Posts Tagged ‘Festivals’
FYF Fest Lineup Announced
Obvious it’s not strictly classical, but neither are we. What is probably LA’s greatest achievement as far as music festivals go just announced their 2012 lineup. It’s two days this year. Violinist/loop pedal extraordinaire Kishi Bashi is in real small letters at the bottom of the poster. The number of experimental/progressive acts on it (Lightning Bolt, Health, Black Dice, etc.) has gone way up. So has the number of personal favorite bands of mine that have ever been on a single festival before (Refused, Liars, Cursive, Converge, Gold Panda, Aesop Rock, Against Me!, the four mentioned in the previous two sentences, more). And hey, was anyone besides me unaware that Hot Snakes and Desaparecidos were still active? Sweet.
If you’re a member of my more traditional concert music readership, I urge you to go. You’ll learn a lot, and two days here is less than the price of a good seats at the LA Phil.
Click the poster to go to the festival site. Tickets go on sale this Friday.
Free Show Alert: CSS, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Gang Gang Dance, Datarock
While it doesn’t exactly fit neatly into the realm of post-classical-neo-modern-pseudo-populist-concert music that we claim to cover on this blog, I figured some of our readers might be interested in the completely free block party in Echo Park this Sunday. Lots of bands, and apparently some food trucks and craft beer too. At least it had better be craft beer. If they’re advertising “world class” and show up with Heineken and Stella, I will stage a futile and largely ignorable personal protest.
For details (and to RSVP, which is required), go to uptheantics.com/cc2011.
You may have noticed that the concert listings page has been massively updated. If not, I recommend checking it out.
AxS Festival 2011 Kicks Off This Weekend in Pasadena
Pasadena’s AxS Festival 2011 starts this weekend, and it looks awesome. It just came to my attention because my friend David Sprio, a tenor with Pasadena Pro Musica and Southwest Chamber Music, sent me an invitation to Pasadena Pro Musica’s show on Sunday, featuring choral music by Lauridsen, Holst, and neurobiologist-cum-composer Elaine Bearer. Details on the concert are available here and here.
Being a big fan of science in general, I think this is worth checking out, and events go for a full two weeks.
The festival website has a ton of information, over at axsfestival.org.
Day Trip Idea/Free Show Alert: Carlsbad Music Festival
The Carlsbad Music Festival kicks off tonight in North County San Diego with a free Village Music Walk from 5:30 to 9:30, featuring performances from The Calder Quartet, red fish blue fish, Vicky Chow, Penelope, My Brightest Diamond, and festival founder Matt McBane‘s very own bandsemble, Build. Oh boy, that is a lot of links.
It looks like some restaurants and bars and things like that will be offering deals, stores will be staying open late, etc. This alone probably makes it worth the drive/train ride/5-minute-flight-followed-by-40-minute-drive, but the rest of the weekend looks extremely promising too.
Free picnic concerts on Saturday and Sunday will include Terry Riley’s epic In C (a personal favorite) and West African electronica collective Burkina Electric. The New Amsterdam Records heavy lineup (this is a good thing) will continue with concerts throughout the weekend.
You can check out the complete schedule by clicking here. I personally won’t be able to make it, because that free show alert from earlier this week has led to my getting tickets to LACO‘s concert this Saturday night (with West Coast premieres from Derek Bermel and Osvaldo Golijov), after guitarist Wiek Hijmans literally made my brain melt a little from sheer virtuo-visionary ecstasy. Plus Bright Eyes are playing in Santa Barbara on Sunday night, for those of you who may be interested in that as well.
If you go, please feel free to review your experience in the comments.