Celebrated violinist Itzhak Perlman is known for giving himself completely over to the music, and in an appearance at UCLA's Royce Hall last night, he not only lived up to that reputation, but proved as well that he's a master of the difficult art of both playing with both honesty and reserve. His performance was never overly aggressive or sentimental, but rather in perfect, restrained sync with the tenor of the music. more ›

The New Filmmakers Los Angeles will screen 14 short films tonight and you'd be crazy to miss it. The last film of the night is our top pick: show your bike-friendly love by attending the screening of Riding Bikes with the Dutch at Sunset Gower Studios. The film follows a Long Beach family as they travel to Amsterdam to experience how the Dutch use bikes in their everyday life. Get your livable community on starting at 9:15 p.m. Tickets for Riding Bikes with Dutch are $5. more ›

The musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic will have their talented hands full tonight at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Conducted by Susanna Malkki of Finland, the program begins with the U.S. premiere of Hammered Out by Turnage and Violin Concerto No.1 in B-flat major, composed by a seventeen-year-old Mozart. more ›

After launching a useful Hollywood Bowl mobile app this summer, the LA Phil is at it again. With the season at Walt Disney Concert Hall in full swing, the organization has now brought patrons another mobile tool. Their free "LA Phil," which is available on Blackberries, Androids and iPhones, includes concert schedules, program notes, options to buy tickets, performer biographies... more ›

You might not be going to the LA Phil's opening night concert and gala, but there's a way you can be there somewhat vicariously. KUSC 91.5 FM will carry the "celebración" live tonight at 7 p.m. Conductor Gustavo Dudaml and his friend Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez have put together a "special program of bel canto arias and popular Latin American canciones." more ›

Now in its 64th year, the Ojai Music Festival is back this weekend, bringing its progressive brand of classical programming, a blend of old classics and contemporary composers. The four-day event begins Thursday with an evening of music by Californian Steve Potter, Saed Haddad of the Mid-East, Austrian (and eventual Los Angeles resident) composer Arnold Schoenberg and American composer Elliot Carter. more ›

Always known for their innovative ways of presenting music, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra this Sunday will continue that theme on a variation with silence. Well, silence as in accompanying two silent films. more ›

Rogue Machine presents the West Coast premiere of the play Four Places by Joel Drake Johnson tonight at 8 pm. Directed by Robin Larson, the dark, comic play focuses on what starts out as an innocent lunch between a septuagenarian mom and her two adult children. The meal quickly degenerates “into a fierce game of cat and mouse which leads to a confession that will radically upset the lives of the entire family.” 8 pm. Tickets: $25. more ›

The Collaborative Artists Ensemble presents Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive beginning tonight through May 9 at the Raven Playhouse in North Hollywood. It focuses on the story of Li’l Bit and her complex emotional and sexual relationship with her uncle. While tickets are normally $20, tonight’s 8 pm performance is pay-what-you-can because it’s the day after tax day. more ›

The monthly Cause on the Rocks mixer returns to the Viceroy Santa Monica tonight from 7-10 pm. The cocktails with a cause will benefit St. Vincent Meals On Wheels, a program that prepares and delivers more than 2,600 nutritious meals daily to homebound elderly and other vulnerable clients around Los Angeles. This April's drink is the Cuba Libre and 100% of the proceeds will be donated directly to St. Vincent’s. RSVP online! more ›

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is busy these days, performing beautiful music this weekend in Glendale and in Westwood, followed up by a performance next Thursday in Santa Monica. The latter concert is part of their "Westside Connections," which presents chamber music with a twist--in lieu of program notes, works are introduced from stage and there is a question-and-answer session. This is one of those unique value-added aspects that makes LACO a premiere orchestra in Los Angeles. more ›

Today is International Women's Day, an annual celebration of women's achievements throughout history. To celebrate, there will be dramatic readings from The Afghan Women’s Writing Project at 6 pm at the Museum of Tolerance. more ›

When Monday Evening Concerts organizer Justin Urcis told us that tonight's performance outside Zipper Hall was unique, he wasn't kidding. Mauricio Kagel's 1996 composition, Eine Brise (‘A Breeze’), is an avant-garde histrionic work for 111 bicycles. At about 8:40 p.m. during intermission concert goers will head towards the sidewalk outside of Zipper Hall on Grand Avenue to watch and hear the performance of cyclists whizzing by whistling and playing bells. Tickets are $27 for a ticket, but you're welcome to just watch the sidewalk portion for free. In 2007, LAist claimed the Monday Evening Concert series as the "King of New Music" in Los Angeles. That sentiment still holds true today. blogdowntown has more details about the 222-wheeled performance. more ›

Chalk Rep’s Twelfth Night opens tonight at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Shakespeare’s classic comedy of mistaken identity integrates indie folk rock and a high fashion sensibility. The play runs weekends through Feb. 28. Tickets are $30, but there are pay-what-you-can performances on Super Bowl Sunday at 7 pm and Sat., Feb. 13th at 2 pm. more ›

The new wild Up musical ensemble debuts tomorrow night at Jensen's Recreation Center in Echo Park, under the direction of 26-year-old Christopher Rountree. The evening will traverse a musical timeline that begins with J.S. Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto" (1721) and ends with Radiohead's "In Rainbows" (2007). This 24-piece musical collective also seeks to bust the mold of classical music equating to serious stodginess. more ›

REDCAT presents Paul Chan’s Waiting for Godot in New Orleans: An Illustrated Lecture tonight at 8:30 pm. The artist/activist gives a stirring live presentation about the community art experiment he spearheaded in New Orleans in collaboration with the Classical Theatre of Harlem and the public arts group Creative Time. “Chan and his colleagues staged five site-specific performances of Waiting for Godot in the Katrina-devastated neighborhoods of Gentilly and Lower Ninth Ward, playing to large crowds of local residents for whom the classic Beckett-penned lines rang with fierce immediacy.” Tickets: $9, $7 students and $5 for CalArts students, staff and faculty. more ›

Tonight's the night for the first Knotty Pine Derby of the year at Bigfoot Lodge (East). There will be trophies, Boy Scout patches and drink tokens for winning cars and participants. Spectators are welcome to come and vote for their favorites. (And if you can't make it tonight, the Derby happens on the last Tuesday of every month.) 9 pm. more ›

One of most exciting trends in classical music these days are the collaborations between orchestras and popular musicians. Come Saturday, January 23rd, one of those concerts is happening in Glendale (and the same concert will occur at UCLA's Royce Hall on the 24th). Chris Thile, the virtuoso mandolin player from Nickel Creek and the Punch Brothers, will perform his Mandolin Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in a concert that will also works by Aaron Copland and Nico Muhly, a 28-year-old composer described by New York Magazine as “one of the next great hopes for the future of classical music.” more ›

The Grammy Museum screens the documentary Soundtrack for a Revolution tonight at 7 pm. The film tells the story of the American civil rights movement through music and features new performances by John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, The Roots and others alongside archival footage and interviews with civil rights leaders. A panel discussion with executive producer Danny Glover, filmmakers Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, producer Dylan Nelson and music producer Corey Smyth will follow the screening. Doors at 6:30 pm, and while the event is free, there is a $10 suggested donation. Reservations required. Calling 213.765.6830 or e-mail programs@grammymuseum.org. more ›

Attention classical music fans. The Ojai Music Festival today announced exciting programming highlights for next year June, all picked by composer/conductor and the this year's music director, George Benjamin. “Ojai’s tradition of inviting a different music director for each season guarantees variety and vitality across festivals," said Artistic Director Thomas W. Morris.... more ›

If you're looking for some Classical music to set the mood for your festive evenings, here are a few Halloween-y pieces. The clip above is the Ave Santani theme from the film the Omen by Jerry Goldsmith. more ›

Whether you listen to classical music or not, we all know this famous music quotation: Da da da DUM! And when you hear it played by an orchestra, you're listening to it in the key of C-Minor. Does that matter? Why not some other key? Those questions and many others will be answered in an upcoming Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's concert where music director Jeffrey Kahane and the orchestra will lead the audience on a "guided tour" of the inner workings of Beethoven's 5th Symphony before performing it in full during the second half of the program. more ›

It was an amazing night for Los Angeles. The Dodgers won, the Angels won and Gustavo Dudamel with the LA Philharmonic dominated Walt Disney Concert Hall, winning over audiences and signaling the start of an amazing season for classical music. more ›

To celebrate USC Thornton School of Music’s 125th anniversary, Michael Tilson Thomas conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony, returns to his alma mater for a concert with the USC Thornton Symphony Orchestra tonight at 7 pm at Bovard Auditorium. The multimedia presentation includes historic photos of him with some of his mentors and fellow students while he conducts Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. Tickets are $18; seniors, USC alumni and non-USC students are $12; current USC students, staff and faculty are free with valid ID. more ›

If there was one thing to say about Saturday night's concert at the Hollywood Bowl, which was 28-year-old Gustavo Dudamel's premiere as its conductor and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is that it brought excited crowds out from all walks of life. more ›

Today is the big day, the one that is expected to be the first in the return of classical music, not only in Los Angeles, but the world (no pressure, there, buddy). 28-year-old Gustavo Dudamel will conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the first time as the symphony's new conductor and music director. The young Leonard Bernstein, as some like to refer to him as, is presenting this first concert free at the Hollywood Bowl. Although all the tickets are gone, in an unprecedented move, the Phil is streaming the concert, which begins at 4 p.m., live online. The streaming begins at 3 p.m. with some pre-activities, so check it out at HollywoodBowl.com! more ›

“This is the picture that I want to be remembered by," Charlie Chaplin said of his film, "The Gold Rush," when it opened. Subtitled “A Dramatic Comedy,” the film finds Chaplin portraying a lone prospector who searches for love and acceptance in the frenzy of the great Klondike gold rush. The flick contains many of Chaplin’s most celebrated comedy sequences, including the boiling and eating of his shoe, the dance of the dinner rolls, and the teetering cabin. more ›