As the seasons for many reputable music groups come to an end, there are fewer options to choose from every week, so feel free to spare yourself of any extra stress and check LAist for any news on upcoming concerts. Hope you are all managing to keep yourselves busy and not counting down the days until the Hollywood Bowl season begins. We are revisiting the Disney Hall once more, which has been prone to several......

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......

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......

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......

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......

Photos of the Biltmore via The Da Camera Society Classical music does not have to be played in a traditional space, so why not a classic downtown hotel? This Wednesday at 8 p.m., Il Fondamento, one of Europe’s premier period-instrument ensembles, visits the Millennium Biltmore Hotel's Crystal Ballroom to play all four of Bach’s Orchestral Suites, urtext style. The site-specific concert is part of The Da Camera Society's Chamber Music in Historic Sites series......

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......

She's singing, he's playing a clarinet | Photo provided by production From doing Anne Frank in a parking garage to Greek mythology in a swimming pool, it's too bad that this site-specific Long Beach Opera production of Orpheus and Euridice by RIcky Ian Gordon is having such a short run (last night through tomorrow night) because this looks simply fantastic and Gordon's music has been praised by the New York Times and others (we......

As the year enters week two, organizations are programming newer music, that which was composed in the last century. This weekend, the Los Angeles Philharmonic began their Concrete Frequency series to an excellent start wth Aaron Copland's "The City" played to film and Edgard Varèse's "Amériques." After the concert, hip-hop violinist duo Paul Dateh and inka one (we interviewed Paul him this summer) played in the lobby by the cafe while Breakestra funked up......

It's like Classical Music got up and left for the week (maybe to Chicago?). That's okay, though, today's picks are both exciting. We post today's picks earlier than the usual 2 p.m. slot in order to make sure you're forewarned, since they are today. The Wagner Ensemble presents an afternoon concert entitled "Illuminations from the Old World" featuring music from the Christmas tradition of Europe, British Isles and Slavic countries ranging from the early Renaissance......

As Christmas approaches, we get inundated with holiday themed programming (just look at last week's Classical Pick, sheesh). Fear not, though, not everything is annoyingly chock full of jingly tunes. The San Francisco based and Grammy nominated "orchestra of voices," Chanticleer, is visiting Los Angeles on Tuesday with traditional Christmas songs from Gregorian Chant to Gospel, including selections from their newly-released holiday CD, “Let It Snow”. If you're not familiar with their sound, check......

What's the holiday season without one of the most popular and famous works in Western choral literature -- George Frideric Handel's "Messiah"? And who doesn't like sing-alongs? (Remember our love for The Sound of Music Sing-A-Long at the Hollywood Bowl?) So many questions, so many... Los Angeles Master Chorale: Messiah Sing-Along Monday, December 10 & Sunday, December 16 @ 7:30 pm Walt Disney Concert Hall Angeles Chorale: George Frideric Handel Messiah December 15 @......

There's a lot of quality going on in classical this week in Los Angeles. Deaf percussionist superstar Evelyn Glennie is coming to UCLA Live, the Steven Stucky 20th Anniversary at the Green Umbrella Series with the LA Phil and a crazy four hour concert tonight featuring 18 Squared, LA's resident Steve Reich ensemble, among others. However, the obvious choice for this week is Monday Evening Concert's season opener, Primitive Force (we spoke about Sunday......

Last week with the Holiday, we said it was slim pickings. This week, classical music in Los Angeles is bountiful and what has piqued our interest is Alternative Opera Theater's three performances this upcoming weekend at the intimate NoHo Arts District space, the Raven Playhouse. The performance will feature two chamber operas, the first being "The Telephone" by Gian Carlo Menotti where a man attempts to propose to the woman she loves. But there's......

Slim pickings to choose from this Thanksgiving week and that makes it hard to choose just one. Friday through Sunday, the LA Phil will be playing Brahms' "Double Concerto" and Dvorák's killer Symphony No. 9 "From the New World," while the LA Opera opens two shows that will play on alternating dates: Don Giovanni and La Boheme. Tonight at Sundays Live, the free concert at LACMA, is Franz Schubert's "Quintet in C Major, D. 956"......

Some call Dutch composer Louis Andriessen the "hip guru for a younger generation," we just call him one of our favorites. And lucky for us locals, the Los Angeles Master Chorale commissioned the composer for a piece that world premieres a week from tonight -- "The City of Dis or: The Ship of Fools." The piece is one of the five sections in Andriessen's opera "La Commedia," with the libretto based on works by......

John Cage (1912-1992) is one of the most well known experimental American Composers and musical/sound philosophers. You may know him for 4'33", a piece where three movements are performed without a single note being played. Many of his compositions explored chance music, non-standard use of instruments and electronics. This week at REDCAT, Dhrupad vocalist Amelia Cuni will perform Cage's "18 Microtonal Ragas: Solo 58."An Italian-German performer and composer trained in both European experimental music......

The Original Rock God's name was J.S. Bach. Wait, I take that back, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina may have been the first Rock n' Roll god back in the Renaissance period, but then you might say LAist is getting a little weird on you. So Bach it is. Today marks the official opening of the 74th Annual Los Angeles Bach Festival, taking place in the Gothic sanctuaries of the First Congregational Church of Los......

Southwest Chamber Music The season opening concert will feature Southwest Chamber Music’s percussionist Lynn Vartan, the Grammy-nominated Tambuco Percussion Ensemble (an LAist pick of the week earlier this summer) and the soloists of Southwest Chamber Music in a colossal program of the "Encounters, part 1" by one of Los Angeles’ most important composers and percussionists William Kraft, who was an LA Phil member (percussion, timpani), composer-in-residence, and conductor for three seasons. Monday, October 15 @......

There's no doubt about it, Pasadena is an arts town. Local "old money" patronize the cultural arts in these parts and it shows. Talk about the season opener for the Pasadena Symphony, you can't go wrong with these three composers. Known as Mexico's most distinctive musical voice of the 1930's, Silvestre Revueltas is a madman of a composer -- colorful, energetic and all over the place. "The Homage to Lorca conflates two seemingly incompatible......

Don't let their 1990's looking website fool you, their season opener next Sunday night has a program of promising music. It may seem weird that the Santa Monica Symphony is playing Edward Elgar's "Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1", usually heard at graduations, but the light piece is actually enjoyable when it's not played for a hour straight while large graduating classes walk down the aisle (that's how long the orchestra had to play......

Now that it's officially Autumn, the Los Angeles classical music scene begins to populate the already crowded local culture calendars. One of those groups you've probably seen a multitude of times, but never have heard a note plucked or bowed from them. That's because a mural of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) towers over the 110 Freeway downtown in Kent Twitchell's "Harbor Freeway Overture." This week, LACO begins their 07/08 season on on......

For the past 16 years, as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's dedication to making music accessible to the widest possible audience, they have been presenting free neighborhood concerts in the community at churches, community centers and other local venues around Southern California. The series for this year begins this week in San Gabriel. The Latin-flavored program includes Bizet’s Suite No. 1 from Carmen; Falla’s Suite from El amor brujo; Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No.......

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......

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......

Collaborations between two art forms can be magical. Collaborations of two Los Angeles groups is even better. On Tuesday night, the LA Phil and the Diavolo dance company will be teaming up to present conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen's "electrifying imaginary scène de ballet, 'Foreign Bodies.'" Also on the program is Gustav Mahler's First Symphony. Diavolo Dances Salonen Tuesday, September 4 @ 8:00 p.m. | $6 - $43 Hollywood Bowl Promotional Video from Diavolo (does not necessarily......