Zubin Mehta, one of Southern California\’s favorite musicmakers, will return to his old stomping grounds Dec. 10 to conduct the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra\’s (IPO) first Los Angeles concert in three years.
Leon Hirsh Guide, conductor, music educator and musician, died in early October. He was 81.
Guide was born Feb. 3, 1921, in Turkey to Clara and Joseph Guide, who had left Russia during the civil war. The family moved to Chicago when Guide was 2.
Los Angeles largely ignored Arnold Schoenberg, arguably the most influential and controversial composer of the 20th century, when he labored at USC and UCLA during the last 17 years of his life.\n\nAs if to make up for the slight, the city\’s musical and cultural institutions will commemorate the 50th anniversary of Schoenberg\’s death with an array of concerts, lectures and symposia through next March.
Isaac Stern, considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, died Saturday in New York at 81.
It says something about Gisele Ben-Dor\’s dedication to her profession that when she made her conducting debut with the Israel Philharmonic in 1983, she was nine months pregnant.\nHer concluding piece was Stravinsky\’s \”The Rite of Spring,\” which, in view of her particular condition, was renamed by the orchestra as \”The Rite of the Offspring.\”\n\n
Not long before Leonard Bernstein died, in 1988, the ebullient conductor and composer approached pianist Jeffrey Siegel backstage at Lincoln Center. His business was urgent. He wanted to discuss Siegel\’s \”keyboard conversations,\” concerts with commentary pioneered by Siegel and based on Bernstein\’s TV performances of the 1950s and 1960s.
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