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Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Review: Camerata Pacifica at the Huntington, May 20th

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we tell the dancer from the dance? William Butler Yeats, Among School Children     Ludwig Van Beethoven called music “the electric soul in which the spirit lives.” The supremely talented Camerata Pacifica filled Friends’ Hall at the Huntington with explosive electricity on Tuesday night. Pianist Warren Jones, violist Richard O’Neill, cellist Ani Aznavoorian, and violinist Catherine Leonard all gave riveting performances. The four virtuosos combined in Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-Flat major, Op. 47, laced together tightly through shades of melancholy and jubilee.      Cellist Ani Aznavoorian shone in Grieg’s Sonata for Piano and Cello in A Minor, Op. 36, her face, body, and instrument one. Aznavoorian held the cello as tenderly as Michelangelo’s Pieta, eliciting an intense palette of tones: haunting, passionate, playful, transcendent. How can we tell the

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Classical concert, Camerata Pacifica, this Tuesday, May 20th at the Huntington

What better way to feel refreshed on a balmy spring evening than with a soothing concert at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens?  Camerata Pacifica, a Chamber Music ensemble based in Santa Barbara, will be gracing the Huntington with Mozart, Grieg, and Schumann.Tuesday May 20, 8pm.  Program:  Mozart, Duo for Violin & Viola in B-Flat Major, K 424; Grieg, Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 36; Schumann Quartet for Piano and Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 47. Musicians: Warren Jones, Piano; Catherine Leonard, violin; Richard O’Neill, viola, Ani Aznavoorian, cello Huntington Library, Friends Hall, 1151 Oxford Rd. San Marino, CA, 91108 For more information on tickets please visit: http://www.cameratapacifica.org/concert_schedule/may.html#

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Making the Fig and Other Artistic Insults

An Eye for an Eye, a Fig for a Fig Even noble literary figures need to blow off steam. Shakespeare’s Capulets and Montagues deliver the shocking, duel-provoking insult of thumb-biting.  Only a duel could avenge such a slur on one’s honor.           Sampson: I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to them if they bear it. Abram: Do you bite your thumb at us, Sir?’   Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Scene I.   Melee ensues.  Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy contains another impish affront,“Making the Fig.”  This slur involves thrusting out the thumb between the first and second fingers to express anger or disdain.  In Dante’s Inferno, Vanni Fucci, a thief convicted of stealing from the Church of San Zeno, “raises his hands, points in mockery, and cries, ‘Take them, God.’” (Canto XXV)

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Get Lost! (Lost in Battery Park, that is)

monuments_sphere

                                                      Fritz Koenig’sThe Sphere           It is the stillness after the storm, a place for reflection on the violence that occurred nearby in lower Manhattan. It is what Mayor Michael Bloomberg called a symbol of the “power of art to heal.”             The Sphere, a globe sculpted by the German artist Fritz Koenig, is the only structure to survive and remain standing after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The 45,000-pound steel and brass work, its face dented, chipped, fragmented, scuffed and scratched, now rests in a quiet place in Battery Park, a short distance from Ground Zero.             More than survivor,

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Gen Art’s The New Garde: LA Fashion Week, March 2008

 Since 2003, Gen Art has given the opportunity to emerging fashion talent to display their work in high-profile group runway shows and fashion presentations in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. Designers debuted by Gen Art include: Zac Posen, Rebecca Taylor, and Philip Lim for Development. Taking place during L.A’s Fashion Week, the New Garde sashayed at the Park Plaza Hotel,showcasing designers including Jessie Kamm, J. Mary, and Le Sang des Betes.  Upon Entering the Park Plaza, guests were greeted with a Singing in the Rain and Grecian Goddess motif. Three young gamines, encapsulated in clear white boxes and holding transparent umbrellas, smiled bravely while faux raindrops splashed upon their fetching bright blue dresses. They carried parasols labeled Botox, a cynical insinuation that a wrinkle-free complexion can keep rainy days at bay?      A few steps beyond, tall,

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