Our December Holiday Music & Arts Even and Annual Toy Drive

Online reservations are now closed. Dress warm! It is winter time in the studio!

December Holiday Night  

this coming Monday, the 14th @ 8 p.m.  

Music & Arts in the Studio

Annual Toy Drive and Potluck Party

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

   

  

We have a beautiful and festive program for our December evening at Classical Underground, including two CU performing debuts.

Sakura is an ensemble of five cellists - Jonathan Dormand, Michael Kaufman, Yoshika Masuda, Peter Myers, and Sarah Rommell - who just received a rave review from Mark Swed in the LA Times.  Their name is a poetic tribute to the master with whom they all studied at USC, the great Ralph Kirshbaum: Kirshbaum (German) = cherry blossom = sakura (Japanese).

Valiantly upholding the UCLA side of our musical spectrum, professor and performer Inna Faliks will play Ravel's ravishing and devilishly difficult Gaspard de la nuit.

We are always so pleased to have violinist Mark Kashper of the LA Phil at CU, especially when he is joined by our dear friend Kanae Matsumoto on piano.  They will perform the fantastic 3rd sonata of Edvard Grieg, by turns dramatic and lyrical and full of folky Norwegian themes.

Finally, pianist Tae Yeon Lim, in her first appearance with us, will play Mikhail Pletnev's solo transcription of the Nutcracker, sending everyone into the night dancing with sugarplum fairies.

   

As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy, and the unwrapped toys for the children from the neighboring church.

     

Online reservations are now closed.  Please dress warm!

  

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We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery Los Angeles  

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument

Model D - CD551.

  

 

   

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Classical Underground Showcase 

   TERESA OAXACA  

   

   

Teresa Oaxaca  "Allegory of Tea" 38" x 26" Oil on linen

CU is proud to showcase the exciting work of Teresa Oaxaca.  Teresa is quickly emerging as a unique and strong voice within the rapidly strengthening contemporary realist movement. Having studied with virtually all important sources of classicist training available today, such as Angel Academy, Florence Academy and a stint with the legendary Odd Nerdrum, she at her young age managed to rapidly process her training, digesting all its strengths and bypassing all its weaknesses. Not a small feat.

Her grasp of the visual image is determined and commanding. She articulates her form decisively, efficiently and with energetic dedication.  She organizes her densely populated and tightly cropped compositions with an excellent sense of underlying masses, and further develops intricate elements in a web of organically merging shapes, arriving at an overall unity. Her color choices are brave yet harmonized. The fluidity of her execution in oils comes out of a deliberate and tireless exercise of visual thought in drawing.

Coupled with the raw nerve of her emotionally torn and ambiguous characters, this gives an eery sense of an edge to her otherwise unabashedly whimsical and deceptively juvenile world of Victorian dreams and nightmares. The dolls of her compositions attain a distinct human presence and the humans act as overgrown dolls, incapable of dealing with any infringement from the outside world.

You cannot fail but see the unyielding will of an Artist in the work of this ever lace-clad tough girl.

 

in ART we trust!

 The doors open at 7 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m.  Unassigned seating.  Potluck.  Directions and address are below:

405 South to the Harbor 110 South towards San Pedro; Exit Torrance Blvd., Turn Left at the Stop sign; Turn Left on Torrance Blvd /next light/; Continue pass Figueroa Ave, pass Carson Town Center North; 200 yards before next light /which is Main street/ make Left into a driveway to a large parking lot  and proceed to your right. Please note that the gate next to CU will be closed for safety.  The entrance is from the parking lot. The building is on the corer of Main and Torrance. 20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745