Fresh Talent Fuels a Strong Music Story

Some entertaining musicals over the past few years have focused, not on stars, but on the people behind them, those who helped make them successful. Motown: the Musical, for instance, was about Berry Gordy, while Million Dollar Quartet paid respect to Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records.

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Encountering Jazz with Cécile McLorin Salvant at La Jolla SummerFest

Can jazz and classical music co-habit congenially on the same stage? La Jolla SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnatan set out to answer that question in the affirmative in Wednesday’s (August 7) concert, the opening salvo in Barnatan’s new Synergy Series. Combining disciplines and art forms provides the mainspring to this series, and upcoming programs in…

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SummerFest’s Sublime Spiritual Journey

Saturday’s La Jolla SummerFest program, “Songs of Heaven and Earth,” clustered major sacred works by J.S. Bach, Olivier Messaien and Gustav Mahler, a combination of composers I cannot recall appearing together on a previous SummerFest program, Both the musical progression and the spiritual journey proved unusually compelling.

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