For those of you missing traditional summer outdoor festivals and venues, we have two exciting options for you as part of this week’s Culture Best Bets at Home: August 7th – 9th. Both the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Hollywood Bowl and the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood have performances for you.
There’s also a terrific documentary about the 2008 Tony Award-winning Best Musical, In the Heights; 2017’s International Jazz Day Concert, a Baroque-era opera and some special live performances.
Here are your Best Bets at Home: August 7th – 9th:
Matthew Aucoin and Friends Living Room Recital – LA Opera – August 7th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
You might have seen the world premiere of Eurydice at LA Opera in February of this year. Or perhaps you attended Crossing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in 2018. Both were composed by Matthew Aucoin.
On Friday Aucoin is assembling some of his friends for a living room recital of music he’s written and compositions by Christoph Willibald Gluck and Olivier Messiaen.
Joining him are soprano Erica Petrocelli (Musetta in LA Opera’s 2019 production La Bohème), countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (star of Metropolitan Opera’s Akhnaten), tenors Paul Appleby (appearing in Metropolitan Opera 2016-2017 production of Don Giovanni that streams on Sunday) and Barry Banks (seen in Metropolitan Opera’s production of Rossini’s Armida), baritones Davóne Tines (star of Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terence Blanchard) and Rod Gilfry (star of Crossing) and cellist Coleman Itzkoff
If you can’t watch it as it happens, this concert will be archived for viewing on LA Opera’s website.
Play Your Part – Los Angeles Philharmonic – August 7th – August 14th
If the Hollywood Bowl season had gone on as planned, Grammy Award-wining singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile was going to open this summer’s programming. The first official concert is always a fundraiser for the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA). Obviously that wasn’t possible, but that doesn’t mean the show won’t go on.
Play Your Part is both a concert and workshop that finds Carlile performing with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and members of YOLA in a concert that was filmed with social distance guidelines. Gustavo Dudamel and fellow conductor Thomas Wilkins both appear in the program.
This concert, which is free but still serves as a fundraiser for YOLA, will be available for one week.
My suggestion is you make a picnic outside, bring whatever you’d like to eat and drink and watch the concert under the stars and imagine being in the Cahuenga Pass. And don’t forget your credit card. YOLA is an important part of the cultural fabric of Los Angeles and deserves all the support it can get during these difficult times.
Great Performers in Recital at Tanglewood: Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax – Tanglewood Online Festival – Now – August 8th
Tanglewood in Massachusetts offers a full line-up of programming online. You have to sign up for their e-mails and then set-up a log-in with password to access the programming. There’s a wide array of primarily classical programming available. Much of it is free. Others, like the concert we’re suggesting here, has a fee.
In this particular concert cellist Ma and pianist Ax perform a program that includes Brahms’ Violin sonata in D minor, Opus 108: II. Adagio; Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words, Opus 109 and Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 3 in A, Opus 69. The price to view this performance is $12. You can sign up to get access to all performances for $100.
The link above takes you to the main page for Tanglewood Online Festival with instructions how to sign up and details of the full program.
Other concerts available this weekend include:
BSO Musicians in Recital from Tanglewood – August 7th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
The program includes works by Nico Muhly, Bonnie Bewick, Mark O’Connor and more. Ticket price: $5
Daniil Trifonov performs Bach’s The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 – August 7th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT Ticket price: $12
Boston Symphony Orchestra performs Mahler’s Symphony #3. – August 8th – 2:30 PM EDT/11:30 AM PDT – Free
Andris Nelsons conducts with Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano
Many of the concerts remain available for a week or longer after their original availability.
In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams – PBS – August 7th (check local listings)
On March 9, 2008, a musical called In the Heights opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. Nominated for 13 Tony Awards, it won four including Best Musical. The musical made its creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, a household name.
This documentary follows the cast as they assemble the musical and get ready for their opening night.
Along the way are moving personal stories about many of the participants including Christopher Jackson and Seth Stewart.
I saw this documentary several years ago and loved it. It should be very entertaining and interesting to watch it now and see that Javier Muñoz, Krysta Rodriguez and Joshua Henry – all of whom have gone on to reach far greater personal heights – were part of the ensemble.
PBS has this scheduled for August 7th. Check your local listings for exact time and date.
International Jazz Day from Cuba – PBS – August 7th (check local listings)
International Jazz Day is an annual event that takes place in a different city every year and it features performances by many of the leading artists in jazz.
In 2017 the event took place at the Gran Teatro de La Habana in Havana, Cuba. Quincy Jones and Will Smith were the hosts.
The line-up included Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chucho Valdes, Barbarito Torres, Oscar Valdés, Kenny Garrett and Ambrose Akinmusire.
A film of that concert will air on PBS on Friday. As with all PBS programming, best to check your local listings for exact date and time.
Bach, Haydn and Golijov – LA Chamber Orchestra – August 8th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
In Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s ongoing Summerfest Concerts, this weekend’s filmed performances finds a small ensemble performing a mix of music of Baroque, Classical and Contemporary music.
Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 33 No. 3 “The Bird” opens the program. Osvaldo Golijov’s Mariel is next. The performance concludes with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita #3 in E Major for solo violin, “Gavotte en Rondeau.”
Worth noting is that Bach’s composition has been transcribed for marimba.
The performers for this concert are violinist Sarah Thornblade and Maia Jasper White; violist Erik Rynearson; cellists Giovanna Moraga Clayton and Armen Ksajikian with Wade Culbreath on marimba.
Giulio Cesare – Glyndebourne – August 9th – August 16th
Seems like this is George Frideric Handel’s weekend. With the Metropolitan Opera showing the composer’s Agrippina on Saturday, England’s Glyndebourne makes his opera Giulio Cesare available on Sunday.
The classic story of the love affair and political intrigue that centers around Egypt’s queen and Rome’s ruler comes to life in this opera written by the composer in 1724. The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym. His inspiration was the libretto written by Giacomo Francesco Bussani for composer Antonio Sartorio.
This production took place in 2005 and was directed by David McVicar. Sarah Connolly sings the role of Cesare and Danielle de Niese sings the role of Cleopatra. The Glyndebourne website indicates that this production is Bollywood meets Baroque. Doesn’t that sound intriguing?
Those are your Best Bets at Home: August 7th – August 9th, but we always have some reminders for you:
In addition to Saturday’s Agrippina from the Metropolitan Opera, they are offering Wagner’s Parsifal on Friday and Mozart’s Don Giovanni on Sunday.
Fans of Tennessee Williams can still catch The Kindness of Stranger event through August 14th.
SFJazz offers John Santos’ 60th Birthday Concert on their Fridays at Five program on August 7th.
The Bill Frisell Trio offers up concerts from the Village Vanguard on August 7th and August 8th.
Terri Lyne Carrington and Danilo Pérez perform on August 8th.
That’s the complete list of Best Bets at Home: August 7th – 9th. I hope you enjoy your weekend. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Enjoy the performances.
Photo: Gustavo Dudamel at YOLA (Photo by Danny Clinch/Courtesy of LA Philharmonic Association)