Concert and opera reviews from Southern California.
Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen proved a superb colorist in this music. He reading was dark, tense, brooding in the narrative, and soft, warm, radiant in the Winterstürme.
Read MoreKorean lyric soprano Yunah Lee is a touching, detailed and delicate Cio-Cio-San, more adapt, perhaps, in emotional force and tragic power of Acts II and III than as a fifteen-year-old Geisha girl of Act I.
Read MoreSemyon Bychkov is an exceptional conductor, and he seemed to draw out effortlessly the warmth of tone and the easy charm of phrasing for which the Czech Philharmonic has long been famous.
Read MoreTaiwan Philharmonic showed a natural affinity for French Impressionism, in a sea journey full of light, waves and magical vistas, or in a mythical world of Daphnis et Chloé.
Read MoreMozart’s sacred choral works, performed on period instruments and sung by light, agile voices, transforming the Segerstrom Concert Hall quite literally into a temple of music.
Read MoreCelebrating its 40-year anniversary, the Pacific Symphony is fortunate to have Carl St. Clair who, at his best, is able to make his orchestra sound much greater than the sum of its parts.
Read MoreLed by their new Italian conductor Fabio Luisi. The combination of cool Scandinavian efficiency and warm Mediterranean sunshine proved to be a winning formula.
Read MorePianist Olga Kern’s playing in Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” was one for the ages, one that’s worth braving two hours of rush traffic from downtown L.A.
Read MoreWith the exception of Martha Argerich, there is no other living pianist I would rather hear play Rachmaninov than Olga Kern.
Read MoreCLASSICAL VOICE - Lifestyle Blog for Serious Classical Music and Opera Lovers
