Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra: making great music personal



Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra blog

May 06, 2008

interview with uri caine, part 5 of 5

We’re continuing with the fifth and final part of our interview with LACO’s Composer-in-Residence Uri Caine, who will be performing on solo piano at Amoeba Records, 6400 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood on Wednesday evening, May 7th, at 7:00 PM.

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interview with uri caine, part 4 of 5
May 03, 2008

We’re continuing with the fourth part of our interview with LACO’s Composer-in-Residence Uri Caine, who will be performing on solo piano at Amoeba Records, 6400 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood on Wednesday evening, May 7th, at 7:00 PM.

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interview with uri caine, part 3 of 5
May 01, 2008

We’re continuing our interview with LACO’s Composer-in-Residence Uri Caine, who will be performing on solo piano at Amoeba Records, 6400 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood on Wednesday evening, May 7th, at 7:00 PM.

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interview with uri caine, part 2 of 5
April 30, 2008

We’re continuing our interview with LACO’s Composer-in-Residence Uri Caine, who will be performing on solo piano at Amoeba Records, 6400 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood on Wednesday evening, May 7th, at 7:00 PM.

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interview with uri caine, part 1 of 5
April 28, 2008

I am pleased to announce that LACO’s Composer-in-Residence Uri Caine will be performing in the Los Angeles area in the near future. He will be playing solo piano at Amoeba Records, 6400 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood on Wednesday evening, May 7th, at 7:00 PM. As you may remember, Caine composed the remarkable “Concerto for Two Pianos and Chamber Orchestra,” commissioned by Sound Investment and premiered by LACO in May 2006, featuring duo pianists Caine and LACO’s Music Director Jeffrey Kahane.

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andré previn, classical and jazz superstar, part 2
April 22, 2008

As I commented last time, it is unlikely that anyone has ever better exemplified excellence in both classical music and jazz than 78-year-old composer, conductor and pianist André Previn.

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andré previn, classical and jazz superstar, part 1
April 17, 2008

Arguably, no musician has ever better exemplified excellence in both classical music and jazz than 78-year-old composer, conductor and pianist André Previn. Previn’s ascent to the pinnacle in both fields has been an interesting story, and one with more than a few remarkable twists.

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put the man on notice: the future of arts funding in LA county
April 07, 2008

Here’s the situation: Veteran Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke is leaving her seat as of July 1, and there’s a fierce contest being waged between State Senator Mark Ridley Thomas and LA City Councilmember Bernard Parks to fill it. Throughout her years representing the Second District, Burke has been a major force in ensuring that the County Arts Commission remained stable, even as – or perhaps, probably, because – the City of LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs was nearly dismantled several years ago, and the California Arts Council was all but annihilated the year before that. In fact, Burke was the deciding vote to approve a 2007 budget measure that doubled the Arts Commission’s grant budget. The upshot of that move? More dollars for more arts for more people across the 80 municipalities that make up Los Angeles County.

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LACO's smiling faces
April 07, 2008

On Saturday, March 29, my husband and I attended LACO’s London Triumph concert at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. The music was spectacular as always. But what I enjoyed even more than the music was observing just how close all of the musicians, staff, and directors are at LACO.

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Divine inspiration
April 02, 2008

When I caught sight of the title of Robert Fulford’s essay in Canada’s National Post (hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily), “My church: the mind’s ‘theatre of simultaneous possibilities,’” it rocketed me back more than a decade to my voice teacher’s living room/studio and her proclamation one evening between lessons, “[Music] is my religion.” I recognized her feeling immediately and began to think of the parallels: performers and composers as priests and priestesses; historians and theoreticians as monks and nuns; the audience as congregants; and all of us as seekers of spiritual transcendence.

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bicket and davis performance was invigorating
April 01, 2008

This is no April Fools’ joke. Chris Pasles of the LA Times reviewed Harry Bicket and Douglas Davis’s performance in LACO’s London Triumph concert.

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jeffrey kahane extends his contract with LACO
March 28, 2008

Friday, March 28, the Los Angeles Times staff writer Chris Pasles reports on the 40th anniversary season, “Jeffrey Kahane has extended his contract as music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra through the 2011-12 season and will appear as the soloist Sept. 27 in the 40th anniversary season opening gala with the orchestra’s first music director, Neville Marriner, on the podium.

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the final phase of night
March 26, 2008

When I sent the orchestral parts to the printer last week, I thereby completed the final phase of this project. I can’t tell you how satisfying the moment is when I compress the entire set of parts into one folder, attach it to an email, and hit “send”! I always do the parts myself, because—though my colleagues in “the business” encourage me to pay someone else to this essentially secretarial task—I guess I am a bit of a control freak and want to know exactly what the players will see. For this project in particular good parts are a necessity because Jeff will be busy playing and will not be able to conduct much. There is more-than-ample “cueing”; in other words, the players can see in their parts the most significant and audible passages being played by other players. This way the can make their entrances even without a conductor.

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a son who's the father of classicism
March 24, 2008

CPE Bach is probably the most famous of all the children of J.S. Bach. That, in itself, is a pretty amazing thing considering that JS Bach had twenty children (half of whom survived to adulthood). And it’s even more amazing, since three of CPE’s brothers also became composers. Although CPE learned music from his Dad, he didn’t just continue the musical traditions of his father, he struck out in new directions.

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a mystery tune is identified!
March 22, 2008

I hope you have enjoyed reading the blogs, looking at the pictures, and listening to the audio clips of LACO’s recent European tour as much as I have! It sounds as if the tour was a smashing success, a wonderful exposure for our superb orchestra, and the trip of a lifetime, not only for orchestra members, but also for their families and the patrons who accompanied the orchestra on its journey. Didn’t you enjoy Danielle’s day in Paris, and Marika Munday’s blogs “from a kid’s eye view”?

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the end...and the beginning
March 12, 2008

It’s hard to believe that we’re on our way home. It’s the first leg of a long trip from Madrid to Munich and then Munich to LA. I’m actually on the plane right now! The last couple days have been another whirlwind but wonderful yet again. In San Sebastián, we had a full house of 1800 people. It was very different from the Paris audience, very relaxed-feeling. In Paris, one had the feeling that the audience was waiting to be critical, although in the end of course they didn’t seem to be that at all. In San Sebastián everybody seemed to be very relaxed, and just waiting to be enthusiastic, which they were – and they were incredibly enthusiastic. In a way, much as we loved Vesselina Kasarova, it was great to end with a program of Uri Caine and the Orchestra, because it’s much more about the Orchestra. And the audience was as enthusiastic about that as any audience had been about any of our concerts.

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