What to expect of a program featuring the illustrious pianist of the most revered piano trio in modern times and classical music's foremost clarinetist playing together as a duo and as soloists in concert with an outstanding chamber orchestra of distinguished virtuosi? We dare say "Nothing less than perfection!"

Why not find out for yourself?

JOIN FanFaire's TICKET GIVEAWAY to a    CONCERT

with the unstoppable MENAHEM PRESSLER
and the inimitable RICHARD STOLTZMAN

in performance with
the NEW YORK CHAMBER SOLOISTS ORCHESTRA

WHERE: UCLA's ROYCE HALL     WHEN: November 20, 2010 Saturday at 8:00pm

Through its continuing partership with UCLA-Live, FanFaire will give away FIVE (5) PAIRS of TICKETS to FIVE LUCKY WINNERS. If you're one of them, you will receive TWO TICKETS to the event, so you can treat a family member, a friend. or your most favorite person in the world to what promises to be a most exquisite evening of MUSIC.

JOIN the GIVEAWAY NOW!

Learn MORE... About MENAHEM PRESSLER and the BEAUX ARTS TRIO / His RECORDINGS
Learn MORE... About RICHARD STOLTZMAN / His RECORDINGS

For her second recording with the Bay Area's conductor-less chamber orchestra, NADJA SALERNO-SONNENBERG, renowned violinist and Music Director of the NEW CENTURY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (NCCO) has chosen extremely well. This recording of works of extraordinary profundity and transcendence by three giants of classical music--SAMUEL BARBER, RICHARD STRAUSS, and GUSTAV MAHLER--showcases the depth of the ensemble's musicality, the range of its repertoire, and the individual member's talent as solo performers.

This soon-to-be-released CD of what SALERNO-SONENBERG considers "the three most glorious works ever written" can be yours if you join FanFaire's first CD GIVEAWAY of the 2010-11 Season. 

...another star mezzo will be back on the Disney stage to sing an operatic role in its entirety! ANNE-SOFIE VON OTTER comes to LA November 19, 20 and 21. She will sing the role of JUDITH in three concert performances of BELA BARTOK's mesmerizing BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE by BELA BARTOK under the baton of LA PHIL's Music Director Emeritus ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, making his first appearance as LA Phil's Conductor Laureate. Bass-bariton WILLARD WHITE sings Bluebeard. SALONEN will also conduct the US PREMIERE of GRAFFITI, a piece for chorus and orchestra by his friend and fellow Finnish composer MAGNUS LINDBERG.

Whatever weekend day you choose to come, you're in for a most enthralling musical experience! 

Ms. VON OTTER will be remembered by Angelenos for her memorable performances as BRANGÄNE in the pioneering multi-media semi-staged concert version of RICHARD WAGNER's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (Salonen-Peter Sellars-Bill Viola's Tristan Project) and as the queen JOCASTA in a theatrical staging of IGOR STRAVINSKY's intriguing opera-oratorio OEDIPUS REX (likewise a Salonen-Sellars production) which marked SALONEN's farewell as LA PHIL's MUSIC DIRECTOR.

A three-day pause is time enough for TERFEL to summon his incarnation as a formidable Wagnerian singer (having metamorphosed from his celebrated Mozartean former-stage self) as he teams up with ESA-PEKKA SALONEN in a concert program of powerful scenes from selected operas of RICHARD WAGNER. The program also aptly features PAUL HINDEMITH's Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber. (Weber, it will also be noted was an early influence on Wagner.) Performances are on November 26, 27 and 28. The last weeks of November 2010 will be a fascinating and dramatically interesting time at Disney Hall to say the least!


And if you can't have enough of Wagner...

With all these events coming on the heels of RING FESTIVAL LA and given GUSTAVO DUDAMEL's self-avowed wish/plan (at his first press conference as LA Phil's Music Director) to conduct WAGNER in five years, is it beginning to look like Los Angeles becoming a city to rival the Wagnerian capitals of the world?


Footnotes:
1.) If anything, these high-caliber performances--which are but a slice of typical Southern California cultural happenings in any one fortnight--prove that there can be substance where once there was mostly only glitz, and that LA has come of age as a world-class cultural destination, a thrilling place to be.

2.) Seen at the Disney Hall Lobby before a DUDAMEL-THIBAUDET-LAPHIL performance of OLIVIER MESSIAEN's Turangalila Symphonie, a youngish guy bearing a placard that read: "Need a MIRACLE TICKET for tonight's concert. I am a DUDAMANIAC!" Implied is a SOLD-OUT Messiaen concert - in LA. Could there be a more eloquent cultural sign of the times? And if you're yearning for more DUDAMEL, you may want to download from iTunes the live video recording of his 2009 Inaugural Gala Concert with the LA Phil. It's the FIRST EVER full length classical concert video to be released on iTunes.