MusicFEST 2021 with LACO and Jaime Martin

MUSIC IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2021-2022 KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR

  ---   both in-person, via zoom and virtual streaming

Our FIRST in-person concert (after some 18+ months lockdown) was on November 13th 2021 at the UCLA's Royce Hall. The program was glorious, performance excellent, well attended, and safe!

The program included: Mozart's piano concerto no. 22 in E-flat, K 482 (composed in 1785), and

Beethoven's Symphony no. 3 in E-flat, also known as Eroica, written from 1803 to 1804 -- we may be incorporating parts of Eroica at one of our future events and gatherings, considering the historical and cultural contexts of the time.

Jeffrey Kahane, piano, with LACO's Jaime Martin, Music Director and Conductor

A part of our Faculty Women's Club (FWC) Music Section in Cultural Contexts:
Rochelle, Tom, Jarka, Zorana (Mireya and Anne-Marie were also in attendance)
just like an impressionistic painting with the Royce Hall in back

Beethoven's 250th anniversary of his birth (1770 - 1827) has been widely celebrated around the world with newly published books, concerts, special events, and lectures throughout 2020 - 2021. Examples are Beethoven's Empire of the Mind and  Jan Caeyers monograph, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, and other publications and concerts.

Our first 2021 - 2022 MUSIC in CULTURAL CONTEXTS gathering & program was held on October 20th 2021 via zoom. Great and active attendance. Our newest member Anne-Marie Spataru, both a Board member of the Faculty Women's Club as well as of LACO. Rochelle Caballero (see her photo below: top row, first from left) is our zoom hostess. Zorana Ercegovac (top row, second from left) is Founding Chair and Artistic Director of the Section. 

Welcome on board Anne-Marie! Her (her photo is on page 2, with a few other attendees).

Zahava Koren (middle row, first from right) joined us from Vancouver. 

Our invited guests for this particular event and program were Maria (Lolo) Penedo and John Silvester, both Ph.D. UCLA alumni in the Computer Science Department. 

Jaime Bulkacz (middle row, first from left) explained and answered questions related to the Tango Music from his native Argentina. He is our tango music expert. Two years ago, he was a featured speaker and presenter of the tango music: the roots, the evolution, and different variations of this genre in Argentina and globally. 

Jarka Wilcox (middle row, second from left) did a great overview of the "Czech History in Nutshell" for us as an introduction to B. Smetana and the mid 19th century national movement in Europe.

The program incorporated dance music and traced classical forms and genres to specific folk traditions.

For example, we included:

Frederick Chopin's mazurkas -- performed by Martha Argerich, when she was 25, and again at 80

Manuel de Falla's El Amor Brujo

Astor Piazzolla's Libertango

Bela Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances for piano (performed by Helene Grimaud)

Sergei Rachmaninoff's romance "Never sing to me, my beauty," set on Pushkin's poem 

The concert closed with B. Smetana's Ma Vlast. 

Our October 2021 meeting spent some time planning our calendar year.

We will be meeting at the Royce Hall on November 13 for the LACO concert. Will meet and greet at the Ahmanson Terrace (see below) before the performance at about 7:15 PM. The spacious Terrace is facing sunset and it is a great open venue to enjoy with friends, meet new ones, and relax before concerts. 

Milos Ercegovac, distinguished Professor Emeritus in CS

We will celebrate our Christmas and High Holidays on December 15th with the SMALL ANTHOLOGY OF MUSIC 2021 (SAM '21). We will invite our sister FWC sections, including "bookies" and play readers to join us. We ask the participants to contribute a short piece of music (any type, period, or genre) which we will share with the attendees. They will say a few words about the significance that music has to them. As soon as I receive your selections, I will create a shell for SAM '21.

Finally, as we plan on returning to the Faculty Club (notice their new name: Faculty Center to Faculty Club), we would like to propose to have two of our concerts at the Cypress Room, one in Fall 2022 and another, in Spring 2023. See our members attendees when we invited a duo flutist and pianist.

Graduate USC students performed for us in October 2019 in the
Cypress Room, The Faculty Center (now Faculty Club)

The idea is to advertise our FWC Music Section in Cultural Contexts program in the FC Newsletter. Ideally, the FC members would have a great music experience after they had their lunch in the FC dining room; alternatively, FC members could just join us for an hour of great music & social. This would be a nice promotion for the UCLA FWC, for our section, and the Faculty Club could have free of charge  music event.  

                            LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU

                                       HAPPY and SAFE HALLOWEEN

From the neighborhood walks

LACO (Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra) and their Music Director Maestro Jaime Martin have put together a wonderful five-event program on Fridays at 6 PM. 

LACO performs Ginastera's Variaciones Concertandes
August 27, 2021 

The program included Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), an Argetinian classical music composer: Variaciones Concertandes. The performance was broadcasting live from the WDCH, the first in-person concert after 503 days! It was available via utube.

Here are the following music events, all available for us via youtube:

 

September 10 (Friday at 6 PM)

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946): El Amor Brujo

 

September 24 (Friday at 6 PM)

Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony no. 4 “Italian”

 

October 8 (Friday at 6 PM)

KiMani Bridges and Claude Debussy

 

October 22 (Friday at 6 PM)

Juan Pablo Contreras and Geronimo Gimenez

Since most of us are vaccinated, but awaiting for our booster shots, the best way to keep healthy and safe is to listen to music program via media channels, such as LACO's SummerFEST 2021.

However, I offer to meet in person in smaller groups, and discuss our programs at two wonderful locations: Luskin's Plateia at UCLA. Another is at the J. P. Getty. I can arrange a car pool for small groups of 4 of us to drive and spend some time at their galleries and their wonderful Restaurant, which is now operational. 

Here are several photos from the collection of the J. P. Getty Museum in Brentwood.

Edvard Munch, Starry Night (1893)

We do not travel, but we can visit the Swiss Alps, French countryside, sail, and visit Norway.

Giovanni Segantini: Spring in the Alps (1897)
This is just a detail from a larger painting from the J. P. Getty Museum collection

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899): The road from Versailles to Saint-Germain
We feel the outdoors, exploring the effects of changing light and weather