Classical Pick of the Week: American Idols

Photo by Peter Gene via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

This week has us feeling all red, white, and blue (and not from the cold) with all the concerts in store for us. It starts on Monday with XTET at Zipper Hall, where they will be performing a viola piece (we will refrain from throwing in a viola joke here, but feel free to add one in the comments section if you’d like) by Morton Feldman and THREE premieres by American composers Alvin Curran and Frederic Rzewski. This is only the second concert of the popular Monday Evening Concerts series, so tickets are sure to be in high demand. The concert begins at 8 PM and tickets are 10 dollars for students and 25 for general admission.

The LA Opera has been getting a lot of love on LAist in the last few months, and that is because of the exciting programming they've got going on! This Thursday they have Figaro's American Adventure all the way out in Rancho Cucamonga at the Lewis Family Playhouse. This is the perfect introduction to your family or friends to opera. It is loosely based on Rossini's Barber of Seville (which you might remember snippets of from some cartoons). Tickets are a mere 13.50, and the show starts at 7:30 PM, giving you enough time to get off of work, change, eat, and drive out to see the show (if you change and eat while driving, it does save time but it is not advisable to do so). The Santa Monica Symphony is throwing a FREE concert, dedicating the concert to Martin Luther King Jr. featuring the African American composer William Grant Stills and Brahms (not sure how that ties in...but Brahms is amazing). Arrive early to guarantee a seat for your party! The concert is on Sunday at 3:30 PM.