(Revised) STORY AND LINKS: A VERY full week for classical music lovers

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

NOTE: This story was revised due to the addition of organist Paul Jacobs on Sunday afternoon at 7:30 p.m. in Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Throughout the year Southern California offers a vast cornucopia of musical delights and the upcoming week shines as Example A of that sweeping statement. In addition to operatic offerings from Los Angeles Opera (Gotterdamerung — LINK— and The Stigmatized (Die Gezeichneten) — LINK — and Intimate Opera — LINK — here’s a by-no-means complete sampling of offerings during the upcoming the week (in chronological order) that caught my eye:

• LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE — Sunday at 7 p.m. in Walt Disney Concert Hall
Music Director Grant Gershon leads 48 members of his chorale and six soloists (including composer Meredith Monk) in three works by Monk and Miserere by Arvo Pärt. The featured work is Monk’s Weave, which was a co-commission between the Chorale and the St. Louis Symphony, which gave the premiere last month. The other Monk works on the program are Night and excerpts from Songs of Ascension. A 32-piece orchestra, including guitar, percussion and organ, accompanies the chorale.

Gershon and KUSC’s Alan Chapman give a preconcert lecture at 6 p.m. This is a talk you probably should attend, unless you’re a devoted follower of Monk who, among other honors, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (the so-called Genius Award) in 1995.

Info: www.lamc.org

• RING FESTIVAL LA — opens Thursday
Although the festival officially opens April 15, there are events already underway. I’ll write much more about this in my Countdown to the Ring Blog on Tuesday. Here’s a LINK to the first chapter of this ongoing series.

Info: www.ringfestivalla.com

• ST. LOUIS SYMPHONY — Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Disney Hall
Santa Monica native David Robertson returns home to lead the nation’s second-oldest symphonic orchestra in Stravinsky’s Danses Concertantes and Violin Concerto and Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 in C (Linz) and Violin Concerto No. 2. Gil Shalam will be the soloist in both concertos.

Info: www.laphil.com

• LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE — Friday at 1 p.m. in Disney Hall
If you’ve never had a chance to attend a performance in Disney Hall, this is the perfect opportunity because this concert is free. Internationally acclaimed choral conductor María Guinand, director of the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, will conduct part of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 21st annual High School Choir Festival. LAMC Music Director Grant Gershon will also lead portions of the concert, which will include a piece by Morten Lauridsen.

Guinand will conduct the combined choir of 900 singers in two selections, including Randall Thompson’s Alleluia, and will also lead the 80-voice Festival Honor Choir, comprised of top singers from each of the participating schools, in three works: Arroz con Leche by Carlos Guastavino; Zion's Walls, arranged by Aaron Copland and Glenn Koponen; and Joy by Ricky Ian Gordon

This concert is part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Americas and Americans festival. Guinand and her Schola Cantorum de Venezuela are in town to perform with Gustavo Dudamel and the Phil in Osvaldo Gulijov’s La Pasión según San Marcos (St. Mark Passion) on April 24 and 25 in Disney Hall — LINK.

Info: www.lamc.org

• LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC — Friday and Saturday (April 17) at 8 p.m.; April 19 at 2 p.m. in Walt Disney Concert Hall
Jaap Van Zweden was little known in the U.S. before he became music director of the Dallas Symphony last season, but he’s quickly made a name for himself with his work in Texas. He is also Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Radio Kamer Filharmonie, and Chief Conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra.

On all three days (Friday is a Casual Friday concert), Van Zweden will lead the Phil in Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 and Macedonian pianist Simon Trpčeski will be the soloist in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The Saturday and Sunday concerts add Johan Wagenaar’s Cyrano de Bergerac Overture.

Info: www.laphil.com

• LOS ANGELES CHILDREN’S CHORUS — April 17 at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. in Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Maria Guinand, director of the chorus Schola Cantorum of Venezuela, will lead concerts, workshops and master classes featuring five of the country's leading children's choirs in ¡Celebración! The Guinand Festival at Pasadena Presbyterian Church. Among the festival highlights will be the two free concerts noted above.

Featured choirs include New Jersey’s American Boychoir; the Bay Area's Cantabella Children's Chorus; LA's Harmonies Girls Choir; the South Bay Children's Choir, based at El Comino College; and the host ensemble, Los Angeles Children's Chorus. Each of the choir’s directors will conduct selections with their own individual ensembles, which, except for the American Boychoir, will also perform collectively in a combined choir led by Guinand.

In addition to the free concerts, the two-day confab includes a paid portion designed for conductors, music educators and musicians that features an array of master classes and lectures led by Guinand. Latin American choral expert Cristian Grases will present a workshop on Latin American body percussion and movement.

Info: www.lachildrenschorus.org

• PASADENA PRO MUSICA — April 17 at 8 p.m., April 19 at 4 p.m. at Pasadena’s Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church
Music Director Stephen Grimm leads his chorale; soloists Nancy Sulahain, alto, and Scott Graff, baritone; and organist Edward Murray in three seminal 20th century choral works: Duruflé’s Four Motets on Gregorian Themes, Notre Priere and Requiem. Murray will also play selected organ works on the church’s historic Bozeman tracker organ.

Info: www.pasadenapromusica.org

• LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA — April 17 at 8 p.m. in Glendale’s Alex Theatre and 18 at 7 p.m. in UCLA’s Royce Hall
Music Director Jeffrey Kahane — fresh from a critically well received concert with the New York Philharmonic (LINK) — returns home to lead his LACO in Stravinsky’s Concerto in D major for String Orchestra and Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments and Mozart’s Concert Rondo in D major for Piano and Orchestra and Symphony No. 41 in C major, Jupiter. Young American pianist Jeremy Denk will be the soloist.

Info: www.laco.org

• PASADENA SHOWCASE HOUSE OF DESIGN — April 18 through May 16
The Pasadena Showcase House of the Arts — which, since 1948 for its sponsoring organization, the Pasadena Showcase of the Arts, has raised more than $17 million for the arts — unveils its newest House and Garden tour April 18 at 9 a.m.

This year’s house is The Cravens Estate, a three-story, fifty-room residence with a wealth of architectural features located on what was once Millionaires’ Row in Pasadena. It’s now home to the American Red Cross’s San Gabriel Pomona Valley Chapter. Visitors to the house and gardens can also shop at more than 30 boutiques, help support the arts and have a grand time.

Tickets are available for house entry beginning on the quarter hour (9:00, 9:15, etc) as follows: Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. until 3:45 p.m. and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:00 a.m. until 7:45 p.m. Showcase is closed on Mondays. Parking is offsite with free shuttles. Proceeds benefit a wide variety of arts organizations, large and small. Details are on the PSHA Web site.

Information: www.pasadenashowcase.org

CAMERON CARPENTER, ORGANIST — April 18 at 4 p.m. in First Congregational Church, Los Angeles
This is a recital not to be missed by either organ lovers and by those who wonder what can be done with The King of Instruments, a description that certainly applies to First Congo’s massive combination of pipe organs.

Thanks, again, to the glories of YouTube, Carpenter has become a worldwide sensation for his flashy outfits and even flashier playing. You can catch many of his famous performances HERE (if you’ve ever tried to play Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude on the piano, watch Carpenter play it mostly on the pedals). You can also read a well-written profile by David Patrick Stearns in the Philadelphia Inquirer HERE

Info: First Congregational Web site

PAUL JACOBS, ORGANIST — April 18 at 7:30 p.m. in Walt Disney Concert Hall
The L.A. Phil caught a huge break after Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin was forced to cancel because of health reasons that precluded her traveling to Los Angeles. Paul Jacobs, one of the brightest stars on the organ scene today, ranks as about the highest-powered substitute organist one can imagine these days.

As it happens, he’s in Orange County for performances at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall tonight, Friday night and Saturday night with the Pacific Symphony, where he will be the soloist in Poulenc’s Organ Concerto (LINK). Thus, he was available and willing to stay over another night and jump onto the Disney Hall organ bench Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

His Disney Hall program will be Reger’s Organ Sonata No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 60, Nadia Boulanger’s Prelude in F Minor, Franck’s Final in B-flat major, Op. 21 and List’s Fantasy and Fugue on “Ad Nos, ad salutaren undam.”

Now age 33, Jacobs leapt onto the musical scene in 2000 when, at the age of 23 on the 250th anniversary of the death of J. S. Bach in 2000, played the composer’s complete organ music in an 18-hour marathon. He’s also played all of Olivier Messiaen’s music during marathon recitals in several cities across the United States, including Los Angeles.

Info: 323/850-2000; www.laphil.org

Because the month beginning April 19 is going to focus on the Phil’s Americas and the Americans festival, I’m going to toss in three more events that might get lost in the shuffle.

• MUSICA ANGELICA: THE ART OF THE FORTEPIANO — April 24 at 8 p.m. in Pasadena’s Neighborhood Church
Violinist Ilya Korol and Natasha Grigorieva on fortepiano will perform sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert in a program that spotlights the forerunner of today’s modern piano. Grigorieva will be playing a fortepiano restored by Curtis Berak, a local harpsichord builder who supplies all the harpsichords for Musica Angelica, one of the world’s foremost period–instrument ensembles.

Info: www.musicaangelica.org

• LONG BEACH SYMPHONY — April 24 at 8 p.m. in Long Beach’s Terrace Theatre
Music Director Enrique Arturo Diemecke continues the orchestra’s survey of Beethoven symphonies with the second and seventh. Charles Wetherbee will be the soloist in John Corigliano’s The Red Violin: Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra, synthesized from the Oscar-winning score from the 2000 movie, The Red Violin.

Info: www.lbso.org

• PACIFIC SERENADES — April 25 at 4 p.m. at Pasadena’s Neighborhood Church
Pacific Serenades Founder Mark Carlson will have his new piece, Batik, premiered by pianist Ayke Agus and violinist Roger Wilkie. Cellist David Spietz will join his two colleagues for Shostakovich’s Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 67, while Agus and Spietz will play Beethoven’s Sonata in C Major, Op. 1.

This will be last concert for Agus with the group after 20 years of service. She is leaving to concentrate on other projects, some of which have evolved from her book Heifetz as I Knew Him. Agus, who is both an accomplished pianist and violinist, studied with Heifetz and developed a life-long association with him to the end of his life.

Batik continues a lengthy tradition of new music by Pacific Serenades. By the end of this season (its 24th), the group will have commissioned 98 new pieces from 54 new composers.

Info: www.pacser.org
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(c) Copyright 2010, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.