Big weekend for classical music in OC

The Pacific Chorale opens its season; Pacific Symphony offers a program of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms with soloist Raymond Kobler, violin; two esteemed quartets are on tap: Emerson String Quartet and Szymanowski Quartet; violinist Cho-Liang Lin stars as part of the Philharmonic Society's Ancient Paths/Modern Voices Carnegie Hall China Festival; and the UCI Symphony performs.

Details at http://SparkOC.com

Depressed rental market a boon for artists

Artists are taking over vacant commercial spaces in NYC at bargain-basement prices (at least temporarily). More in the NY Times.

Wanted: Next generation of arts donors

San Diegan's comments hold equally true for the OC:

Broadway Star Jenn Colella Wows at UCI Medal Dinner

UCI alumna Jenn Colella wowed hundreds in attendance at Saturday's UCI Medal Dinner with a Jason Robert Brown song she delivered on Broadway when she starred in "Urban Cowboy." I then had the pleasure of chatting with her since we were at the same table, and she's not only an incredible talent--but an utter delight. UCI Drama Dept. Chair Eli Simon says that her audition to get into UCI was unsurpassed. And Jenn says she's opening a show in NYC this week, but she made the trip because of her love for UCI and for Eli.

Participate Free in National Arts Journalism Summit!

On Friday, October 2, from 9am-1pm Pacific Time, you can view the live webcast of the first National Arts Journalism Summit by clicking the viewing mechanism below. For more information, and an overview of the agenda, click here. This event is a must for anyone who cares about the future of arts journalism!

Video chat rooms at Ustream

Midori w/Pacific Symphony & Botero at Bowers

My concept of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto was shaped when I was in college and bought a recording of David Oistrakh performing it--passionate, loud, emphatic, even bombastic. What a world of difference hearing the legendary Midori perform it with the PSO on Saturday night. It had passion tempered with delicacy, fireworks balanced by sweetness--nothing I had ever imagined the piece to be. The concert began with a short piece by PSO favorite composer Frank Ticheli (PSO commissioned it a number of years ago) and ended with the Brahms Symphony No. 1. This is not a Brahms piece I would choose to listen to--its first two movements are completely tedious to my ears, only beginning to perk up in the third, and with a fourth movement that begins to show why we should take it seriously. But it's a symphony that allows the conductor to show off certain principal players, and as such is justifiable for a season opening concert like this.

Botero's chubby people may now be cliche to many in the art world, but they continue to delight museum goers at the Bowers Museum which has just opened up the first major exhibition of his work in many years. Up close, the paintings are gargantuan, doubling or tripling the impact of his audacious convention--now in place for 50 years. But interestingly, the Columbian artist's works from 1959 show his penchant for large size canvases and larger-than-life figures while bathing them in an expressionistic color palate and with brush strokes suggesting pastels instead of oil. His sculptural pieces actually work the best in my estimation--here the large size figures deliver great beauty in form. Overall, Botero's works reflect a combination of traditional Latin American art themes (Day of the Dead) and locales (jungles thick with fruit) while delivering the classical knowledge he possessed from living in Spain and in Paris. There are hints of Picasso, Magritte and Leger, but ultimately Botero remains a one-of-a-kind artist.

Musical Chairs at NY Philharmonic

With all the hoopla over Gustavo Dudamel taking over the LA Phil, on the other coast another young(ish) man is making waves of his own in his first concerts as music director of the New York Philharmonic: Alan Gilbert. The son of two NY Phil musicians (one now retired), he is practically family to that ensemble, so perhaps his recent changes in seating the orchestra is welcomed more by the musicians that it might otherwise have been. It will be exciting to see if these two great orchestras become rivals in winning the hearts and minds of audiences and critics. Here's an article in the New York Times about it.