\”I have the great good fortune to have an ear to the ground and a great many wonderful colleagues,\” Kahane said of his network of music-world sources, mostly fellow musicians with whom the conductor has formed strong bonds.
Classical virtuosos, like golden-age movie stars, are often thought to lead charmed lives in which the sundry benefits of celebrity accrue without cost. Lives of endless glamour are a fantasy, of course, yet the suggestion persists, in part because of musicians like Gil Shaham, the American Israeli violinist who comes to the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday, July 10, to perform Tchaikovsky\’s Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and guest conductor Leonard Slatkin.
Now Long Beach Opera, a company known for its daring repertory and unconventional interpretations, is presenting the West Coast premiere of \”The Diary of Anne Frank,\” with three performances, from April 17 to 21 at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and at Lincoln Park in Long Beach. (Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood will also present a semistaged performance on Yom HaShoah, April 15.)
Although most music lovers don\’t realize it, a number of prominent conductors were born in Los Angeles. Lorin Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic, is an L.A. native, and so is Michael Tilson Thomas, who leads the San Francisco Symphony. And if we\’re not too technical about it, we can also include David Robertson, a rising star now at the St. Louis Symphony. He came of age in Santa Monica.
Hila Plitmann is building a career based largely on new music by composers like David Del Tredici, John Corigliano, Roger Reynolds and Esa-Pekka Salonen, the latter the longtime music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and something of a Plitmann champion.
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