Wednesday, October 25, 2023

CELEBRATING OUR FIRST DECADE 2013-2024 OF MUSIC TOGETHER

                           HAPPY HOLIDAYS    HAPPY HOLIDAYS   HAPPY HOLIDAYS

                                        IT IS DIFFICULT TO BID GOODBYE TO 2023!

But we are thrilled to announce rich, engaging, and wonderful programs and events in the Year 2024! 

Our first in-person concert and meeting will be held on April 17th at 12 noon at the home of Jarka & Tom Wilcox. We are honored to have our Music Section member Wei Chen with us who will be performing two pieces, "Meditation on Love," and "Mongolian Dance." The pieces will be played on the GuZheng, a Chinese plucked zither (see photo below). 

GuZheng, a photo credit by Wei Chen

The performer and our featured artist is Wei Chen.

Wei Chen

Our Section, Music in Cultural Contexts, is truly multicultural, diverse, including other sections in the yearly events and programs. In this in mind, the Section will expand the interests to include INTREPID TOURIST experiences by our members. For example, I will be traveling to Sicily, Wei will be on the expedition ship at the Antarctic Peninsula, and Jarka will brief us about her recent journeys to Georgia, Africa, and Indonesia. 

Our first zoom Music Section meeting in 2024 will be February 21st at 12:30 PM. Rochelle Caballero will be our zoom hostess and facilitator. The program will indeed be very special. At the meeting we will be introducing Wei Chen, who at the time, will be on the expedition ship at the Antarctic Peninsula. Will try to briefly connect with her at the time of our meeting. 

The main theme of the February meeting is inspired by a recent William Blake exhibit at the Getty Museum. The title page of the presentation of the meeting is given below: 

                                                          SOUND - IMAGE - POETRY

We will hear Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg read a few poems by Blake, as well as David Axelrod music.


A special reading will be from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream -- Act II, Scene 1" by Rochelle Caballero, Audrey Jackson, and John Kirkwood (members from the Play-Reading Section). Blake has a beautiful watercolor from the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare:

Oberon, Titania, and Puck, with Fairies Dancing
by William Blake, about 1786

We will all enjoy the 2024 OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL with music director Mitsuko Uchida, June 6-9.


The Ojai Music Festival, June 6-9, 2024 has been
traditionally held in the Libbey Bowl,
an open-air setting 

Here is the famous Bowl in the park, awaiting for us to experience music program with Mitsuko Uchida as Music Director for the 78th Ojai Music Festival 2024.

Stay with us, visit us as often as possible, let us HEAR YOUR VOICES and SOUNDS, wherever you are!

We heard some incredible sounds and programs hosted at and organized by the UCLA's Clark Memorial Library. This video shows you a bit of the interior of this unique treasure Library.


Here are the details awaiting you when you arrive at the Library.

During the intermissions, take your time and browse
through the collections of the Clark Library


Guess what this artifact is all about? A million dollar question
Please let us know if you have ever used it and your experiences

The Zodiac Trio was featured on January 7th 2024 with a demanding program both for the performers and for the audience, especially in the piece composed by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), QUARTET FOR THE END OF TIME in 8 movements. As always, program notes were written by Bruce Whiteman 2023.

Rico Higuma, piano, Vanessa Mold, violin
Wolfram Koessel, cello, and Kliment Krylovskiy, clarinet

OUR NEXT MUSIC SECTION SESSION WILL be FEBRUARY 21st via zoom, and here's it is:

SOUND    IMAGE   POETRY

Hope to see you all in February, until then STAY HEALTHY, HAPPY, ENGAGED, CURIOUS!!

The 2023 FWC Music Season has been a year to remember, and to be grateful for so many things.

Wishing for another heathy, happy, more peaceful, and productive music-year filled with wonderful and surprising events, brilliant programs, and invited guests.

"Silent night," first performed in Oberndorf, Austria in 1818,
has been one among our Christmas favorites, and we traditionally sing 
at our own SING-A-LONG Holiday Fiesta
This time it was on November 15th, 2023 (see group photos below)

                                                                  AT-A-GLANCE

This is the time when we start planning our next Season. YOU are the essential part of the planning, so do email me your ideas for programs, favorite themes, performances you have attended on your trips, locally and abroad. While we await for the printed publication of our newsletter UPDATE (January through March 2024), I am updating you with details, photos, and links. I hope this is fun to look at and be reminded of hundreds of hours we have spent together.

JANUARY 2024

January 7 at 2 PM at the Clark Memorial Library. For details, visit their web page. The venue is exquisite, and so are the programs. Their music hall seats up to 60 people. General admission, at $40 per person, includes open seating, program notes, a post-concert reception with delicious appetizers and wine, and an informal meeting with the artists.  Next PROGRAM: Zodiac Trio with Cellist Wolfram Koessel.



The interior of the W. A. CLARK Memorial Library
(btw, concerts are not held in the Library)

January 21 at 2 PM. Gustavo Dudamel leads Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Das Rheingold Project, celebrating Frank Gehry and 20 years at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. We are attending the concert on Sunday January 21 at 2 PM.

LA Phil's Gustavo Dudamel leads the Rheingold Project
Walt Disney Concert Hall

February 21, 12:30-2:30 pm will be our own designed program via zoom, hosted by Rochelle Caballero.

The program has been inspired by the exhibit currently on display at the Getty Museum. William Blake (1757-1827) was a true visionary, engraver, poet, printer-maker, painter, and thinker. Tentatively, I call this program S I P for Sound + Imagery + Poetry because Blake encapsulates all this, as we will see from his "Songs of Innocence and of Experience," and his other extensive works.

Oberon, Titania, and Puck, with Fairies Dancing
About 1786
Blake took the subject of this watercolor from A Midsummer Night's Dream
by Shakespeare: "Hand in hand, with fairy grace,/
Will we sing, and bless this place


The Laughing Song
from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience


As a group, we will be reading Blake's songs, looking at some of his illustrations, and listen to related music excerpts. More details will be added soon. Finally, ....., the tree in the image below is in ______

Plan to be here in June 2024
Can you guess the PLACE???


As we bid farewell to an outstanding 2023 Season, we all were beyond grateful to welcome the forthcoming HOLIDAYS: 2023 Thanksgiving, High Holidays, and the New Year (2024).

Our exceptional group of members with invited guests of the Music in Cultural Contexts, celebrated our friendship, love for and dedication to the ARTS, and doing the right thing. We do that through the music Sing-a-Long program, Potluck feast, photoshoots, wonderful conversations, and so much more.

The ladies in front: Amelita (Chair Readers; Zorana (Chair & Founder Music Section); Jarka (the Hostess)
From left: Monique, Mary Ann, Melissa, Dorota, Wei, John, Jon, Simone, Glorya
Margaret, Marion, Marianne, Bernie
Photo credit: Milos
Not in the photo: Tom (co-host), Michele, Roger (Glorya's husband)

Our signature event goes back to 2016 when we started the tradition of Sing-a-Long gatherings. It has been so popular that we decided to include husbands/partners, sister sections, and birthday attendees. 

The welcoming feast is now served on two tables, and includes
international dishes, several cakes, some of them birthday cakes, and healthy veggies


Everyone gathers around the piano -- we sing traditional holiday carols
so much FUN, and we look forward & cheer to the 2024!!

Milos and Marianne in conversations at the Nov 15 gathering

Museum visit inspire me to design programming around some of the exhibits I have recently attended:


Hokusai (1760-1849) at the Santa Ana Bowers Museum


William Blake (1757-1827) at the Getty Museum


MADE IN L.A. at the UCLA Hammer's Museum

Hello Everyone, especially to our own group of members of the FWC Music in Cultural Contexts! 

This event and program has certainly been a wonderful gathering to kickoff our 2023-2024 Music Season.

Thank you all for attending, hosting, bringing refreshments, and kudos must go to our featured guest cellist Janice Foy!

Here are a few photos of that event, October 18, 2023 at Jarka and Tom's residence.

From left: Jaime, our birthday guest, Gerry, Joy, Tom, Amelita, Milos, June, Zorana (chair)
Janice (the cellist), Mike, Simone, Andrea, Glorya, Louise, Melissa, Roger, Asya, Lorraine

Jarka and Milos chatting during the pre- concert  interludes


Lots of going on during the gathering, including chess, snacking, and more

As a part of FWC General Meetings, Section chairs showcase their programs. Here is one of these tables were Music in Cultural Contexts Section and The Book Section shared their programs.

Zorana Ercegovac, Chair of the Music in Cultural Contexts shares
a tale with Amelita Dolorico, Chair of the Book Section




Monday, October 9, 2023

HAPPY FIRST 10th ANNIVERSARY 2013-2023

We are delighted to start off our New Music Season 2023-2024 with you!

There is so much to celebrate together, and we cannot wait to welcome JANICE FOY,

our own resident artist and cellist to be with us to help us get started with a New Year.

Please mark your calendars:

                                            WHEN: October 18th 2023 -- 12 noon to 2 pm

                                            WHERE: Jarka and Tom Wilcox residence

                                             PERFORMER: Janice Foy, PhD, our proud Bruin

Janice Foy, Ph.D. UCLA
For more details, please visit BRAVO

Light refreshments will be served, please feel free to share and bring your favorite snacks. 
From her official Web pages at BRAVO, you will see several photos of Janice with iconic artists musicians, several articles, and more details. I reproduce here a few of those photos FYI.

Janice Foy with Herbie Hancock

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Janice with the world famous Yo-Yo-MA


OR FIRST FALL 2023 FREE CELEBRATORY performance and social is coming up
                                            NOT TO MISS
                        LOOKIN' FORWARD TO HAVING YOU JOIN US


At our November 2022 social and performance with Janice Foy
Standing from left:
Mireya (passed away Summer 2022), Mary Ann, June, Marianne, 
Amelita (red dress), Jaime, Tom, Simone, Madonna (our dance expert)
Rochelle, Jarka (hostess with Tom), and Glorya

Front row: Zorana, Chair Music in Cultural Contexts, Janice, cellist

Photo credits by Roger, Glorya's husband



 






Thursday, August 3, 2023

UCLA Summer 2023 with MUSIC and Friends

No need to beat the LA traffic and drive to LADT or Hollywood. We can find exceptional music right here at UCLA. Just a few FREE and amazing chamber music performances to announce and review. We are in the middle of The Henry J. BRUMAN SUMMER Chamber Music Festival 2023. All four concerts are held in the intimate 134-seat Lani Hall Noon-1:00- PM. Exception was concert on August 9th 2023 !!

THE W.A. CLARK Memorial Library -- UCLA
Among my favorite chamber music settings in Los Angeles

QUIZ: Who was William Andrews Clark Jr.?

Yesterday, August 9th, we were treated with a special MARTIN CHALIFOUR & FRIENDS performance in the wonderful UCLA garden-like setting. Meeting & greeting old and new friends is always interesting. 
Martin Chalifour, LAPHIL Concertmaster, with Milos and our two
granddaughters
The BRUMAN SUMMER Chamber Music Festival 2023
Photo credits: Zorana Ercegovac (Chair, Music Section)

The performance took place in front of the UCLA's School of Music -- the audience enjoyed the program: Joseph Haydn String Quartet Op. 50 No. 6 in D major (1787)
Edvard Grieg Quartet, composed almost hundred years later (1878). 


Due to gentle drizzle and fire emergency conditions, the full concert was held in front of The Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. Lots of attendees loved this unexpected en plain air event, however most of us stood for over an hour under the colonnade of the northern portico of the Schoenberg Music Building.

CUDOS to the Artistic Director Ambroise Aubrun,
the Bruin and Associate Professor of Violin at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
with Milos, and our two granddaughters (visiting us from Dallas)
Photo credits: Zorana Ercegovac (Chair, Music Section)

Concerts like the BRUMAN's are also a wonderful time to (re)connect and spend some time with friends, the UCLA community on campus. Here are some of our (Music Section) friends during the event.

Thalia and Lydia enjoying a pre-concert time with 
Joy, Lorraine, and other dear friends.
Photo credits: Zorana Ercegovac (Chair, Music Section)

                                        The music program of BRUMAN's first concert on August 2nd was performed by   The Felici Piano Trio -- the program included: 

                                       W. A. Mozart's Piano Trio in G major, K. 564 (1788)

                                       J. Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 (1861)

Rebecca Hang, violin; Brian Schuldt, cello; and Steven Vanhauwaert

Steven and Rebecca with Friends are home-based in the Eastern Sierras

The second concert in the BRUMAN Summer Chamber Music Fest series was held on August 3rd, with Mozart and Brahms Piano Quartets.

Ambrose Aubrun, D.M.A., Artistic Director, with
Zachary Deak, piano; Virginie d'Avezac, violin, and Sophie Chauvenet, cello

UPCOMING CONCERTS feature Martin Chalifour, Principal Concertmaster LAPHIL, August 9th 2023. 

For details, see https://www.1718.ucla.edu/events/martin-chalifour-friends/

Meanwhile, let's treat ourselves to Concertmaster Martin Chalifour's home recital from his living room: 

martin chalifour at home

In parallel, lots of vibrant music and artistic scapes were going on: the nearby series of Taylor Swift concerts at So-Fi stadium in LA, galleries and installations at LACMA, The Getty Museum, Hammer Museum, both locations of Houser & Wirth, the Hollywood Bowl events, and so much more. More than 100 attendees gathered to listen Chalifour & Friends, under drizzle, with no chairs, but glad to have a chance to listen to exceptional artists and the program. Some of us continued to chat, share our summer experiences, and sip at the Faculty Club across the street.  

Friday, June 9, 2023

May and June 2023 on the stage

 As we come to the end of our Music in Cultural Contexts year, we wrap-up our successful music programming with several events as well as with a few announcements for the Fall of 2023.

           THANK YOU ALL FOR THE MEMORABLE MUSIC SEASON 2022-2023

Our May 2023 concerts highlighted the season with NIKKA GERSHMAN and VIVIAN FAN at the Faculty Club. The event was sold out in the first week of our published announcements. Here are a few moments from that outstanding program with brilliant artists, NIKKA and VIVIAN at the piano.

NIKKA GERSHMAN, flute, with VIVIAN FAN, piano



The program was advertised to the Faculty Club, The EMERITI & RETIREES, and the UCLA's Faculty Women's Club memberships; the interest has exceeded our expectations, so that every chair was used. The program followed a lively QA interaction. 

The audience was super engaged as active listeners, admirers, and
supporters to the artists and the selection of their music pieces 


The program included DOPPLER, GLUCK, TAFFANEL, MENDELSSOHN, WETZGER, and a surprise piece composed by NIKKA for this special event, May 17th 2023 at the Sherie Bar & Lounge. The Morrisons, who have been big supporters of the Faculty Club, were grateful to be in the audience, and enjoyed the concert as well as the interaction with the artists.

Vivian, NIKKA, and Zorana who invited Nikka and Vivian
to be our special guests -- before Nikka leaves for the Juilliard in Fall 2023


Robert Shlyakhtenko will be the pianist on June 11th 2023 in a recital at the Palisades Lutheran Church. He will be playing a movement of Edvard Grieg's piano concerto in A minor. Grieg composed this piece in 1868 in Denmark during one of his visits there. We will hear some of his interest in Norwegian folk music, his native country. 
We remember Victor Shlyakhtenko who performed for us as early as 2016-2017 when  he was 15 years old, and in May of 2018 during our Centennial General Meeting. On June 11th, we will hear Victor's younger brother Robert Shlyakhtenko with the Pacific Symphony. Details are below. The place is the Palisades Lutheran Church, 15905 Sunset Blvd, at the corner of El Medio and Sunset Blvd.




            Let's keep in touch, wishing you a healthy, cool, safe, and adventurous summer months. 



Here are a few beats from June 8, 2023 UCLA Afro Latin Jazz music by The Benjamin Dabiri's Afro Latin Ensemble.  The place, as always, at the Kerckhoff Coffeehouse Patio. Wonderful time to listen and interact with our undergraduates, all working with Prof. Arturo O'Farrill Valero. Joe (JOE'S OASIS) is drumming (in the photo above) and organizing Thursday lunchtime events.

   Please let me know your ideas for the next season 2023-2024: 
Music from your journeys, movies and plays, we want to be connected


Giovanni Segantini, 1858-1899 THE ITALIAN ALPS
Getty Museum (Brentwood)





Saturday, January 21, 2023

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

Spring is just several weeks away, so let's start planning for our March 15, 2023 Music Section Meeting.

The March meeting will be zoom hosted by Rochelle and programmed by Zorana with your contributions.

Our March 15th meeting will be organized around the theme of SPRING: all about colors, light, birds, blooms, renewed HOPE, and relationships between music and poetry, dance, cinema, and creative thoughts. This is also WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH.


For March 15th, please "adopt" your favorite FEMALE ARTIST and say a few words about her contributions to the world; examples: artist, scientist, humanist, inventor, activist, poetess, composer, conductor, vocalist, actress, your mother -- and WHY.

March 12, 2023

Also, by March 15th, we will all know about OSCAR awards and the power of MUSIC in CINEMA. You may want to share your favorite film music with the group. 

MAY 17th is our last in-person concert in the 2022-2023 music season.
Our featured guest is
NIKKA GERSHMAN.  At 15, she is an accomplished flutist, and among the youngest freshmen at the Juilliard School, a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. The recital will be held at the UCLA's Faculty Club -- Sherie Lounge  & Bar venue.
Nikka will be accompanied by Prof. Vivian Fan on a newly purchased piano, a generous gift by the Professors Sherie and Donald Morrison.

NIKKA GERSHMAN

I am sharing some of my favorite "spring" inspired art pieces, all from the J. P. Getty Museum where I spend considerable time in their Research Library, the gardens, galleries, fountains, and other spaces. 

A few of these pieces are posted here for you.

Spring by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Spring by Manet

Another reminder that we are upon the spring season of 2023, here are the 
birds enjoying sun -- Santa Monica Beach


Watch the 95th Academy Awards nominated TAR with Cate Blanchett and enjoy Mahler and Elgar! Calendar the OSCARS' night for Sunday March 12th.


Cate Blanchett has been nominated for the BEST ACTRESS in the film TAR

Question: You know the actor and film on the right?



May 17th will be our closing in-person concert at the Faculty Club≥

PREPARE FOR LOTS OF SURPRISES!! Also let me know if you wish to join in for a pre-concert lunch at the Club. Reservations are required. The event will be widely announced and seats are limited. So calendar the event for MAY 17th, Wednesday at 12 noon.


Planning ahead, please consider attending the 77th OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL from June 8 to 11, 2023. I will remind you again and publish in the May-June issue of UPDATE.
What a great way it wold be to celebrate our tenth anniversary with music, fellowship, just 75 m NW of LA. Visit their website and let me know if you will be attending the Festival.