By Ted AYALA Glendalians seeking an answer as to who will be the city’s new mayor were left teetering on a cliffhanger Tuesday night. City Council was unable to reach an agreement on who would be selected for mayor in the coming term. Mayor Laura Friedman, whose vote would have been the tiebreaker, was attending […]
By Ted AYALA Glendale City Council voted 3-2 on Tuesday night to include a ballot measure for the April 2013 city election that would modify how future city treasurers are appointed to office. Glendale’s charter currently places the power of appointment with voters, allowing city treasurers to serve for a four-year term. The ballot measure […]
By Ted AYALA For lovers of cello music, Los Angeles spread out a musical banquet unlike any other last week. Leading in to the finale of the Piatigorsky Festival, a week-long celebration of the life and work of cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, were three days of cello concertos, backed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and led […]
By Ted AYALA Gov. Jerry Brown’s act to dissolve redevelopment agencies across the state has plunged cities into major fiscal dilemmas. Glendale has been among those hit hard by the governor’s action. Members of the successor to the dismantled redevelopment agency met with the City Council at a joint meeting on Tuesday at City Hall […]
By Ted AYALA If there was a single thing that defined 20th century music, it was that there wasn’t a single thing that defined it. That is to say that under the rubric of “20th century music” there thrived and spawned literally hundreds of genres, styles, and schools, each as distinctive from the other as […]
By Ted AYALA In the forward to his translation of Osamu Dazai’s “No Longer Human,” the great Japanologist Donald Keene spoke of how modern Japanese artists referred to themselves as being the “orphans of Asia.” “Japan has become isolated from the rest of Asia, and Western nations do not accept her literature and learning as […]
By Ted AYALA Those who thought they heard the last about tense discussions over Glendale’s Rose Parade float need to think again. Just a little over two months after the city’s controversial 2012 Rose Float entry finally died down with the float’s trip down Colorado Boulevard on Jan. 2, debate on the city’s Rose Parade […]
By Ted AYALA Open up any national newspaper today and news about the Middle East is likely to be at or near the front page. This fascination – and often fear – of the Middle East may seem to be a recent phenomenon. But in truth the west has for centuries viewed their peers in […]
By Ted AYALA So most listeners already know about how Wagner referred to Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 7” as the “apotheosis of the dance.” But many listeners have given little thought as to how much of classical music – and most music in general – found the initial spark of inspiration in the impulse to dance. […]
By Ted AYALA There they were, standing on opposite ends of last Sunday’s Santa Cecilia Orchestra (SCO) program: Antonin Dvorak and George Gershwin. The former represented by his moody “Symphony No. 7;” the latter by his jazzy and brash “Piano Concerto in F.” Though each work couldn’t be more different from the other, it was […]