Mary Beth Crain

I don’t know what it is about martinis, music, Pasadena and groups abbreviated C.P. Cal Phil started it all with its “Music, Martinis and the Maestro” series at the stately old Green Hotel, where you can sit around sipping drinks and listening to Victor Vener talk and orchestra members play......

Multifaceted and always exciting Australian composer/violist Brett Dean appears with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to solo in the U.S. premiere of his Viola Concerto, a work he describes as an alternative to the “sense of melancholy, dogged brand of defiance, or even gruffness” that seem to characterize the traditional viola......

The Museum of Jurassic Technology plus Pamela Z equals this entrancing multimedia opera that “charts the magical journey of one Alice May Williams from New Zealand to the Mount Wilson Observatory, where she finds herself in an enchanted museum of esoteric curios and unheard-of marvels.” The Alpert Award–winning Miss Z,......

There probably couldn’t be a better kickoff to UCLA’s Fifth International Theater Festival than the 400-year-old Chinese Opera classic The Peony Pavilion. It’s the Chinese version of Romeo and Juliet, but in proportions so epic it’s being presented over three nights, in three Books. The production, written and produced by......

With a concert soprano for a mother, a conductor/composer for a grandfather, a concert violinist for a granduncle and a bunch of brothers who played the violin . . . well, it sure would have disappointed Paul Calistus Ashley’s family if he’d been born with a tin ear. Predictably enough, however, the......

L.A. Opera’s 2006-2007 season gets off to a roaring start with a double scoop of Verdi: back-to-back productions of Traviata and Don Carlo. Traviata is a special non-subscription all-star revival of the Company’s 1999-2000 production, and heading the impressive cast is that amazing soprano Renee Fleming as the doomed courtesan......

If you’ve never seen Sergio and Odair Assad, you’ve been missing some of the most exciting finger picking ever to come from two sibs. These bros are so vastly talented and dynamic that major contemporary composers like Astor Piazzolla, Terry Riley, Dusan Bogdanovic and Radames Gnatalli have been inspired to......

This weekend the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound celebrates the 50th anniversary of Louis and Bebe Barron’s “otherworldly” soundtrack to the sci-fi movie classic Forbidden Planet at the 1922 studio/residence of famed architect Rudolph Schindler. Sitting under the stars outside the California Moderne masterpiece,......

Christopher O’Riley is one of those pianists who just brightens up classical music, along with your day. You may know him as the amusing, engaging host of NPR’s From the Top, a show featuring new and exciting young musicians. Or you might have attended one of his many concerts that......

Jean-Yves Thibaudet loves fast cars, Erik Satie, Duke Ellington and anything else pertinent to the life of a well-rounded pianist. A favorite on the international music scene since he made his debut nearly 40 years ago at the age of 7, M. Thibaudet is one of France’s national treasures, and......