and pastries and chocolate and sweets of all kinds. No, not Valentine’s Day; I mean something really important. It’s almost time for the LA Cookie Con and Sweets Show. Once a year, the Los Angeles […]
By Nestor CASTIGLIONE Piano Spheres continues its 2016-17 season with a recital on Tuesday, Jan. 31 by pianist Vicki Ray. Among the works on her wide-ranging program of contemporary music will be pieces by Pulitzer Prize winning composers David Lang and Julia Wolfe. Both have entrusted Ray with the world premieres of their “spring and […]
By Charly SHELTON Town Kitchen and Grill has fast become a staple of the Montrose diet. Though it has been only open since 2015, it has a loyal following of regulars and locals who visit the restaurant and bar, while attracting visitors from all over LA. The menu features fan favorites like the Brussels sprouts, […]
By Charly SHELTON When you think of a candy store, maybe you think of old soda fountain stores like in the opening of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Maybe you think of the candy tubs priced per ¼ lb. in the mall between the cookie place and the lotion store. No matter what version […]
“The present day composer refuses to die,” was the dictum from Edgard Varèse that was printed on every Frank Zappa album. Not only does the living composer refuse to die but the past week demonstrated that in Southern California he thrives. It certainly helps to have musicians like Mark Robson in their corner. “An amalgam […]
By Nestor CASTIGLIONE n Tuesday, Jan. 17, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will celebrate the 80th birthday of composer Steve Reich, one of the great living musical masters. The Green Umbrella program will consist of two classics from the composer’s catalog bookending a West Coast premiere. Reich’s art, which crackles with that peculiarly American sense of […]
2016 was the annus horribilis of our still young 21st century, if one is to believe the cacophony of op-eds that bid last year farewell. I tend to be skeptical of hyperbole myself – especially of the sort projected and magnified to apocalyptic proportions by the internet. (After all, nothing generates page clicks and ad […]