Live Music
The NFL season started with the Detroit Lions defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 21-20 on Thursday, September 7, 2023. While I don’t feel inclined to divulge my team loyalties, I will say that I am …
Something strange is happening in Hollywood this year. There have been two hit movies, Barbieheimer and a slew of flops. It’s been so bad that this year has coined the term flop-buster. The biggest flop …
I was making some tentative travel plans for November when it occurred to me that the biggest cultural event that I can remember was occurring in November. I am, of course, referring to the opening …
It's been a rough summer for opera. For starters, Opera News, a publication of the Metropolitan Opera Guild, has announced that its operations will be folded into the British publication Opera magazine starting in December. …
The 2023 Bayreuth Festival started on Monday, July 24, and runs through Monday, August 28. This annual celebration of composer Richard Wagner used to have a ten-year waiting list for tickets. I registered to buy …
I've received a few press releases explaining a new endeavor entitled California Festival. The festival comprises 95 organizations performing pieces of music that have been composed in the last five years. Each organization has independently …
My kids and I drove up to the Irvine Spectrum in order to see *Oppenheimer* in the full 70mm IMAX format. I had previously encountered J. Robert Oppenheimer in the opera *Doctor Atomic* by John …
One of classical music’s greatest “what could have been” stories is that of Hans Rott, a highly talented and promising composer of the late 19th century. Although his life was tragically short, his contributions to …
One of my early tactics for exploring music was to simply find recordings with orchestra and chorus. I was in choir all through high school and college, so I was into works that featured a …
With the Mainly Mozart Festival now over, the 2022-2023 season has come to an end. It is possible to view Mainly Mozart as the beginning of the summer festival season, which is fair, but to …
“...Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield …
The Mainly Mozart Festival is in full flight. This year’s proceedings started on Thursday, June 15, and have gone from strength, to strength, to strength, to sublime. The first concert saw LA Philharmonic principal bassoonist …
I was looking at the schedule for Mainly Mozart and saw the name Gossec. I had never heard of Gossec so I looked him up. François-Joseph Gossec was a French composer and conductor who lived …
On Saturday, May 27, The San Diego Symphony completed the 2022-2023 Jacobs Masterworks season at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. The event was a multi-sensory extravaganza that maximized the potential of both the venue …
Rigorous is a word that rarely raises its strict head in the fair city of San Diego. Relaxation is the dominant paradigm. Rigor must hide in the shadows cast by the eternal sunny disposition of …