THIS WEEK
TANDY BEAL & CO bring their holiday circus, Joy! to the mainstage at UC Santa Cruz. LA VIRGEN DEL TEPAYAC opens at El Teatro Campesino at Mission San Juan Bautista. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (photo above) continues at Mountain Community Theater. For links to these and other live performance events, click our CALENDAR or on the ads, left.
THE WESTERN STAGE ANNOUNCES FOR 2019
QUEST-THEMED SEASON will offer productions at Hartnell College of The Miracle Worker, Little Women, Of Mice and Men, For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday, Men on Boats and Evita.
THE LARGEST ROCK BAND ON EARTH
THE STAGE is as big as a football field. Click HERE
AMIT PELED RELIEVED OF HIS STRINGS
THE ISRAELI-BORN cellist plays the famous ‘Casals’ Goffriller, and performed on it in Santa Cruz in September. He reports:
I just performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic the Penderecki concerto last night for the Maestro’s 85th birthday celebration. I wanted to let you know that for the first time in my life ALL strings were taken away from me right now (4:30 am) at the airport’s security checkpoint claiming that it is too dangerous to take them on board…. I have always carried an extra set of strings with me and was never asked to give them away!!! Well, at least they didn’t take the cello claiming that the endpin could be used to stab somebody… Or maybe the security guy is a cellist and wanted a free set…?
IDENTICAL TRIPLET CUBAN BALLET DANCERS
WHAT ARE THE ODDS? The Ramirez brothers are headed to Philadelphia, then the world. Click HERE
IS ARVO PÄRT’S MYSTIQUE CULTIVATED
OR IS the acclaimed Estonian composer just too busy creating great works of art? David Patrick Stearns explains his own epiphany HERE
JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
THE ORA SINGERS produce a most unusual program. Click on images to enlarge.
TCHAIKOVSKY’S STRUGGLES WITH DEPRESSION
THE GREAT COMPOSER and his brother Modeste were both gay at a time when homosexuality sharply divided Russian society; it was widely indulged and equally condemned. His growing celebrity as a composer magnified the pressure on him and implicitly put his fellow musicians at risk. His beloved nephew further fueled the crisis that may have led him to recklessly drink unboiled water during a cholera epidemic leading to his death at age 53. Click HERE
LUCIA POPP
GREAT Slovakian soprano died 25 years ago, age 54, of cancer. Who can forget that voice?
FRESH MUSIC REVIEWS
ARIA WOMEN’S CHOIR in Salinas. PIANIST BRIAN GANZ’ all-Chopin concert in Santa Cruz. MONTEREY SYMPHONY in Carmel. Click HERE
NEXT WEEK
SMUIN BALLET’s ‘The Christmas Ballet’ in two performances at Sunset Center. TOM RALSTON’S ALL STARS at the Rio. MPC STRING ENSEMBLE and Chorus. MONTEREY PENINSULA VOICES in Salinas and Monterey. THE LISTENING PLACE opens The Voice of the Prairie. ARIOSE SINGERS in Santa Cruz. PG POPS ORCHESTRA.
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: @PerfArtsMtyBay
Scott MacClelland, editor; Rebecca CR Brooks, associate editor