This week’s classical pick doesn’t really have anything to do with erotica, unless you reason that Beethoven’s "Eroica" Symphony ushered in the Romantic Era of classical music, which was said to have encouraged intimate and passionate (erotic?) feelings inside the listener. Anyways, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is performing this heroic third symphony (Eroica means heroic in Italian) and continue the year long celebration of Messiaen. Pierre-Laurent Amard (I just heard a wonderful recording of Ligeti's......

Photo by coffeextv via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr. MUSIC Check out the Viper Room’s Sunday night music special, Free Form Orchestra, free with RSVP. Original music created by some of L.A.’s finest young emerging talent, these guys and girls will really blow you away with their jazz-funk beats. 8:30 p.m. // Viper Room // 8852 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles // (310) 358-1881 // Free ART The Pasadena Museum of California Art......

Jazz pianist and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra composer-in-residence Uri Caine will be making an in-store appearance at Amoeba Music tonight at 7:00 p.m. A legendary improviser, Caine’s source music and influences runs far and wide from Mozart to Monk to the Beatles and beyond. Definitely worth checking out, especially since it's free (video profile of Caine embedded below) Tonight The Heavy @ Bordello The Oohlas @ Spaceland Uri Caine @ Amoeba Records Blank Blue (CD......

Matt Haimovitz is not your everyday cellist. His resume includes performances with every major orchestra, but his choice of venues include nightclubs, bars, coffee houses, and a stop at CBCG. He is known for his performances of contemporary pieces, and his MySpace page showcases interpretations of Bach and Led Zeppelin. This classical pick actually takes place next Sunday, featuring two world premieres, a west coast premiere, and the Ligeti Cello Concerto. Ligeti was considered Stanley......

Photo by toastycakes via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr HELP The biggest city-wide community service event happens today all around L.A. It’s the 10th Anniversary of Big Sunday, an event dedicated to bringing people together of all ages to help others. There will be a massive flea market and an art show to raise money for the underprivileged. 9 a.m. // Several locations around the city // Los Angeles // Free MUSIC......

the Kronos Quartet performing "Lux Aeterna" The Kronos Quartet is a highly regarded avant-garde string quartet, recognized outside of classical music circles for their collaborations with artists including David Bowie, Allen Ginsberg, Dave Matthews, Nelly Furtado, and playing on soundtracks of the popular Aronofsky films The Fountain and Requiem For a Dream ("Lux Aeterna" is the popular composition used regularly outside of the film). This weekend KCRW presents a concert of the Kronos Quartet......

The kind folks who read LAist every week (that’s YOU!) live all over this fantastic city and we try to have a little something for everyone. This week’s classical pick has us hanging out at the Norton Simon Museum in the Pasadena/SGV area for a concert featuring musicians of the Grammy-Award winning Southwest Chamber Music group. This Saturday’s program includes Charles Ives’ Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting, Schubert’s Shepherd of the Rock (believed to......

Photo by Tha_Sco via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Because it’s supposed to be such a beautiful day, I suggest heading out to the beach immediately, and then enjoying some of these free (or close to free) events going on in the evening. But that’s just me… LISTEN Ann Whitford Paul, author of the children’s books If Animals Kissed Goodnight and Snail’s Good Night, will be hosting a signing and reading of......

This week’s classical pick comes a little earlier in the day since one of the events is in the early afternoon. The picks showcase two well-recognized Germans, one of whom is making a rare visit to LA and one who has made his presence known in Los Angeles as the “Poet Laureate of Skid Row”. The Goethe-Institut of Los Angeles is collaborating with Monday Evening Concerts to celebrate the life and works of Helmut......

This week's classical pick takes us to the Westside (believe it or not) with the Seattle Symphony making their debut at Royce Hall. The Seattle Symphony is headed by Gerard Schwarz, who has turned this once struggling group into a top notch orchestra that is recognized internationally with the help of frequent recordings and its support of American composers. Although they are often known for their performances of later 20th century repertoire, the symphony......

The Green Umbrella series is a distinctive program of the LA Phil that features cutting edge programming rarely seen in a major concert hall.. New works are commissioned and performed along with works that have become staples in classical music repertory over the last 50 years or so. This weeks classical pick takes us to the Disney Hall this Tuesday and includes two WORLD premieres and works by Elliot Carter and Ginastera. The works......

Jaws. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. ET. Jurassic Park. Harry Potter. These are some timeless tales that captivated our youth (and for some people, their lives). The memories should be flooding back now, reminding you of the good ol’ days, when big blockbuster movies were held together not just by special effects, but with memorable characters, plots (!), and most of all, the music. The minor second motif from Jaws will always run through your mind......

2008 marks the 100 year anniversary of the birth of French composer Olivier Messiaen, best known for his masterpiece Quatuor por la fin du temps ("Quartet for the end of time"). Piano Spheres is commemorating his birth with a concert at Zipper Hall this Tuesday featuring pianists Mark Robson and Joanne Pearce Martin. The program begins with Maurice Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit" (which includes the fiendishly difficult Scarbo) followed by short pieces by Satie......

DANCE The State Ballet of Georgia arrives for their Los Angeles premiere at UCLA's Royce Hall to perform Giselle. This historic Russian dance company is taking on a classic, with Nina Ananiashvili in the spotlight as the company's artistic director and prima ballerina in the title role. 8 p.m. // Royce Hall, UCLA // Westwood Plz at Charles E Young Dr S// (310) 825-2101 // $20 - 90 SPOKEN WORD It's an Anything Goes Open......

You still have time to take part in the Lunar New Year festivities in Chinatown today! CELEBRATE THE YEAR OF THE RAT The annual Lunar New Year Festival continues today in Chinatown. Catch pan- Asian entertainers including Chinese acrobats, as well as Thai dancers and Taiko drummers. Food, games, children’s activities, and more will also be on tap during the free festival. Until 5 p.m. // Chinatown // Free FUNDRAISER BASH! OPEN BAR! The......

A series of animated shorts titled "Geometry of Circles," featuring music composed by Philip Glass, kaleidoscopically tranced out legions of Sesame Street viewers in the early 80's. The clip above features four of these shorts strung together almost seamlessly, even though they were first broadcast separately, in some cases years apart. According to the Muppet Wiki, "Geometry of Circles" dates back to 1979.......

Well known for their masterful tango bowing and plucking skills, Quartet San Francisco will be making their Los Angeles entrada this Friday at Théâtre Raymond Kabbaz, a non-profit theatre run by Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a bilingual school that has seen actresses such as Jodie Foster, Claire Danes, Shannon Doherty and others pass through. The school's Theatre, which has a regular season that begins this Friday, is dedicated to French and international......

Call this number and give them some money right now! 310-338-5958. Or do it online! Come on, who doesn't want a KXLU toothbrush? It could be yours for a measly 5-dollar donation. When have you ever even seen a black toothbrush before? How much cooler could a toothbrush get? Not good enough for you? You need a reason? Alright, fine. Then you force my hand. I'm going to make you listen to a scary,......

No Wave band DNA drummer and electronic sound creator, Ikue Mori, and electric harp pioneer, Zeena Parkins, will team up with guitarist Fred Frith for a night of improvisation this Saturday in the next installation of the sound. series put on by The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS). If you have never experienced improvisation, not jazz improv or drum circles, but the type of music where an......

There is a myth that Blues Legend Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads down south and traded his soul for ungodly skill with a guitar. A few dozen years later, the devil must have gotten fed up, took a trip to Mexico for some sun and margaritas and stumbled across Rodrigo Y Gabriela. That is the only way I can explain their other-worldly talent. Both members of the duo have such skill......

In the classical music world, Los Angeles has something to brag about. It's the LA Phil series - Green Umbrella. The colorfully named series (there is no reason why the umbrella is green) is dedicated to new music, rather, contemporary classical, or if you will, music by composers who are not dead yet (or may have passed post 1950). At last night's performance, the LA Phil celebrated Green Umbrella's 20th Birthday (25th for LA......

James Tenney died on Thursday, August 24th of lung cancer. The last time I spoke to Jim Tenney, it was at Target in Valencia. As always, it was a bit of an awkward situation. I think I was buying Halo 2; something that may not be too impressive to a professor who was a conceptual composer. The only music I was doing post-college was scoring a documentary, but his body language seemed stoic in......