/blog/artsalive/home.aspxA blog for KUSC's weekly arts magazine of the air.en-usCopyright 2013, KUSC-NAThu, 23 May 2013 17:08:54 GMTSat, 18 May 2013 06:00:11 GMT1http://emmisinteractive.comWeekends are catnip for movie-lovers. So many new films opening, more than you have time to see, and the reviews are spread out all over the web and scattered throughout the pages of the Calendar/Arts & Leisure/Weekend section of your hometown paper (that is, if you’re sentimental like me, and still crave holding newsprint in your hands.) I don’t read the reviews, mind you!  I just like to know they are there. I almost always wait until I see the film before I read the review; I’m too impressionable. (One of my favorite LA Times columns by Jack Smith was the one in which he admitted having gone to hear Itzhak Perlman perform at the Hollywood Bowl one night, then  checking the review the next morning to see if he liked the concert.)But this weekend I’ve got a downright spring in my step. Having been enchanted by a pair .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10546358/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10546358Sat, 18 May 2013 06:00:11 GMT  The Herb Alpert Foundation and the California Institute of the Arts announced this year's recipients of the Alpert Award in the Arts at a luncheon last week, with Brooklyn-based composer Alex Mincek taking home the prize in the music category. Anthony Davis, one of the three members of a distinguished panel that selected Mincek, said the panelists were looking for someone who was "breaking the mold, not just following in the footsteps of other people...someone trying to create music in their own voice." Mincek fit the description. A saxophonist as well as composer, his music is known for combining many (seemingly) disparate elements. He uses repetition, not like it is used in Minimalism, but to create instability, unpredictability and surprise. Mincek says discovering free jazz led him to composition, and improvisation is a key component of his work: "Even if something's highly notated, and there's no actual improvisation happening," .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10544040/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10544040Mon, 13 May 2013 19:51:34 GMT The pioneering American composer Steve Reich has been hailed by the New York Times as “among the great composers of the century." Tonight he makes a rare LA appearance for a concert of his works as a part of LACMA's Art and Music Concert Series. KUSC Associate Producer Katie McMurran caught up with him after a recent rehearsal. KM: Here we are at LACMA, and I understand you performed in art museums at the beginning of your career. SR: As a matter a fact, I was at LACMA in 1972 or 1973, and we played Drumming in the atrium, and it was very difficult because the echo was enormous, but it was an occasion. When I started out in the late 1960's, basically what I was doing was quite different than the ruling Cage, Stockhausen, Boulez mentality, which everybody had to do or be laughed at as a fool. And .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10541557/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10541557Wed, 08 May 2013 15:53:48 GMTThe number and quality of entries for the first Arts Alive Poetry Contest has been overwhelming. To everyone who submitted a poem: thank you! We hope you've enjoyed reading the ones we've posted this week on the Arts Alive blog. Here are a few more before the work week closes (and be sure to tune in tomorrow at 8AM to Arts Alive to hear Brian Lauritzen read one of his favorites). City of Angelsby Eddie Glass I am bordered by the mountainsAnd spread out to the seaA potpourri of ethnic communitiesSprawling and congestedMy environs are diverseA focal point to manyWho fill this universeI am a hub-bub of excitementDepending on ones tasteOr a den of tranquilityWhatever be your paceI am beauty, I am beastYour choice, your beliefYes, I'm far from perfectAnd suffer frailtiesYet no place .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10540146/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10540146Fri, 03 May 2013 22:11:45 GMTEvery day this week, we're posting entries from the first ever Arts Alive Poetry Contest and on Saturday, Brian Lauritzen will pick one to read on Arts Alive. So far we've posted poems that capture the experience of listening to Los Angeles, going to the Hollywood Bowl and poems that travel the Southland. Today, a set of poems that deal with that most LA of phenomena: traffic.   Untitledby Bejamin Toscher Rolling wheels and rolling wavesSteel and glass sets SoCal haze Bumper to bumper, stop to stopGridlock might make my head just pop Then a tune rolls from the speakerLike water to desert, truth to seeker Washed over by the grace of toneCleansed by song on the way home Bach, Mozart, and BeethovenMasters mend what has been broken Where traffic disrupts a flowing peaceThere reconstructs KUSC   My Classical Southern Californiaby Lucy .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10539586/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10539586Thu, 02 May 2013 22:35:05 GMTThe Sandpixies: Da Capo George Ralf Kukula, Germany The concessions at REDCAT will switch from cocktails to milk and goldfish when its 8th International Children's Film Festival opens this weekend. The festival is a blockbuster every year, eliciting excitement from both children and adults. As REDCAT Executive Director Mark Murphy notes, the festival offers "thoughtfully put together programs that are sensitive in the way they deal with issues of our changing world." That means parents won't have to worry about shielding the eyes of their young ones, or even their very young ones. The program Short and Sweet is geared toward the 6-and-under set, and clocks in at just 46 minutes, the perfect length for young attention spans. "A lot of these kids are not ready for the Cineplex," Murphy says. "We're not going to hush people like in a library. They talk back to the film, to the characters .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10539573/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10539573Thu, 02 May 2013 21:59:35 GMTEarlier this month, Arts Alive announced its first ever Poetry Contest. We asked you to help us celebrate National Poetry Month by sending us poems about music and Southern California. We'll be posting entries here on the Arts Alive blog all week and Brian Lauritzen will pick one to read this Saturday on Arts Alive. So far we've posted poems that capture the experience of listening to Los Angeles and going to the Hollywood Bowl. Today, we're posting poems that travel the Southland.   Beethoven at Sunsetby Jaime K. Hudson The Night Shift has ended:I started the morning here,In my Anaheim apartment,Trying to get more than an hour's worthOf un-interrupted, un-corrupted sleep...Before my neighbor started on his dailyRound of expletives, aimed at his wife and kids Some people watch soap operas:Why they do, when Life is alreadyA daily melodrama - is beyond me... .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10538987/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10538987Wed, 01 May 2013 22:44:23 GMTEarlier this month, Arts Alive announced its first ever Poetry Contest. We asked you to help us celebrate National Poetry Month by sending us poems about music and Southern California. We'll be posting entries here on the Arts Alive blog all week and Brian Lauritzen will pick one to read this Saturday on Arts Alive. Yesterday we posted poems that capture the experience of listening to Los Angeles. Today, poems that take us to one of the great Los Angeles music venues: the Hollywood Bowl. Hollywood Bowl Haikuby Michael Kelly The freeway offersHer dissonant counterpoint,Outside the band shell   The Hollywood Bowlby Basha Yonis In the city synonymous with fake, whose landmark is a re-purposed advertisement, there is a natural hollow, a bowl, now shaped, paved, enhanced, amplified.No sterile isolation chamber, but open to the elements of modern life such as airplanes and helicopters. The patrons .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10538421/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10538421Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:08:22 GMT   Earlier this month, Arts Alive announced its first ever Poetry Contest. We asked you to help us celebrate National Poetry Month by sending us poems about music and Southern California. We've received nearly an inch of entries (about 70 poems) and they're still coming in (the deadline to submit a poem to artsalive@kusc.org is tomorrow at 5PM). This contest has confirmed two things: KUSC listeners are a creative and thoughtful bunch and Southern California is a great place to live, especially for music lovers. Here are three poems that capture the experience of listening to Los Angeles.   MY EYE ON L.A.by Sally Currie of Pasadena Was that the music of the spheresDescending on my waiting ears? It throbs with vibrancy, loud and shrill.Sirens, trash trucks, traffic will Create the kind of city soundIt's sometimes hard to be around. But urban living has its pluses..../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10537845/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10537845Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:54:48 GMT ©Fred Herzog, Curtains, 1972. Courtesy of Paris Photo Paris Photo has been annually celebrating the crossing of boundaries since 1997, and now, the French art fair is taking it a step further: by coming to the iconic Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. Because Paris Photo explores and exhibits the construction and evolution of still and moving images, Los Angeles is the logical and ideal site choice. The event is huge, hosting 71 international galleries and publishers from 14 countries. Of the 59 participating galleries, many are also exhibiting solo artist shows. Last year, the event took place at the Grand Palais, and attracted 54,000. Starting today, April 26, there will be exhibitions, screenings, conversations with and between artists, and more through the weekend. ©Danny Lyon, Crossing the Ohio, 1966. Courtesy of Paris Photo Paris Photo's director, Julien Frydman, reached out to independent curator Douglas Fogle to conceptualize and coordinate .../blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10536991/blog/artsalive/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10536991Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:03:48 GMT