New Music Festival in Venice

PLEASE NOTE: This is a post that went up last month; Blogger has misdated it. Trying to fix. Don't go to First Lutheran this weekend unless your aim is to praise the Lord.

The Calder Quartet

THIS Saturday sees two programs of contemporary music, by composers well known and obscure, that tries to take the measure of the classical scene in 21st century Los Angeles. It's called Hear Now and includes solo performers and the Eclipse, Lyris and Calder Quartets.


I spoke to Hugh Levick, both the organizer of the festival and one of the composers -- he's up alongside more famous names, among them Thomas Ades and Esa-Pekka Salonen -- whose work will be performed at the First Lutheran Church of Venice.

First Lutheran

As a young man, Levick earned a writing degree at the University of Iowa and headed to Paris to write a novel, but his interest in jazz saxophone and its furthest edges brought him back to music. He's a guy inspired equally by Kafka, Coltrane and Walter Benjamin.




HERE is my brief piece on his work and influences.

The Calder Quartet vs. Airborne Toxic Event

ONE of my favorite LA bands is the Calder Quartet, who accompany another of my favorites, the Airborne Toxic Event -- yes, the name comes from DeLillo -- Friday night at Disney Hall.

I met the Calders soon after they graduated USC's conservatory, and caught up with them a few weeks ago  to discuss their latest travels. They've stretched outward, into rock and experimental music, as well as inward, intensely studying Haydn in Berlin, and they've begun to play internationally.

HERE is my piece in today's LATimes: I talk to members of the band as well as Mikel from Airborne Toxic, who has become one of my favorite indie rockers.

Part of what I like about these guys is their commitment to the art of chamber music -- not an easy way to make a living, for reasons having to do not just with economics but with the strange personal bonds and tensions. I also admire their ability to keep their eyes -- and ears -- trained on the outside world and the larger swim of pop culture. They're both regular guys, in a sense, and something extraordinary.

Very much looking forward to this show.

Photo courtesy Calder Quartet