Tomorrow, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will celebrate 40 years with their season concert opener, which is LAist's classical pick of the week. KPCC put together a very nice report on the group starting off with the city's mural dedicated to classical music that shows off Alan Vogel and ten others over the 110 Freeway near the Staples center. &righticonhover=0x333232&text=0x333232&slider=0xF2F2F2&track=0xFFFFFF&border=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x838383&soundFile=http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/145/510211/95084607/KPCC_95084607.mp3"> Photo via the LA Chamber Orch's website......

If you haven't read LA Times columnist Steve Lopez' book, The Soloist, it comes with a high recommendation. And if you're a fan of reading books before the movie version comes out, then you've got to November 21st. Robert Downey Jr. plays Steve Lopez and Jamie Foxx plays Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, the street musician Lopez discovered in Pershing Square before writing a series of amazing columns that led to the book. Related: LA Times'......

Photo by Matthew Imaging On the list of things you must see in Los Angeles is the Los Angeles Philharmonic playing in their home space at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Frank Gehry designed building opened in 2003 and with tickets for classical shows often selling out or out of price range for some, many still have yet to experience one of Los Angeles' aural and visual gems. So here's your chance if......

Kudos to this band's make-me-giggle name: Thomas Jefferson's Aeroplane | Photo via MySpace There are some pieces of classical music that are truly rock n' roll, in a sense. Hector Berlioz composed the grandiose Symphonie Fantastique ("An Episode in the Life of the Artist") in 1830. There are no words, but the morbid and exciting program music has tales of opium and death. Good stuff, even if you don't know the story line, it......

If Wagner was still alive today, he would have just celebrated his 195th (!) birthday yesterday. His influence was felt by many including Baudelaire, Freud, Joyce, Nietzsche, and any/every important contemporary of his. Some recent adaptations in mainstream media that come to mind include a terrible Tristan + Isolde movie and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (based off of Wagner's Ring cycle). For me most memorable tribute to Wagner comes from a not-too-recent......

In 1991, "resocialized" murderer and Austrian writer Jack Unterweger visited Los Angeles to pen a story about the difference between attitudes toward prostitution between Europe and the United States. Unterweger's initial long term imprisonment was for killing a prostitute by strangling her with her own bra, but was released after 14 years. While in the the LA area, he killed three prostitutes and fled California, eventually being caught by the FBI in Miami. Once back in Austria, he was convicted of eleven homicides and committed suicide....

Not only does California ranks dead last in per capita state spending for the arts, its largest city is losing its media art critics. After LA Times dance critic Lewis Segal was bought out last month, news comes that LA Weekly classical critic Alan Rich was given the ax yesterday. Public Relations blogger Laura Stegman has the scoop:After getting the news earlier today, I spoke with Alan late tonight, and he said, "It's open season......

You probably relate David Hockney's name with his famous California photograph called "Pearblossom Highway #2." But one of the contemporary artist's early loves was opera and he's back, for the third time ever with Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" with the LA Opera, a "great ode to sexual ecstasy," the production company writes in the tag line of the title. It's a five-hour piece, but you can guarantee people will come out in droves for......

As the year enters week two, organizations are programming newer music, that which was composed in the last century. This weekend, the Los Angeles Philharmonic began their Concrete Frequency series to an excellent start wth Aaron Copland's "The City" played to film and Edgard Varèse's "Amériques." After the concert, hip-hop violinist duo Paul Dateh and inka one (we interviewed Paul him this summer) played in the lobby by the cafe while Breakestra funked up......

For the third year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is producing a series that explores a single topic, usually one that reaches from the hardcore to the non-traditional classical going audiences. In 2006, it was Minimalist Fest. featuring famed compositions of the minimalism movement and an all night concert til 4 a.m. with The Orb and other trance artists. This past year was From Shadow to Stalin, an exploration of Eastern Europe, classical musics to......

It's like Classical Music got up and left for the week (maybe to Chicago?). That's okay, though, today's picks are both exciting. We post today's picks earlier than the usual 2 p.m. slot in order to make sure you're forewarned, since they are today. The Wagner Ensemble presents an afternoon concert entitled "Illuminations from the Old World" featuring music from the Christmas tradition of Europe, British Isles and Slavic countries ranging from the early Renaissance......

CLASSICAL: There's other classical music about town tonight besides Chanticleer. The Calder Quartet is the Colburn Conservatory’s first quartet-in-residence, and these new faculty members will show their chops with a program that includes Philip Glass, Quartet No. 2 “Company” by Philip Glass; Quartet in A minor “Rosamunde” by Franz Schubert and Terry Riley's “Cadenza on the Night Plain.” 7:30 pm // The Colburn School: Zipper Hall // 200 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles //......

This week Zach Behrens became the sixth editor of LAist. Behrens is no stranger to LAist staff or readers -- he was Co-Editor for nearly a year before taking the reins from Tony Pierce and contributed more than 1100 posts since 2005. We asked Zach a variety of questions to put in perspective how and why he came to be editor of the best city blog this side of the Hudson. Andy: When and why......

KITSCH: The Charles Phoenix Holiday Jubilee returns to REDCAT for the next four evenings. LA kitsch expert Charles Phoenix brings together an evening of live comedy, including the Bob Baker Marionettes, roller rink organist Dominic Cangelosi and a few other surprises. The entertainment's all in combination with his "Retro Holiday Slide Show," comprised of slides he found at area thrift shops and flea markets. 8 pm // REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall //......

As Christmas approaches, we get inundated with holiday themed programming (just look at last week's Classical Pick, sheesh). Fear not, though, not everything is annoyingly chock full of jingly tunes. The San Francisco based and Grammy nominated "orchestra of voices," Chanticleer, is visiting Los Angeles on Tuesday with traditional Christmas songs from Gregorian Chant to Gospel, including selections from their newly-released holiday CD, “Let It Snow”. If you're not familiar with their sound, check......

What's the holiday season without one of the most popular and famous works in Western choral literature -- George Frideric Handel's "Messiah"? And who doesn't like sing-alongs? (Remember our love for The Sound of Music Sing-A-Long at the Hollywood Bowl?) So many questions, so many... Los Angeles Master Chorale: Messiah Sing-Along Monday, December 10 & Sunday, December 16 @ 7:30 pm Walt Disney Concert Hall Angeles Chorale: George Frideric Handel Messiah December 15 @......

If you like classical new music, then why aren't you coming to Monday Evening Concerts? This is the real deal and a one of the kind music series in Los Angeles. Last Monday night's concert was our Classical Pick of the Week and there was good reason for it. The nearly sold out concert of the young and elderly gathered at Zipper Hall at Downtown's Colburn School of Music. The night started with the......

There's no such thing as a quiet Monday in this town. Here's a quick look at what's happening: FILM: If you're a historic film buff, then head over the Academy Linwood-Dunn Theatre for A Century Ago: The Films of 1907. The event celebrates the year 1907 and its developmental contributions to motion pictures with a program of selected films. The evening will present a partial survey of turn-of-the-20th-century international filmmaking with trick films, actualities, primitive......

There's a lot of quality going on in classical this week in Los Angeles. Deaf percussionist superstar Evelyn Glennie is coming to UCLA Live, the Steven Stucky 20th Anniversary at the Green Umbrella Series with the LA Phil and a crazy four hour concert tonight featuring 18 Squared, LA's resident Steve Reich ensemble, among others. However, the obvious choice for this week is Monday Evening Concert's season opener, Primitive Force (we spoke about Sunday......

Last week with the Holiday, we said it was slim pickings. This week, classical music in Los Angeles is bountiful and what has piqued our interest is Alternative Opera Theater's three performances this upcoming weekend at the intimate NoHo Arts District space, the Raven Playhouse. The performance will feature two chamber operas, the first being "The Telephone" by Gian Carlo Menotti where a man attempts to propose to the woman she loves. But there's......

Slim pickings to choose from this Thanksgiving week and that makes it hard to choose just one. Friday through Sunday, the LA Phil will be playing Brahms' "Double Concerto" and Dvorák's killer Symphony No. 9 "From the New World," while the LA Opera opens two shows that will play on alternating dates: Don Giovanni and La Boheme. Tonight at Sundays Live, the free concert at LACMA, is Franz Schubert's "Quintet in C Major, D. 956"......

Some call Dutch composer Louis Andriessen the "hip guru for a younger generation," we just call him one of our favorites. And lucky for us locals, the Los Angeles Master Chorale commissioned the composer for a piece that world premieres a week from tonight -- "The City of Dis or: The Ship of Fools." The piece is one of the five sections in Andriessen's opera "La Commedia," with the libretto based on works by......

John Cage (1912-1992) is one of the most well known experimental American Composers and musical/sound philosophers. You may know him for 4'33", a piece where three movements are performed without a single note being played. Many of his compositions explored chance music, non-standard use of instruments and electronics. This week at REDCAT, Dhrupad vocalist Amelia Cuni will perform Cage's "18 Microtonal Ragas: Solo 58."An Italian-German performer and composer trained in both European experimental music......

Southwest Chamber Music The season opening concert will feature Southwest Chamber Music’s percussionist Lynn Vartan, the Grammy-nominated Tambuco Percussion Ensemble (an LAist pick of the week earlier this summer) and the soloists of Southwest Chamber Music in a colossal program of the "Encounters, part 1" by one of Los Angeles’ most important composers and percussionists William Kraft, who was an LA Phil member (percussion, timpani), composer-in-residence, and conductor for three seasons. Monday, October 15 @......

Our Classical Pick of the Week is tonight with the Pasadena Symphony and special guest and timpani rockstar, Jonathan Haas, playing American composer Philip Glass' "Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra." With that in mind, we decided to check out the album that features Haas with percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Also on the album, but not in tonight's concert is the "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra," an adventurously beautiful piece with some of Glass' trademark......

There's no doubt about it, Pasadena is an arts town. Local "old money" patronize the cultural arts in these parts and it shows. Talk about the season opener for the Pasadena Symphony, you can't go wrong with these three composers. Known as Mexico's most distinctive musical voice of the 1930's, Silvestre Revueltas is a madman of a composer -- colorful, energetic and all over the place. "The Homage to Lorca conflates two seemingly incompatible......

Artist: Colleen Album: Les Ondes Silencieuses Label: The Leaf Label Release Date: Summer 2007 Colleen - "Sun Against My Eyes" After an insanely hectic week this was the album to listen to. While I'm not a devotee of classical music, I've very much enjoyed this minimalist work by Colleen, aka Cecile Schott. While it is minimalist, it isn't austere as in the style of a Philip Glass or his ilk. Colleen boils the music......

Now that it's officially Autumn, the Los Angeles classical music scene begins to populate the already crowded local culture calendars. One of those groups you've probably seen a multitude of times, but never have heard a note plucked or bowed from them. That's because a mural of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) towers over the 110 Freeway downtown in Kent Twitchell's "Harbor Freeway Overture." This week, LACO begins their 07/08 season on on......

For the past 16 years, as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's dedication to making music accessible to the widest possible audience, they have been presenting free neighborhood concerts in the community at churches, community centers and other local venues around Southern California. The series for this year begins this week in San Gabriel. The Latin-flavored program includes Bizet’s Suite No. 1 from Carmen; Falla’s Suite from El amor brujo; Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No.......

Collaborations between two art forms can be magical. Collaborations of two Los Angeles groups is even better. On Tuesday night, the LA Phil and the Diavolo dance company will be teaming up to present conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen's "electrifying imaginary scène de ballet, 'Foreign Bodies.'" Also on the program is Gustav Mahler's First Symphony. Diavolo Dances Salonen Tuesday, September 4 @ 8:00 p.m. | $6 - $43 Hollywood Bowl Promotional Video from Diavolo (does not necessarily......