One of Santa Monica's nicknames is "Tree City U.S.A." so it's no wonder trees are serious business there. While one pursuit is turn the seaside city into a giant, functional arboretum, currently the city is asking their residents to chime in about "replacement trees" designated for their residential streets as part of SaMo's Urban Forest Master Plan. more ›

The summer season is about to pick up some steam, great news for those languishing because of the lack of concerts. The Hollywood Bowl just kicked off their Summer season (more on that later), the Music Academy of the West begins this week, and musicians are streaming into Aspen this week to prep for the Summer-long festival. more ›

An arboretum is, in essence, a collection of trees, though by contemporary definition, it is a place dedicated to conservation of and education about trees. Now Santa Monica is beginning to explore the possibility of being "the first city-wide arboretum in the world," according to The LookOut News. more ›

The Pasadena Wine Festival returns to the LA County Arboretum and Botanic Gardens on Saturday providing the perfect opportunity and ambience to remind us that we do live in paradise (not London, as the weather may suggest). more ›

LA is home to some of the world's biggest, best, most well-known, and most important museums, as well as some lesser-known gems. The role of museums in providing an informal educational experience for children and adults alike is clear, but it often costs money to go to these museums. And even though the money almost always goes directly back into the museums' operations, if you love museums as much as we do, then you could make a pretty sizable dent in your bank account. more ›

2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Haydn. Here is a clip of recently deceased Rostropovich performing the Haydn D Major Cello Concerto. The LACMA hosts the last (for the 2008-2009 season) of its FREE Sundays Live concerts next Sunday with a program of Haydn and Mendelssohn, to cap off the year with one last celebration of their anniversaries. Expect duets and piano trios, at 6 PM this Sunday the 28th. more ›

Erich Korngold was an Academy Award winning film composer. He made his permanent residence in California and is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. He is most famous for his collaborations with Errol Flynn and adaptations of other compositions for the big screen. For other film composers check out Johnny Greenwood (lead guitarist of Radiohead), Clint Mansell, Bernard Hermann, Henry Mancini, and Miklos Rosza. This week's classical pick also features the work of a film composer, Paul Chihara. This video contains a recording of Jascha Heifetz performing Korngold's famous Violin Concerto. more ›

The Cal Phil is the next local cultural institution to be hit hard enough by the economy that they've canceled the rest of their season, even though they say the two previous shows were "nearly sold-out." more ›

The name "Baldwin" shows up here and there around the City and County of Los Angeles, like in Baldwin Hills, or on Baldwin Avenue, which runs from El Monte through Temple City and into the foothills in Sierra Madre. Well the Baldwin in question is Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, a man who made a name for himself as a real estate maven and as a bit of a wild card in the late 1800s and early years of the 20th Century. His name--and some, say his ghost--still lingers, as do some of the places he built over a century ago. more ›

LAist was able to check out a couple of concerts last weekend, in two completely different venues. The program included some very patriotic affair, with the California Phil providing all of the fireworks. These concerts were mentioned as last week's classical pick, and did not disappoint. Although the program was exactly the same, the orchestra was able to adjust accordingly to the acoustics at each venue and offered a different interpretation but the same unbridled enthusiasm at each performance. The founder-conductor Victor Vener (who sounds like Jeff Bridges) engaged the orchestra and enthralled the audience throughout the concerts, with interesting anecdotes to make the pieces more personal to the audience, including a touching story involving his brother. more ›

part 1 of "Rhapsody in Blue" from Fantasia 2000 more ›