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Classical Pick of the Week: Seth Rogen, Opera, Ice Cream, Sex, and Chamber Music
The Salastina Music Society makes their debut this week at the Zipper Hall, and aims to reach out to a modern audience. This non-profit organization hopes to encourage participation (like voting on what encore to perform) and will not enforce rules on when to applause (or not applaud). As an added bonus, they will offer free ice cream from Scoops for this Friday's concert! The selected pieces will not run longer than 15 minutes (which, by Classical music standards, is very short) and will mix up the mood of the music and the players for every piece. The inaugural concert will include works from Chausson, Brahms, Piazzolla, Cavaterra (a world premiere of Neruda Arias), and a reading of Ferdinand the Bull by Seth Rogen. Soprano Elizabeth Futral will accompany the musicians for a few of the pieces as well. You can purchase tickets and sign up for their newsletter here. The Thursday concert (featuring Seth Rogen) will take place at Zipper Hall and the Friday performance will take place at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica. Although Seth Rogen will not participate in the concert on Friday, you can expect additional arias and an appearance by the Sweets Truck to soften the blow.
Long Beach Opera's popular "pool parties" are back! You can catch Orpheus and Euridice tonight at the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool at 9 PM. If you're unfamiliar with the work, you can read up on the production and the mythology here. For the traditionalists, Performances a la carte is putting on a performance Saturday night of bel canto and verismo opera (from composers like Rossini, Donizetti, and Puccini).
In other opera news, Goldstar is offering a 50% discount to performances of Wagner's Ring Cycle. These tickets are selling out quickly so click here to get yours now. You can also get tickets at 50% off from Travelzoo.
For the theatre goers, the Fountain Theatre takes a look inside the world of a world-famous chamber music ensemble. This play promises sex, drugs, and chamber music when an ensemble player goes missing and is replaced by a young woman (to sex things up?). The play opens on June 19th.
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Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.
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