Photo: Kira Perov
Some tickets remain for the L.A. Philharmonic's Tristan Project at Lincoln Center, none of them below $175. If you don't have that much cash lying around, you can still immerse yourself in Tristan via WNYC's week-long Tristan Mysteries series. Quoth the website: "Highlights include interviews with playwright Terrance McNally; anthropologist Helen Fisher; adult film actress/'Vivid Girl' (and Wagner fanatic) Savanna Samson; choreographer Mark Morris; and acclaimed video artist Bill Viola" — not to mention the bløgôsphëre's own Danny Felsenfeld, explaining the phenomenon of the "Tristan chord" with reference to music from Debussy to Radiohead. I wrote about the Paris Opera incarnation of the Sellars/Viola/Salonen Tristan in 2005, and I've done a quick survey of Salonen's CDs for the New Yorker website. If you're curious about Gustavo Dudamel, Salonen's successor in LA, you can hear him with his future orchestra via a webcast on KUSC on Sunday at 4PM Pacific time. An iTunes release of this same January 2007 concert, featuring Kodály's Dances of Galánta, Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto (with Yefim Bronfman), and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, will arrive next month. Some random photos from my last L.A. trip follow the jump.
Classical music, A1 above the fold in the LA Times. The writer is Mark Swed, whose articles, Ernest Fleischmann told me, played a not insignificant role in getting Disney Hall built.
I spent a lot of time in this hotel room at the Omni. I also finished writing my book at the Omni in January. Yeah, put up a plaque.
Someone else is sitting late in front of the computer.
Dr. Gene is gone, but his spirit lives.
I kept waiting for a David Lynch movie to start in this parking lot, but it never did.
You L.A. people are lucky.
