newclassic monthly #6: past, present, future
if these photons are hitting your eyes, chances are you’re an angeleno, an artist, and someone who’s been somehow affected by the recent fires in Altadena and the Palisades. hopefully you’re reliably housed, employed, and unharmed but there are too many friends for whom that is not the case. i’m leaving links at the bottom of this write-up for folks in our community who still need our help.
A LOOK BACK
after an initial wave of immediate cancellations (from venues as small as the Sierra Madre Playhouse and as large as the Walt Disney Concert Hall) concerts series cautiously came back to life in late January as we began to readjust to life post-disaster. Monday Evening Concerts, which postponed their mid-January pair of Steve Schick performances (part of a season-long partnership celebrating MEC and Steve’s 85th and 70th years of existence, respectively), began their 2025 with a premiere by Tyshawn Sorey. Tuesdays @ Monk Space postponed their January Wendy Richman / Alex Elliott Miller show for later this season, and began the year proper with the music of Wadada Leo Smith in February.
Long Beach Opera‘s season-long exploration of Pauline Oliveros kicked off with EL RELICARIO DE LOS ANIMALES at the Heritage Square Museum.
Trade School, a new venue in Altadena, survived the fires but has had to shut their doors temporarily to smoke remediate, and relocated their February events to Oracle Egg and RASP. Tapetail also moved events to Oracle Egg before returning their usual home at Automata.
A LOOK AT MARCH
the calendar has been updated with all the usual suspects’ March events (if you don’t see yours on there, submit here). of particular note are the series of Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell performances at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and REDCAT.
Chat Pile’s coming to Zebulon and clipping‘s new album comes out mid-March if your proclivities lean that way. Other records you can pick up (some in time for Bandcamp Friday) include Wovenland 3, Curator of Domestic Life, Reflex City Mangling, The Music of Anthony Braxton (by Steve Lehman), Parlando, SOVT, Pictures of the Warm South, Polsky West, and a special Women of Noise release for wildfires relief (check instructions in description, donate don’t buy. thanks Kevin, Jack and Matt). I’ll throw my own music in here, Ben Richter’s Dissolutions Seedlings released in January on Sawyer Editions (thanks Kory Reeder).
you may be stoked to hear Edition Wandelweiser has begun a digital migration to Bandcamp, also thanks to Kory Reeder. EW has not had a reliable digital streaming/purchase option (the records you’d find online were uploaded by the artists themselves, not the imprint), so this is a big deal for lots of us.
A LOOK FORWARD
the Ojai Festival just put its Series Passes up for sale (this year directed by Claire Chase). the Big Ears Festival, though not in Los Angeles, is this month and features too many musicians in the purview of this publication to name, and is the only festival of its type that I know of. TIME:SPANS (in New York in August, line up announced in April) is similar in size but not in scope.
both the Dog Star Festival and High Desert Soundings have opened and closed their submission windows, boding well for their summer and fall activities (again, respectively). the HEAR NOW Festival begins at the end of this month, opting this year for three concerts, one concert a month.
also wanted to shout-out Synchromy as a place to share new music events every month, and Mel’s List for Melissa Lai’s own list of events (we have a narrow overlap of events, so go check them out to expand your interests).
FROM THE EDITOR (NO ONE ASKED)
my last two months were strange; immediately before evacuating my home in Pasadena during the Eaton fires, i drove to my studio and grabbed my computer, every hard drive with old concert footage, my shimedaiko (the most expensive instrument I could carry in one hand) and the bars off my vibraphone (my most recent large purchase). i stayed at my dad’s for a few days, without power, then returned to Pasadena. i showered when the city advised us not to use the water (we’ll see the ramifications of that in a decade or so i guess). my home and and studio were safe, but the Pasadena Waldorf School, where I’d worked as Percussion teacher and occasional Choir accompanist, lost their primary campus.
i took a day trip to san diego to see neko3 at UCSD; on the way a rock kicked up behind a truck and hit my windshield, spraying bits of glass onto my clothes, creating a tiny hole through which you could hear the air whistle.
two weeks later, the historic rainfall in LA caused the perfect conditions for cars on the 134 to hydroplane and spin out, one of which was mine. i hit a pillar, somehow avoiding both personal bodily harm and hitting anyone else. my car was in the shop for a week, after which I drove without a functioning seatbelt for another week while they found a replacement belt. i wore a cross body bag across my shoulder to ward off anyone on that side of the law.
somewhere in the middle of all this, my students from the Pasadena Waldorf School, for having lost their campus in the Eaton Fire, were tapped to sing at the Grammys for the Quincy Jones tribute. serendipitously, the Palisades school selected was the Palisades Charter High School, whose choirs are directed by my friend Allison Cheng, where I’ve guest lectured on electronic music / recording engineering, and for whom I’ve written two pieces.
during these two months, i attended events by Monday Evening Concerts, Piano Spheres, KODO at the Walt Disney, Automata @ Oracle Egg, Trade School @ RASP, Mingjia Chen + NOW at 2220, Tapetail back at Automata, Tonality + Kronos at the Wallis and some I’m likely forgetting.
sometimes it’s a drag going out to events and though i’m typically allergic to the kind of saccharine togetherness spiel that usually goes where this sentence currently exists but i had to admit it was nice feeling a sense of community after all that happened to us.
please submit your events to our calendar
🍉
please donate to:
Erin Barnes, Nic Gerpe and Juhi Bansal, An Perry, Steve Lehman and family, Bobby Bradford, William Roper, Bennie Maupin and family