Category Archives: Musical America

Suddenly Tan Dun is everywhere you look, everywhere you listen. In just the past few months audiences in Lisbon and Singapore have flocked to his large-scale orchestral works. His Water Passion After St. Matthew  reached its first American audiences last … Continue reading →

“it is a principle of music to repeat the theme. Repeat and repeat again, as the pace mounts. The theme is difficult but no more difficult than the fact to be resolved.” William Carlos Williams, “The Orchestra” in Steve Reich’s … Continue reading →

In the summer of 1979, in a madcap decision that I still don’t regret, I succumbed to the urge to go bicoastal. (The term, I think, had just been invented.) New York Magazine, whose music critic I had been from … Continue reading →

“Billy Budd” was the appropriate finale for the Los Angeles Opera’s 14th season, a reminder that of all repertories sampled by departing founder and general director Peter Hemmings during his tenure, the operas of Benjamin Britten have consistently earned highest … Continue reading →

If anyone ever advised Plácido Domingo that running an opera company might be an easy and well-oiled undertaking, last week’s events around his West Coast branch – also known as Los Angeles Opera – were surely enough to set him … Continue reading →

The Placido Domingo era at the Los Angeles Opera got off to a sensational start this week, and how! In press conference after press conference, the incoming artistic director/tenorissimo had promised that attention would be paid in areas where scant … Continue reading →

Operating on the brave but often-challenged principle that an audience still exists for, and cares about, the music of the recent past, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s current “Focus on Igor Stravinsky” festival focusses broadly. Over four weeks ending March 12, … Continue reading →

Handel has earned his place –  a century late, perhaps, but decisively. The most convincing of the old arguments, that a world enlightened by more benign attitudes toward surgery had therefore cut itself off from the requisite singers for this … Continue reading →

COSTA MESA, Calif. — When last we visited California’s Orange County, that high-property-value enclave just to the south (and far to the right) of Los Angeles, the Orange County Philharmonic Society’s first “Eclectic Orange” Festival had run its course. Local … Continue reading →

When last we visited California’s Orange County, that high-property-value enclave just to the south – and far to the right – of Los Angeles, the OC Philharmonic Society’s first “Eclectic Orange” Festival had run its course. Local audiences may have … Continue reading →