Weekend Music: Blue Grass to Classical

We enjoyed music over the weekend with a Saturday night concert by Sara Watkins at the Center for the Arts at Pepperdine University, Malibu and Saturday afternoon Los Angeles Philharmic at Disney Hall in L.A.

Sara played an exciting fiddle accompanied by her brother, Sean, on the guitar, plus a bass player and drummer.  Sara also picked up the guitar for a couple of songs.  She has performed for two decades as a singer and fiddle player for the bluegrass-folk hybrid Nickel Creek.  She began performing for them when she was eight-years-old.   She then started her own band for a couple of years and has now returned to play with Nickel Creek.

Here is a photo of the group performing:

On Sunday we enjoyed a matinee concert by the L.A. Phil conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.  The concert began with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 performed the the Norwegian pianist, Leif Ove Andsnes.  Mark Swed from the L.A. Times wrote that Andsnes seeks freshness through clarity and care and that he plays with cool eloquence.

After intermission, the Los Angeles Master Chorale arrive in seats behind the orchestra and together with the orchestra performed John Adams' Harmonium.  Adams wrote this in 1981.  He also wrote the operas "Nixon in China" and "The Death of Klinghoffer."  The chorale sang words from John DoEmily Dickinson's poems "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" and "Wild Nights."  

The closing piece was Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with Andsnes returning to play along with the orchestra and Chorale.  Mark Swed wrote that the strange 20-minute Choral Fantasy is a predecessor for Beethoven's Night Symphony.  Yes, indeed, I walked away humming the Ode To Joy tune.  Swed wrote:  "Nor can you get too much of Dudamel's capacity to convey joy or whip the Master Chorale and L.A. Phil into the high exuberant mode that ultimately made the performance soar."

Here are a couple of pictures of the Andsnes: