Arts Alive

For today’s Arts Alive, Los Angeles Times and KUSC film critic Kenneth Turan tells us about a new high-budget feature that made a big splash at the recent New York Film Festival. Turan tells KUSC’s Gail Eichenthal, at first glance, it might not seem like an original concept.

Listen to our extended conversation between KUSC Contributor Tim Greiving and Robert Pattinson.

British actor Robert Pattinson has been shedding the skin of his most famous character — the vampire Edward Cullen from the Twilight films — by taking on a series of strange and daring roles in art house cinema: Cosmopolis, Good Time, The Lost City of Z, High Life, and now The Lighthouse — a black-and-white thriller where he plays an old-timey mariner opposite Willem Dafoe.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale kicked off its new season this past weekend with a performance of Bruckner and Golijov at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Artistic director Grant Gershon, now starting his 19th year at the helm, stopped by KUSC for a conversation with Brian Lauritzen.

A new documentary called “The Cave” offers an immersive experience of the current violence in Syria. Los Angeles Times and Arts Alive film critic Kenneth Turan tells KUSC’s Gail Eichenthal it’s an astonishing experience.

The Pasadena Symphony opens its 92nd season at Ambassador Auditorium this Saturday, October 19th with afternoon and evening concerts featuring the latest work by a highly precocious Southland teen. David Lockington, who is beginning his sixth year as Music Director, has crafted a season of beloved mainstream works as well as pieces by emerging composers such as this weekend’s world premiere of music by 17 year-old Sydney Wang: P is for Play. Wang recently took part in the LA Phil’s prestigious Nancy and Barry Sanders Composer Fellowship Program and is also an award-winning pianist.

The American Youth Symphony launches its 55th season with a free concert at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA Sunday evening, October 20 at 7pm. It’s Music Director Carlos Izcaray’s fourth season with the orchestra, and he revels in programming a wide range of repertoire, from familiar works to a world premiere. In May, Jihyun Kim’s latest work, a co-commission between AYS, the American Composers Orchestra, and the Alabama Symphony, will be unveiled at Royce Hall.

A musical cryptogram is a sequence of pitches that utilizes the relationship between the note names and letters of the alphabet to spell out words. Most often, it has been used by composers to secretly embed their own name or initials into a piece of music. A lot of composers use the German spelling for the notes so that in addition to the musical letters A-B-C-D-E-F-G, it also includes the letters H and S on chromatic pitches.

KUSC’s Alan Chapman has a lot to say about music, but can he say it in 60 seconds? That’s the Chapman Challenge. We ask a question and Alan has a minute to answer it. Today’s question is from Anna in Santa Barbara, who writes, “Why don’t trombones have valves like trumpets? It seems that would make it easier to play.”

The Light in the Piazza has deep American musical theater roots – and a shelf full of awards – but it’s LA Opera bringing it to Los Angeles audiences. World-famous soprano Renée Fleming stars in the show and she told us why she was attracted to Piazza, why it works as a musical/opera crossover, and her work on music and the mind.