We are in our 6th season! October 1st - opening night!

 Welcome to the first concert of our SIXTH season!

The summer has flown by like Endeavor on a 747, and suddenly it is not only fall, not only October, but the start of Classical Underground's sixth season.  Our heads are spinning but somehow a fine program has come together, with a distinctly eastern-European timbre.  

  

Musica Vitale 

Musica Vitale is a choral group devoted to unjustly neglected a cappella chamber music of the 19th and 20th centuries -- in our case, works by Georgy Sviridov and Sergei Rachmaninoff.   Something new to CU and sure to be a glorious sound!  

   
 

Rufus Choi 

Hometown pianist Rufus Choi's star has been rising since he won the first Jose Iturbi International Competition.  He makes his CU debut performing Haydn Variations and Ravel's  La Valse, evoking the decadence of turn-of-the-century Vienna.  

 

 Laszlo Mezo    

  

Returning to CU, Hungarian cellist Laszlo Mezo will perform the solo cello sonata of his compatriot composer, Zoltan Kodaly.         

  

            

Moni Simeonov                                   Georgi Slavchev     
 

 Pepron Pilibossian                                   Yoshika Misuda        

 

Offering more Ravel but of an entirely different color, CU faves Moni Simeonov (violin) and Pepi Pilibosian (piano) will play his Hungarian-themed Tzigane. Moni returns with pianist Georgi Slavchev and cellist Yoshika Masuda to perform a few movements from Ravel's ravishing Piano Trio. 

 

Ambroise Aubrun                               Anna Sarkisova 

With USC thus represented, we must offer some UCLA talent for balance!  Also making their CU debuts, violinist Ambroise Aubran and pianist Anna Sarkisova will play an excerpt of Brahms' Sonata #3 (which, stretching our eastern theme, debuted in Budapest with Brahms at the piano).  

As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy. Please RSVP via PayPal above. If you have problems with PayPal - don't want - email us right away! 

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood 

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument. 
On October 1st we will have CD213 - their newest C&A piano to the group of concert pianos.

        

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Classical Underground Showcase:    

   

TONY PRO        

We are proud to showcase “El Comico Divino”, a magnificent and important work by a great friend, LA artist Tony Pro. This masterful painting represents a mile-stone in Tony’s creative search, reconsiders the idea of Beauty and transforming it into an engaging and forceful visual statement.
 
It is enormously exhilarating to feel how LA is boiling with new ideas at the moment. With soul-searching questions about the future direction of the art world appearing almost daily from its various corners, our notorious LA gang  --  in a resurging realism of our time which I call NOVOREALISM -- is making itself heard and felt with ever-rising force.

  

Tony Pro "El Comoco Divino"

Over the summer, the venerable American Artist Magazine published a big article on our movement. My brothers-in-ART and ardent Undregrounders Jeremy Lipking, Tony Pro and myself just had an exciting three-hour presentation of our ideas at one of the year's most anticipated realist-artist's gatherings, The Weekend With The Masters. The Representational Art Conference held by California Lutheran University in just few weeks has invited us to discuss the same topic.

It is also exciting to see our East Coast brothers resolutely making Realism grounded in tradition a language of choice in expressing our modern thoughts, views and feelings. A perfect example is an "Empire" exhibition of new works by New York artist and friend Martin Wittfooth at the edgy, provocative and forward-looking Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City.

"Envisioning the familiar with the foreign, the paintings portray 'empire' as a dream in mythical repetition. The past becomes a painterly vision of a global psyche, lucid in theme, vibrant with tonality and color" - the gallery describes Martin's work.

The show runs through October 6, so don't miss it!

 

 

In ART we trust!