The arts and culture writers at Voice of OC look ahead to the coming year. I contributed the music events.
What’s Coming in Local Arts and Culture in 2021. Voice of OC, Jan. 1, 2021.
Some local music events in 2021
Jeremy Denk gives live streamed recital at Irvine Barclay Theatre
Review: Jeremy Denk Hits the Right Notes in Streamed Performance. Voice of OC, Nov. 23, 2020.
Philharmonic Society cobbles together a COVID season
Philharmonic Society Cobbles Together a COVID Season, Looks Forward to Live Events in January. Voice of OC, Nov. 11, 2020.
Review: Pacific Chorale releases video of Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Psalm 23’
Review: Pacific Chorale Dips Its Toe Back into Performing with a Soothing Psalm for COVID Times. Voice of OC, Sept. 29, 2020.
The Teletubbies meet Stravinsky
Brilliant.
Memories of Martin Bernheimer, 1936-2019
When I was young and ambitious, I decided, after a little more than a year working as a freelance music critic at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, that I’d take a shot at working for the Los Angeles Times, the biggest game in town. I got the blessing of my Herald boss, Alan Rich — he knew that he couldn’t give me enough work, or at least not the amount I wanted — and I duly wrote a letter and sent some clips to Martin Bernheimer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic at the Times, asking for an interview. This was quickly granted.
On the appointed day I was escorted to Martin’s office on the newsroom floor. It had a glass wall facing the newsroom and in the middle of it he had plastered a large poster of Ronald Reagan’s head with a ballistic missile going in one ear and coming out the other, with no resistance. Inside the office was even more striking. On one side of his desk and behind it the walls were covered from top to bottom with photographs, most of them from opera productions, many of them flamboyant and many of them nudes. The display was obviously meant to shock, and did so rather easily.
Martin made an immediate impression as well. He was an imposing figure, big and burly of torso, a large, balding, and heavily bearded head on top of it that was nothing less than eminent, like that of a 2nd century Roman emperor. Behind his large glasses, his eyes sparkled impishly, and I realize just now, looking at a photo of him, they were always like that, for as long as I knew him. He quickly took charge of the interview (I don’t remember talking that much) and laid out the law of the land.
Review: Pacific Chorale sings the music of Tarik O’Regan
Pacific Chorale Releases a New Recording of Works by Tarik O’Regan. Voice of OC, June 10, 2020.
Beethoven 5 opening, 43 times
0:00 Leonard Bernstein, Wiener Philharmoniker
0:25 Paavo Järvi, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
0:42 Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
1:03 John Eliot Gardiner, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
1:22 Christian Thielemann, Wiener Philharmoniker
1:43 Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker
2:01 Pierre Boulez, New Philharmonia Orchestra
2:27 Simon Rattle, Wiener Philharmoniker
2:44 Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra
3:07 Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Philadelphia Orchestra
3:21 Herbert von Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker
3:41 Franz Welser-Möst, London Philharmonic Orchestra
4:02 Myung-Whun Chung, Seoul Philharmonic
4:22 George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra
4:43 Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Berliner Philharmoniker
5:02 Mikhail Pletnev, Russian National Orchestra
5:30 Gianandrea Noseda, NHK Symphony Orchestra
5:45 Riccardo Muti, Philadelphia Orchestra
6:07 Edo de Waart, Hong Kong Philharmonic
6:24 Daniel Harding, Mahler Chamber Orchestra
6:41 Karl Böhm, Wiener Philharmoniker
7:06 Seiji Ozawa, NHK Symphony Orchestra
7:26 Gustavo Dudamel, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra
7:47 Herbert Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
8:06 Peter Eötvös, Ensemble Modern
8:25 Arturo Toscanini, NBC Symphony
8:47 Teodor Currentzis, MusicaEterna
9:03 Sergiu Celibidache, Münchner Philharmoniker
9:27 David Zinman, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich
9:46 Osmo Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra
10:05 Erich Kleiber, Concertgebouw Orchestra
10:24 Carlos Kleiber, Wiener Philharmoniker
10:46 Bruno Walter, Columbia Symphony Orchestra
11:13 Andris Nelsons, Wiener Philharmoniker
11:32 Philippe Herreweghe, Royal Flemish Philharmonic
11:48 Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony
12:08 Roger Norrington, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR
12:26 François-Xavier Roth, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln
12:42 Iván Fischer, Concertgebouworkest
13:02 Wilhelm Furtwängler, Berliner Philharmoniker (1954)
13:29 Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Frankfurt Radio Symphony
13:47 Masato Usuki, Freude Philharmonie
14:14 Glenn Gould (Liszt Piano Transcription)
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