Live Music
As we enter the final days of summer the Symphony Pops is completing its run at the Embarcadero while San Diego Opera brings some culture to the other side of the tracks. It’s Tchaikovsky time …
Have you heard of Soundcloud? It's for sale if you've got $1 billion. There are murmurs that the company is seeking to be purchased because it's not making money. In other words, Soundcloud isn’t “making …
I feel that it is appropriate every now and then to get a tad personal in my writing here. Today I look to Mozart once again. We just discussed the mammoth release of recordings for …
Next year will be the 225th anniversary of Mozart’s death. To celebrate/capitalize there is a new complete edition of Mozart’s music being released in the form of a 200 disc box set. It’s called W. …
Let’s connect some dots between Verdi and Puccini and Puccini and himself. This will only take a moment. The scene, which is an “other than arias” gem, is from Act II of Puccini’s La Rondine. …
John Blackwood McEwen was a Scottish drifter who killed nine men in gunfights between 1889 and 1895. He was the scourge of the New Mexico territory and finally had his neck stretched in 1899. He …
It’s been an operatic week in mid-August. There was Opera Wednesday, then on Thursday I went to The Elixir of Love at Point Loma Opera Theatre, and on Saturday night I caught Don Giovanni presented …
The Elixir of Love by Donizetti is a bel canto opera, except when it’s not. Sometimes it’s not bel canto and it’s just opera. The most present understanding of bel canto is based on the …
I haven’t been to an Opera Wednesday in quite some time, so I went on over to the La Jolla Community Center on Wednesday night and listened to four solid singers sing three pieces each. …
We’ve never discussed personality type and musical preference have we? This might sound far-fetched or woo-woo in nature but I think there is something going on here. If we consider basic personality traits we can …
I was browsing the performance history of the San Diego Opera when I saw Henry VIII by Camille Saint-Saëns. This was not the only rarity in the company history but I’m a fan of Saint-Saëns …
Ernest Bloch is best known for his composition Schelomo for cello and large orchestra but he wrote a ton of music for “large orchestra.” We take an esoteric look at his Avodath Hakodesh: Sacred Service …
The next entry in our women in music thread is Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger was one of the most influential musicians of the 20th Century but her main contribution was as a teacher as opposed to …
It's August, which means the La Jolla Music Society SummerFest is starting. Each summer, the month of August is crammed with performances at the Sherwood Auditorium in La Jolla. With construction of “The Conrad” coming …
As promised, here are a few more moments of classical music in movies. For this group I’ve selected a personal axe to grind and a few well-known scenes. Let’s start with my axe. At the …