“Real Love” Extravaganza

By Ted AYALA One of the biggest events of the year is about to arrive. An all-day festival of music and art is coming to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Saturday, Aug. 27. The world premiere of a new musical, “The Real Love,” created by an all-star team of composers and lyricists and starring some […]

Council Closes Door on Marijuana Dispensaries

By Ted AYALA Glendale City Council unanimously passed an ordinance definitively banning medical marijuana dispensaries within the city limits at the council meeting on Tuesday. No such businesses operate in Glendale as a two year moratorium banning the dispensaries has been in effect while city officials reviewed the subject. With the moratorium set to lapse […]

Concern and Confusion over City Ruling

By Ted AYALA When the Present family, owners of Crescenta Valley Towing Company, stepped into the Glendale City Council chamber on July 26, they thought that an injustice done to them was finally going to be righted. “We thought the city would do the right thing,” said Hal Present, who founded the company 50 years […]

Southwest Chamber Music Plays Liang, Tan and Mozart

By Ted AYALA It’s hard for the casual listener listening to the Larghetto from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet – with the tender, melancholy voice of the clarinet floating softly above a tapestry of gentle, muted strings – to not be carried away by the music’s hushed beauty. This becomes especially difficult when one hears […]

Towing, Brand Library on Council Agenda

By Ted AYALA Glendale’s Brand Library and Art Center is on the cusp of a major renovation of its premises. Situated in the hills over Kenneth Village, the library – well recognized for the ornate, Indian-inspired architecture of the original 1904 building – will be closed beginning early in 2012 for renovations that will include […]

Marvin Hamlisch and the Pasadena Pops: A Harmonious Union

By Ted AYALA Marvin Hamlisch, the Pasadena Pops Orchestra’s new principal conductor, cut the ribbon on his inaugural season with the Pops on Saturday night in a stylish concert played under the shade of the Rose Bowl. The program beckoned the audience to follow Hamlisch along in a sentimental journey that shined a spotlight on […]

Council Approves Altura Avenue Sale

By Ted AYALA Glenn Steiger, general manager of Glendale Water and Power (GWP), appeared before the city council on Tuesday to request that the city move to declare its property on 3445 Altura Ave. to be surplus property. Until 2002, the 29,000 square feet property, which sits approximately three-quarters  of a mile north of Crescenta […]

The Austrian Connection: Avanti String Quartet plays Zemlinsky and Schubert

By Ted AYALA The name of composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942), when it’s remembered – if it’s remembered at all – is usually as a footnote in the biographies of more famous musicians: as a close friend of Brahms in the elder composer’s final years, as teacher and brother-in-law of Arnold Schoenberg, as teacher – […]

“Marvin Does Marvin” at the Pasadena Pops July 23

By Ted AYALA Marvin Hamlisch, renowned composer and winner of three Oscars, will be conducting a program of his own music with the Pasadena Pops Orchestra on Saturday. Included in the program will be selections from the Broadway show “A Chorus Line,” the film “The Sting” (for which Hamlisch provided witty arrangements of Scott Joplin […]

Glendale City Council Approves Improvements for GWP, CV Streets

By Ted AYALA Glendale City Council approved the awarding of a construction contract worth $506,102.55 to American Asphalt South, Inc. for the application of a new slurry seal on pavement in the Montrose and La Crescenta areas. A slurry seal is a liquid mixture of fine sand and oils that is laid over asphalt to […]