Results tagged “disneyhall”

       

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.

The 6th Annual New Original Works Festival opens this week and runs for three weekends at REDCAT, the theater at the basement of Disney Hall downtown. Programming an assortment of dance, theater, and music events to share a single performance, the festival’s history has been adventurous and the LA Weekly calls it "one of the city's more eclectic and vital performance festivals." The mission of the festival isn’t to get traditional and conventional work onto the LA stage, but to offer an opportunity for local artists to experiment and take some risks, using all the finery of this state of the art facility.

    

Plans for a streetcar in downtown moved ahead today when conceptual routes were released by Los Angeles Streetcar, Inc. (LASI), the nonprofit charged with giving Los Angeles a streetcar by 2014. The routes all serve three distinct areas.

This CNN excerpt shows the visually stunning organ at the Disney hall but the sound is not something easily duplicated. Check it out tonight at the Disney Hall at 7:30 for the full experience. Also, Christopher Eschenbach returns to the Disney Hall for a set of concerts showcasing his abilities as a conductor and pianist. Eschenbach has been conducting all weekend long, with a concert at 2 of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. If the 2 PM concert is too late for you, check out the organ concert tonight at 7:30 PM. If you haven't heard it, the Disney Hall organ provides one of the most exciting and intense sounds that you'll ever hear from any instrument. Naji Hakim is the soloist, of music by Hakim, Franck, and Couperin.

The blogger at urban hippie sounds off:

Since Los Angeles isn't much of a Winter wonderland, one way we try to get into the Christmas spirit is by watching some wonderful concerts by our local artists and establishments. First off is Handel's , a three hour long masterpiece (luckily they have an intermission) with the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Disney Hall. Luckily if you can't make it tonight, there is a repeat of the program on the 15th. The exciting thing about this concert though, is it's a sing-along! After this, you can mention on your resume or biography that you performed at the Disney Hall! Now isn't that something.

Efforts by mainstream media and Hollywood to use a Saint Bernard to replace Beethoven in our hearts and minds have failed, despite numerous attempts. As part of the Colburn Celebrity Series, Andras Schiff is halfway complete on his journey to perform all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas. 16 were performed last year in four concerts and he starts again this Wednesday for our classical pick of the week. This week includes some of Beethoven's greatest works, including the "Tempest" and the "Waldstein." These works are often performed, but rarely done well (recommended performances include Alfred Brendel, if you can overlook a mistake here and there). Andras Schiff is considered one of the consummate performers of Beethoven and Mozart. You will be hard pressed to find anyone with the same level of musicality and technical precision for these sonatas. Having attended several of his previous performances (and performances of just about every pianist the last few years), LAist has noticed that he gets some of the loudest and most enthusiastic responses from the crowd with his flawless performances. If you happen to be in New York, he has been performing the same cycle at Carnegie Hall. There are many tickets left for this show between 40 and 100 dollars. If you buy his CD (at the gift store there), he usually does a CD signing right after the show.

The LA Times just published a story on Esa-Pekka Salonen. An interesting anecdote from the article revealed that People had selected him to be on their 50 sexiest people list, and that he had declined(!). This is all tied together somehow because this is Salonen's 17th and last year as Music director for the LA Phil. After this year, he begins his tenure at the London Philharmonia and Gustavo Dudamel takes over as the next young hotshot from out of town. For fans of Salonen he will still be around occasionally, since he has a home in Brentwood, so you don't have to go to London to see him. The best advice LAist can give is to see him as many times this year and the dates are more flexible now than they would be in upcoming seasons.

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.

part 1 of "Rhapsody in Blue" from Fantasia 2000

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.

the Kronos Quartet performing "Lux Aeterna"

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 Lachenmann, one of the most influential composers of our generation. These events are held in smaller and newer venues that you should definitely check out in the near future.

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.

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.

Thanks to $100 million in money from a royal family of Dubai, the Frank Gehry residential and retail project along Grand Avenue is finally getting its go-ahead, months after delay due to worries of the economy, downtown's real estate market, project details and plan approvals. The first phase of the plan takes place directly across the street from Disney Hall where starting next month, crews will begin to dismantle the parking garage and lot, making room for two buildings, one 48 stories high and the other 19.

Since the recent opening of LACMA's Broad Contemporary (BCAM) a flurry of international eyes have been on Los Angeles, and an ensuing flurry of words have issued forth in review. It seems irresistible to review the Broad without also reviewing the city that houses it, which was precisely the tact taken by Chris Haslam in London's Sunday Times today.

This Thursday through Saturday, award winning Argentine choreographer Diana Szeinblum is bringing four performers to REDCAT to present "Alaska" in its theater below Disney Hall. In her promotional material, Buenos Aires-based Szeinblum calls the work a "container of memories where everything that has not been said regarding a personal experience is kept." With original music by Ulises Conti for piano and viola and a physical language Szeinblum calls "extreme," the performers "desperately . . . seek to arrive at that state of the past."

Almost two years ago, Frank Gehry, Eli Broad and the big developer folks from Related Companies announced the Grand Avenue Project. A blocklong development of housing, a hotel, retail & greenspace -- all designed by Gehry -- would complement Disney Hall. Getting the development together was tremendously complicated, and it probably wouldn't have happened without Broad's power and support. Since the exciting, fancy unveiling in April 2006, the Grand Avenue Committee has successfully navigated a series of hearings and approvals.

The LA Phil's richly-curated Concrete Frequency festival is capping two weeks of events with a special show featuring Cornelius and Plaid tomorrow night at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Dudes, it's become clear to me that just by walking about whatever fine neighborhood you happen to reside in (NoHo, WeHo, SilLake, DnTn, SanMo, KTown, HanPark, CulCity, etc), you're bound to happen upon a great little bar with great happy hour deals. Fer instance: this week I was walking around Downtown and ran into some friends, who happily guided me to the Redwood Bar & Grill, a fun and surprisingly classy little pirate bar near Disney Hall. Do they have an awesome happy hour? You betcha.

We comb through tons of event listings so you don't have to. LA events have come back from its winter doldrums tonight. Big time. Here's what's happening around town tonight -- there's lots of learning mixed in between all the great entertainment stuff.

Mariachi USA Fiesta 2007

Blind Boys of Alabama Christmas Concert, Belly Up Tavern 12/19/06

Could you imagine Los Angeles without the Getty Museum? If that serene white chunk of Italian marble nestled above the 405 suddenly removed its bulk to some other parts, would you notice? Would you care?

B-52's @ The Roxy Neko Case @ Disney Hall Lyrics Born @ El Rey Puffy Amiyumi @ Key Club Mutaytor @ Safari Sam's The Dickies, Orange, Civet @ Knitting Factory Six Organs of Admittance @ Amoeba Tiger Army, Street Dogs, Imperative Reaction @ The Wiltern Army Navy, Mellodrone @ The Echo Eliza Gilkyson @ McCabe's...

Joanna Newsom - "Monkey and Bear" Joanna Newsom @ Disney Hall ZZ Top @ The Greek Of Montreal, Grand Buffet, MGMT @ Avalon Loudon Wainwright III, Joe Henry @ El Rey M.I.A., The Cool Kids @ The Wiltern Ben Harper, Piers Faccini @ Orpheum Rhino Bucket @ Knitting Factory Dave Mason @ House of Blues, Anaheim Eek-A-Mouse @ Galaxy Theatre Jesu, These Arms Are Snakes @ Echoplex She Wants Revenge, Kenna, theSTART @ Henry...

The Pogues @ The Wiltern - Tonight ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead, Dethklok @ UCLA - Tonight Redd Kross @ Echoplex - Tomorrow The Polyphonic Spree, Rooney @ Henry Fonda - Tomorrow Yo La Tengo @ The Ivar - Tomorrow Low Versus Diamond @ Viper Room - Tomorrow The Bronx, The Mercy Killers @ Safari Sam's - Tomorrow Rodrigo Y Gabriela @ Henry Fonda, 11/3 Yo La Tengo...

David Byrne w/ Richard Thompson Richard Thompson @ Amoeba Suzanne Vega @ The Hotel Cafe Morrissey @ Ventura Theatre Burt Bacharach @ Disney Hall Black Summer Crush, Jets Overhead, Jinnrail @ Viper Room The Randies, Teaneck, Girl in a Coma, Conquistador @ Key Club The Cliks, Brothers & Sisters, Phoenix Foundation @ The Echo Cosmonaut, Her Alibye, The Oohlas, The Coco B's, Narwhal @ The Troubadour...