Their music is haunting, luminous, probing, a mixture of lyrical beauty and unearthly primal sounds, where cellos groan, violins weep, electro-acoustics create layers of sonic mystery, and the world seems poised on the edge of either destruction or epiphany. Violinist Marielle Jakobsons, aka darwinsbitch, and cellist Agnes Szelag make up......
Albert McNeil began working in church music when he was 18 at the People's Independent Church of Christ in L.A., a mega-church with 5,000 members and four choirs. Soon the prodigy choral director assembled a double quartet that called itself the McNeil Jubilee Singers, patterned after the Fisk Jubilee Singers......
That greatest of raga interpreters, Ravi Shankar, once observed: "There is a saying in Sanskrit, 'Ranjayathi iti Ragah,' which means, 'That which colors the mind is a raga.' For a raga to truly color the mind of the listener, its effect must be created not only through the notes and......
Three of the world's most delightful operas — The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte — were collaborations between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. This week, the L.A. Phil begins its presentation of the "Mozart/Da Ponte Trilogy," a three-year undertaking with one opera......
When it comes to a cappella singing groups, there's something for everyone. The art form originated in ancient times as an answer to religious oppression: With the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions originally forbidding musical instruments in worship, the human voice was harnessed to uplift the spirit, with such gorgeous vehicles......
It takes a lot to pinch jaded old L.A.'s butt and make it holler. But "Play Me, I'm Yours" just might be up to the job. The brainchild of British conceptual artist Luke Jerram, presented by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, is a citywide installation of 30 upright pianos "vividly"......
The best advice for any violinist who's thinking of attempting John Adams' Violin Concerto is: start training now! Rev up that heart rate and beef up that upper body because this dandy little workout doesn't let up for one second. It's 35 minutes of non-stop, show-stopping virtuosity -- something like......
If you're looking for a music group to complement your latest illuminated manuscript exhibition, quick -- call in the experts, i.e. the Rose Ensemble. Performing over 1000 years of repertoire in some 25 languages, the Roses have won prestigious awards for choral excellence and originality. Their preferences know no bounds;......
German cabaret sensation Max Raabe once studied to become an operatic baritone at the Berlin University of the Arts. But fate had other ideas. Although Raabe never did realize that ambition, his prodigious talents led him to the fabulous world of Berlin of the 1920s and '30s. As if he......
Every great composer is entitled to one fiasco, and Giuseppe Verdi's was Simon Boccanegra. It flopped big-time at its 1857 premiere in Venice. But one era's bomb is another's Boheme, and L.A. Opera's current production of the opera Verdi might have preferred to forget is a memorable occasion, not just......
