Pacific Symphony Opens 45th Season with Rousing Strauss
REVIEW: Carl St.Clair leads a capable performance of the composer’s Ein Heldenleben as the orchestra begins searching for his successor. It’s going to be a fun-to-watch season at the Pacific...
September 22, 2023
How Has the Pandemic Hangover Affected O.C.’s Arts Scene?
The doom-and-gloom reports surged shortly after the pandemic faded. Crowds weren’t coming back to theaters, museums and concert halls. Did Orange County venues and arts presenters experience the same audience...
September 11, 2023
Jean-Yves Thibaudet Follows His Own Score
French pianist Jean Yves Thibaudet has played Claude Debussy’s Préludes since he was a child. They’re a cornerstone of classical piano literature, after all, and in France they occupy a...
April 1, 2023
Branford Marsalis, on the Road, but Never Far from Home
Fame has become such a permeable monolith in our media-driven age, so vulnerable to the affronts of mere celebrity, that authenticity seems harder and harder to determine. Still, audiences tend...
March 10, 2023
Pacific Chorale Tackles a Massive Choral Classic
For all the fame surrounding it, Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, more commonly known as the Vespers of 1610, isn’t performed all that often — not only because of...
March 3, 2023
Triumph Over Adversity Festival Brings Dynamic New Talent to O.C.
The darkest years of the pandemic are behind us, but their memory lingers. The sudden shutdown of public life was one of many upheavals that threatened to tear apart the...
February 17, 2023
National Endowment for the Arts Chair Talks in O.C.
When President Biden nominated Maria Rosario Jackson to head the National Endowment for the Arts in October 2021, the appointment was groundbreaking but inevitable. Groundbreaking because Jackson is the nation’s...
February 10, 2023
Orange County Gets a Big Dose of Muti Magic
REVIEW: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of its departing conductor, delivers a program that showcases its gifts. Half a century ago, Riccardo Muti, then a wunderkind near the...
January 27, 2023
Pacific Symphony Mounts a Surefire Production of Verdi’s ‘Otello’ in Segerstrom Concert Hall
REVIEW: Tenor Carl Tanner reprises the title role that he sang at the Metropolitan Opera in a commanding performance. It was time once again for the Pacific Symphony’s annual opera...
April 8, 2022
How the Pandemic Made UCI Composer Michael Dessen’s World Go Zoom
If you’ve ever been in a video meeting, you’ve had this experience: Someone’s lips move, and a fraction of a second later, you hear the sound of their voice. That...
September 11, 2020
