After the Ives 3rd, during intermission, setting up for Dvorak’s 9th last week.
Yes, it is that beautiful.
And the acoustics are better.
Category Archives: Los Angeles
Descent To The Disney Depths
The Disney Concert Hall is an amazing, beautiful building, designed by the genius Frank Gehey. It offers an almost endless variety of views of sweeping lines, both interior and exterior, and vast interior spaces.
These are the escalators that lead down into the parking garages, opening at top to the balconies leading to the upper level seats.
Gorgeous!
Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Photography
Music City Panorama
(Click to embiggenate to the max)
Standing on the corner of 1st Street & Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles last night. The Disney Concert Hall is at the left, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (the south end of the Music Center) on the right. Just off to the far right of this view, down the hill, is the iconic Los Angeles City Hall.
The Ives 3rd Symphony was interesting, particularly after watching much of a pre-concert talk being given in the DCH lobby about Ives. There is so much I don’t know about him or his music. I’ll have to correct that.
The Dvorak 9th Symphony (the “New World” Symphony) was beyond words, spectacular, amazing, fantastic, ausgezeichnet, mind blowing… To hear it in that almost acoustically perfect space, with the LA Philharmonic giving it their all, and the energetic Gustavo Dudamel conducting… If you can listen to that without being moved to tears of joy, we probably can’t be friends.
Even if you’re not a classical music fan… Even if you can’t see it at the Disney Concert Hall or its like… Even if you can’t see it performed by the LA Philharmonic or an equivalent group… Even if it’s a high school band in the gym and you’re only there because your hair dresser’s kid is playing third flute…
Go see the New World Symphony performed live. It’s a bucket list item.
Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Panorama, Photography
It’s A New World
Dvorak’s to be specific.
Dvorak’s 9th and Ives’ 3rd. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while.
I expect it to be spectacular!
Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Photography
Evening Showers
The clouds were beautiful, the sunset dramatic, and the rain was soft, if cold.
There’s nothing like a light rain right in the middle of the LA Friday evening commute to help one clarify your opinion of your fellow human beings and the human race in general.
But I got home. No bent metal. No blood spilled.
And the clouds were beautiful.
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Weather
Date Night Downtown
We’re exploring LA’s cultural options a bit more – first it was the start of a series of LA Philharmonic concerts at Disney Hall, tonight it’s the first of a small subscription series at the Ahmanson.
I haven’t been to the Mark Taper Forum or the Kirk Douglas Theater yet (they’re all here in the Music Center complex) – maybe next year. I can only take so much culture at one time.
Tonight it’s “The Last Ship,” staring the one and only Sting. I haven’t seen or heard much about it in advance except that it’s good, because, well – Sting!
Right?
Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Photography
Intercontinental
I’ve got pictures of major cities at night from all over the world – New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC, Seattle, London, Prague, Brussels, Seoul, Shanghai, Kyoto, Las Vegas…
But very damn few from Los Angeles, despite the fact that I’ve lived here for over 45 years.
I’ll have to fix that.
In the meantime, here’s the Intercontinental Hotel Downtown, which we were next to while walking to the Metro station after the Kings game last Saturday.
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography
This Reality Has Some Serious Continuity Flaws
Can’t make this shit up folks.
Trump got acquitted today, as expected. It’s incredibly disappointing and depressing and it sucks to be watching the death of the great American experiment as we sink into authoritarianism under a fascist, criminal regime – but that’s a rant for another day.
Here’s the thing…
Turning on the 11PM local news tonight, four stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, and KTLA) the #1 news story of the night, the lead, the biggest news that they’re ALL going to spend the first five minutes talking about was…
…the death of Kirk Douglas.
Okay, it’s Hollywood, La-La Land. We’ll cut them some slack, maybe? The impeachment will be second, right?
Nope. Some of them had the coronavirus scare #2 (a Korean air liner had to divert to LA because people on board had been exposed) and a local measles outbreak #3 (the irony is delicious and lost on them, running back to back stories about a panic over a 100% preventable disease like measles vs the coronavirus, which could be a humanity killing pandemic or just another false alarm that kills in ten years fewer people than die from car accidents in the US in a week), and some had the measles and then the coronavirus, but NONE of them had the impeachment acquittal.
Story #4 after the second commercial break seemed to be all over the place – a murder here, a freeze warning there…
This is how we’ve been worn down and beaten into submission by the Trump cult. Something that would have been the “Story of the Decade!” in another decade isn’t even reported in this one.
Geez, the LEAST they could have done is shown the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade as the #2 or #3 story! If you’ve done the measles story, just do “Coronavirus – ditto!” and move on to something good!!
Filed under KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Moral Outrage, Politics
Super Bowl Eve
The Son showed up from Japan for our Super Bowl party tomorrow. He would have gone to Miami, but we were his second choice.
Since he was here, and since the Kings were playing the Ducks, we got tickets so he could surprise the Younger Daughter. (She figured it out.)
The area around Staples Center is insane right now with tens of thousands of people here for the Kobe Bryant memorials.
But we’re here for the hockey game.
We got great seats – now we need to win!
Go, Kings, Go!
Filed under LA Kings, Los Angeles, Photography
The Red Trees
A couple of weeks ago some of the trees at work went from green to bright yellow overnight. Today I noticed that the trees out in the parking lot had gone red.
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 