By Susan JAMES In the fantasy world ruled by the Disney-Marvel combine there has been a trend of late to reshape fairy tales for a contemporary audience. Working from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton, director Robert Stromberg’s “Maleficent” is a signature example. As most little girls know, fairy tales in their original form are […]
By Ted AYALA If Le Salon de Musiques ever decided to adopt a mascot, German composer Xaver Scharwenka would likely be it. There has been no other musical organization in Southern California – or indeed in the United States – that has more ardently championed the music of this now mostly forgotten composer. Le Salon […]
By Michael WORKMAN June approaches, which means E3 is coming to the LA Convention Center to dazzle gamers and industry heavyweights alike. E3 always generates a certain healthy level of excitement each year, but last year’s event had many people’s anticipation turned up to eleven with the showcasing of the Next-gen technology to come […]
By Ted AYALA Less than four years separate the death and birth respectively of the alpha and omega of Armenian music, Vartapet Komitas and Tigran Mansurian, so that they share much in common stylistically and spiritually should not come as too much of a surprise. Komitas, whose career spanned the closing years of the 19th […]
By Mary O’KEEFE At the recent 28th Annual Charlie Awards presented by the Hollywood Arts Council held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the organization honored those who help promote live theatre in their community. Hollywood Arts Council is a grassroots organization that was founded in 1978 to promote the arts and culture of Hollywood. It […]
By Charly SHELTON It’s 11 p.m. You are at Disneyland and it is crowded. You have ridden only four rides all day and the park closes in an hour. You had to sell a kidney to afford tickets, it’s almost two hours in rush hour traffic down Interstate 5 to get there and it’s so […]
By Ted AYALA At first glance, the lives and works of composers Xaver Scharwenka and Frank Bridge seem to have little in common. During the height of Imperial Germany, Scharwenka carved out a wide berth for himself among the forefront of the musical luminaries of his day. His glittering compositions and just as glittering pianism […]
Face Front,True Believers! It is I, your magnanimous leader, back once again to lay some knowledge on you from beyond the computer screen. Last weekend was a nerd fest. Peter Parker returned to the Amazing Spider-Man comic on Wednesday with almost 50 variants of issue 1, the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in […]
By Ted AYALA Mozart may have died a premature death, but in his 35 years of life he packed an enormous amount of creative activity. Virtually no genre in existence during his lifetime did he leave untouched: opera, symphony, string quartet, liturgical music, even works for musical clocks and choral canons on humorous texts that […]