RSVP now for Holiday Night Music & Art in the Studio - Dec. 9

The online RSVP are now closed.

Holiday Night  

this coming Monday,
December 9 @ 8 p.m.  
Dress warm! It is Winter time in the studio!

Music &Arts in the Studio 

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

For the holidays, we have a program full of the cheer of good friends, the warmth of some of our favorite composers' most beautiful music, and the spice of a new vision combining art and fashion.

Classical Underground regulars and "60 Minutes" viewers are familiar with the wonderful talent of Rex Lewis Clack.  We are delighted that Rex will join us to perform a Chopin Nocturne and Rachmaninoff prelude - a little sampler in advance of the big fundraiser that he is performing (with Gabriela Montero) on December 15 at Hollywood Forever to benefit RexandFriends.org. You can read more about it (and see a Science Channel documentary) in a piece written by another dear friend of CU, Sam McElroy, who is one of Rex's teachers: The Genius Next Door.

 

We are also happy to present for the first time at CU the rising Trio Céleste -- artists-in-residence at UC Irvine, and soon to be the Trio of the Grand Canyon!   Consisting of Iryna Krechkovsky on violin, Ross Gasworth on cello, and Kevin Kwan Loucks on piano, they will perform one of Dvorak's greatest works, the Dumky Trio.

Adding some vocal sparkle, the gifted prize-winning soprano Jennifer Lindsay will perform a selection of opera arias accompanied on piano by the esteemed Mary Au.

Our great CU favorite Eduardo Delgado will bring Joy to the Steinway keyboard with the beautiful Barcarolle of Chopin, some sunny Scarlatti sonatas, and a tango by his compatriot, Piazzolla.

 

And in a Classical Underground first, we will experience the collision of fashion and art as designed by Victor Wilde for his unique sartorial conception, The Bohemian Society. As we suggest each year, it would be a lovely gesture if you could bring an unwrapped toy to place under our Christmas tree; the good souls of the next door church will see to it that these gifts give some cheer to local children who aren't living in the merriest of circumstances.  

Please RSVP via Paypal on the top of the post

  

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We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood 

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument. 

  

 

        

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Classical Underground Showcase 

Scott Burdick  

One of the defining features in the resurgent contemporary realist movement in America - or what I call NOVOREALISM - is a remarkable camaraderie among its leading members.

A perfect representation of this uplifting bond is a painting by a great living master and friend, Scott Burdick.  It depicts another great contemporary painter and comrade, NOVOREALIST Tony Pro, as well as a distinct artist and important LA art teacher Vadim Zang - both friends of CU and themselves subjects of our showcases.  If that is not enough, the painting depicts the most incredible bi-coastal get together of our art gang right in my studio while we all painted another great contemporary painter and friend, Jeremy Lipking, as our model.  As deeply personal as Art is, it is still a collective life form - it is born in solitude, but grows in a pack!

It is a distinct pleasure and privilege to welcome as our CU Artist Showcase Scott Burdick, a true artist of strength and reason, just as outspoken in his views as he is tenacious with his brush. Art figures like Scott are what make this stage in the development of contemporary visual art such an exciting place.

   

 
Scott Burdick: "Artists in a studio" oil on canvas 

                                           

Accepting the reservations for October 21st - we are sold out!

Dear friends,

We are sold out for tonight!
To the lucky attendees - this is a reminder that we open the doors at 7 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m.  This is a potluck event - please bring the foods and drinks you would enjoy and share with your old and new friends!

For the directions, please read the posting below.  See you tonight!

Opening Season - October 21st - Program Announcement

For our first program of the new season, we welcome two interesting and accomplished newcomers to Classical Underground, along with some exceptionally talented CU regulars.

Uriel Vanchestein is a composer, conductor and outstanding clarinetist (and already a veteran of the wonderful Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland). Alex Slobodyanik, whose debut recroding with EMI Classic made rave reviews, has performed at the Royal Festival Hall and the Wigmore Hall in London, New York's Lincoln Center and the Carnegie Hall, to name a few. Uriel will perform one of his own works with the fine cellist Evgenny Tonkha, and these two will join Alex for the delightful Clarinet Trio of young Beethoven. Going solo, Alex will play a selection of Rachmaninoff Preludes.

Evgenny Tonkha will also play the Chaconne of Vitali, with Diana Volman on piano. We are also fortunate to have two local orchestra stars, cellist Armen Ksajikian (of the LA Chamber Orchestra), and violinist Radu Pieptea (of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and New West Symphony) returning to CU and joining forces for some Handel, Gliere, Sousa (minus the tubas!) and more. And CU super-virtuoso Harout Senekeremian will tackle the Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata #2.

Please RSVP via Paypal in the post above.
******
We are most grateful to our supportive friends at Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument.

******

Classical Underground Showcase: Juliette Aristides 

With the remarkable advances during the last fifty years of feminist causes and changes within society, we see an incredible and perhaps historically unparalleled outburst of women's creative and productive force within every area of human endeavor, particularly in visual ART.

One of the leading and inspiring voices within the world of Classical Visual Art is Juliette Aristides. A prominent painter of evocative work, she possesses a rare form of passionate intelligence, and is the influential, intellectually probing author of four important books on traditional studio practice and classical drawing. A prominent ART educator, she is one of the leading advocates of a growing Atelier movement that is filling the void left by the inability of most accredited academic institutions to provide young talents with a choice of ART education based on the classical tradition. She was an original member of the Water Street Atelier and currently teaches at the Seattle Academy of Fine Art, where she founded the award winning Classical Atelier Program.

It is our honor and privilege to showcase this remarkable woman - artist and friend.
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please remember, this is a private party, not a public event

directions to my "Grand Atelier" studio:  

DO NOT use google maps - as they give you the wrong location!!!

please note that for convenience of cars not passing by while you are hanging outside, you will be entering from the first gate of the property on your left immediately before the building with columns begins, not second gate as before, then proceed to the big parking lot and walk into our building in the corner of Torrance and Main. 

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

 

A Hot New Season after a Hot Summer at CU

Opening Season
Music & Art + potluck party

We are happy to announce our new  

Hot Season after a Hot Summer

Save the date!  

 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Look for the email invitation next week,
or check back our website   

 

                           

Please also check your bulk folder, as many of you reported that you are not getting our emails.  We email everyone on the list!

 

 

 

   

May Night Music & Art + Potluck Party this coming Monday, the 20th

Dear friends, For our last Classical Underground gathering of the season, we present an evening featuring the art of the transcription in both contemporary and classic form. Whether created as a way to bring great works to a wider audience and variety of instruments or as a flashy statement of impressive virtuosity -- or both at the same time! -- transcriptions are an entertaining test of the skills of both the composer/arranger and the musician tasked with bringing to life the spirit of the original out of daunting fistfuls of notes.

In the case of our great CU friend Jura Margulis, the arranger and performer are one and the same. Carrying on a long tradition of piano virtuosi, Jura will perform his own transcriptions of Bach and Puccini, along with transcriptions by Liszt (of Saint-Saens) and Busoni (of Bach).

LA native and CU newcomer Nicholas King will perform Liszt's highly diverting and difficult piano "concert paraphrase" of Verdi's opera Rigoletto.

Making his CU debut, Sidney Hopson will perform his transcription of Libertango by Astor Piazzolla he made for solo marimba.

Carrying on the tradition for the violin, Mark Kashper of the LA Philharmonic accompanied on piano by fellow CU favorite Kanae Matsumoto will perform a few pieces that he will announce "on stage", which most likely will include some transcriptions as well!

Also on the program, not just the re-working of old tunes, but some completely original new compositions:

Coming back to CU as a soloist, pianist/composer Georgi Slavchev will perform a selection of his original etudes, boldly alongside etudes of Chopin.

And CU regulars Victor de Almeida (viola) and Harout Senekeremian (piano) will perform "Hatzlacha Rabbah!!!" by the young LA composer George "Nick" Gianopoulos...which translated from Hebrew means "Too much success!!!"... something we wish for all of our CU family, performers and audience alike!(!!)

An ART Movement Beyond a “Look”:
Daniel Pinkham, Christopher Pugliese 

We are fortunate to be of a generation to witness the emergence of a true movement within the broadly diverse world of contemporary ART. In the ART of our time. Genuine ART movements are rare. They happen every 30 – 40 years, the last one being post-modernism which formed in the 1970s.

Daniel W. Pinkham “Dawn’s Peace” 40 X 60 oil, private collection

Realism as a general world view never went away throughout the exhilarating parade of the avant-garde in the last century. Yet, never before has it been as wide-ranging in its appeal to rebellious young talents, turning into a platform for drastic rethinking of all pre-positions and accepted wisdoms of the current cultural establishment -- all while definitely, deliberately and doggedly working on re-shaping and shifting the very foundations of our visual perception, striving to reach the core of our human ability to relate to and to judge the world around us according to our own day’s levels of sensibility.

In this gutsy, non-conformist and intuitive drive the New Humanistic Realism of the first quarter of the 21st century assumes the peculiar and much unexpected qualities of a new “avant-garde.”

Real movements are marked by commonalities of visual language and based on over-reaching visual philosophies beyond any specific or trendy “look.” Resurging Realism as a form of serious contemporary artistic expression is maturing into a stylistically wide-ranging art form of today that is snugly fits this definition. If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is highly unlikely to be Argentinosaurus.

In the theoretical and practical void left by a winding down (according to many un-ignorable observers) post-modernism (some think it ended at the beginning of 21st century), the emergence of such a new movement was all but inevitable as well as exciting for participating in, studying and experiencing. It is like living in the Paris of 1913 all over again.

Christopher Pugliese “Twelve to One” 1998 44” X 57” oil, private collection

Case in point, what appears to be the vastly different work of two great contemporary masters: the influential Los Angeles painter Daniel Pinkham and noted New York painter Christopher Pugliese.

On first look these exciting artists represent almost an opposing approach, yet both are in fact the shiny sides of a singular coin. Using different visual linguistics, they share an over-riding visual purpose, philosophy and worldview. Both are striving for tonal unity and harmony as well as seriousness of visual content and complex executional sophistication of form.

Their mastered and much rarefied ability to handle close tonalities in perceiving dimensional mass empower both, Chris’s academic approach in describing infinite variety of Form while opening Dan’s infinite possibility of Color.

Both are coming together visually to give a specific way of somber and penetrating contemplation of reality from a very species-centered point of view. Certainly not your grandma’s realism.

________________________________

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood, Downtown and Pasadena for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument!

 Online Reservation is not closed.
Our address is 20795 Main Street, Carson, CA 90745.  Entrance is from the parking lot.

important organizational stuff

please notice the start time - the doors open @ 7 pm, the music starts @ 8 pm.    
Your Paypal payment is your RSVP - please bring the confirmation with you.  

our seating is limited; bringing folding chairs just in case is helpful even with the extra chairs we have. 

no flash photography during performance 
as it distracts musicians.

no audio or video-recording without permission 
due to copyright.  

please do not talk, eat or drink during performance

please be careful with anything that makes sound, like bottles - remember, musicians play and we record.

please dress according to the weather as it might get rather chilly in the studio on a cold night or it might stay fairly warm on a hot night.

potluck after-party request

there is a potluck after-party, so please bring along enough GOOD FOOD and BOOZE

  

(good meaning the one you'd actually like to have and if everyone brings enough of it individually, then there is enough to share) as this proves to be a fabulous component of our "part-cert" or "cons-arty" and, well, much in demand as there are more people now than food .

please remember, this is a private party, not a public event

directions to my "Grand Atelier" studio:  

DO NOT use google maps - as they give you the wrong location!!!

please note that for convenience of cars not passing by while you are hanging outside, you will be entering from the first gate of the property on your left immediately before the building with columns begins, not second gate as before, then proceed to the big parking lot and walk into our building in the corner of Torrance and Main. 

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

March Night Music & Art + potluck party this coming Monday, the 25th @ 8 p.m.

Dear friends,       

OK, LA is not Siberia...but after an unusually chilly winter, Classical Underground is ready to celebrate the arrival of Spring with an eclectic program of interesting new repertoire and classical and romantic favorites.

 

Anton Smirnov

A star was born at our last concert when young pianist Anton Smirnoff made his CU debut with a rollicking rendition of Stravinsky's Petrushka.  Anyone who was there will be thrilled that this highly impressive Colburn student is returning to play works of Rachmaninoff, Liszt, and Prokofiev, before he heads off to the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels.

Eduardo Delgado

Our dear friend Eduardo Delgado is renowned for the Argentinian piano repertoire, but it is really Bach and the romantic composers that are closest to his heart. He will perform one of Bach's sunniest works, the Italian Concerto, as well as Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuses.

 

Moni Simeonov                                     Pepron Pilibossian 

CU favorite Moni Simeonov occasionally favors us with rarely-heard (here, anyway!) gems of Bulgarian composers, and he continues that exploration with the great Pancho Vladigerov's Chant and Vardar, accompanied by fellow CU regular Pepi Pilibossian on piano.

Evgeny Tonkha                                          Anna Drubich

Another duo quickly becoming CU faves are cellist Evgeny Tonkha and pianist/composer Anna Drubich.  They will perform works of Granados, De Falla, Piazzolla, Popper, and one of Anna's own compositions, "Night Song."

 

Ben Lulich

Continuing on that note, because Spring is time to celebrate LIVING music, Pepi returns with Ben Lulich, the wonderful clarinetist of the Pacific Symphony, to perform the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano of Easley Blackwood, a still living, still teaching composer at the University of Chicago.  

Although the weather is expected to be warm, the nights are still cool, so please dress warmly! As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.  Please RSVP via Paypal.   If you have problems with PayPal - don't wait - 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. 

  

        

******

                    

   

Classical Underground is proud to showcase a new painting by Christopher Pugliese

"Mother Earth" oil on canvas 80" X 76"  

        

         

  "Mother Earth" 80" x 76" oil on canvas   

   

A New York painter, Christopher Pugliese is one of the leading masters of a newly emerging movement in Contemporary American Art that I call NOVOREALISM. Uniting a group of young figurative painters, it reflects a collective artistic search at the end of post-modernism toward a different expressive language -- marked by a command of classical form, highly developed tonality and realist life-like colors as a vehicle of expressing the current state of sensibility and attitude towards dramatic shifts in our society. Christopher is a rarity among contemporary representational figurative painters, capable of conceiving and successfully executing a large-scale thematic composition combining multiple plastically-connected figures filled with movement -- a task similar in its overriding complexity of artistic and technical challenges to climbing Mount Everest, and requiring uncompromising life-long dedication.

Christopher recently had the honor of a retrospective solo exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art and is a subject of its accompanying catalog.

"Mother Earth" represents Christopher's most recent find on this exciting, continuous high road, and I am particularly excited welcoming such an extraordinary contemporary artist and brother-in-ART.

  

In ART we trust!    

Feb 4th - Music and Art with Szymanowski Quartet and more!

Music & Art + potluck party

this coming Monday , the 4th @ 8 p.m.   

                           

After a holiday and frosty winter break, we are ready to heat things up again at Classical Underground with an outstanding program!

 

We are very fortunate to be able to present the internationally renowned Szymanowski Quartet, stopping by CU for a preview before their Feb. 6 Orange County concert at the Samueli Theater at the OCPAC. This young Warsaw-based quartet has been featured at prestigious festivals and concert halls around the world.  Their recent CD on the Hyperion label has received rave reviews for their performances of rarely-heard but wonderful 19th century Polish composers Zarebski and Zelenski.  For CU, The Szymanowski Quartet will perform their namesake Szymanowski's Nocturne and Tarantella, and Schubert's iconic Death and the Maiden Quartet. 

   

  

Juan Colomer

  

 
 

                                 Anna Sarkisova          Ambroise Aubrun                       

We also have a local composer making his CU debut on the program:   "Downtown Bagatelle" by LA-based Spanish composer Juan J. Colomer -- a busy film composer and arranger who has worked with Placido Domingo and James Levine -- will be performed by violinist Ambroise Aubrun and pianist Anna Sarkisova   Anna will also play a solo Spanish piece, "Evocation" by Isaac Albeniz, from the Iberia Suite.    

  

    

  Anton Smirnov

                                         

Although he is still studying at Colburn, young pianist Anton Smirnov has performed with distinction across Russia and the US.  Making his CU debut, he will perform Stravinsky's diabolical piano transcription from his ballet Petrushka.  

Although the weather is expected to warm up by next week, the nights are still chilly, so please dress warmly! As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.  Please RSVP via Paypal.   If you have problems with PayPal - don't wait - 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. 

  

        

******

  

Classical Underground Showcase:    

   

Alexey Steele "The Dawn"

Oil on linen 77" x 187"       

            

  "The Dawn" 77" x 187" oil on canvas     

I am enormously happy and privileged to share with our Classical Underground family my most recent work, which just returned from being a Special Presentation of the LA Art Show. A "mini Classical Underground" was a decisive hit with Evgeny Tonkha's Bach cello Suites, Victor Wilde's post-contemporary fashion and my drawing demonstration in front of "The Dawn" together producing a unique collaborative experience of "classical performanceART."

 

Now you can feel the mutually empowering musical and visual imagery in its full strength at Classical Underground proper.

The Dawn, is a culmination of 15 years in my artistic search. It is a particularly meaningful work for me - both stylistically and personally.

The work came about after a long quest to find the most powerful and convincing way of expressing the type of Imagery that affects our imagination deeply and expresses truth about our current condition. It is a look at our reality and the unseen forces behind it; a style that I call NOVOREALISM.

 

I think Los Angeles is "the Paris of the 21st century," and that the brooding under the radar of mainstream dramatic artistic changes in the creatively combustive City of Angels closely repeats what was happening exactly one hundred years ago in the City of Lights.

The Dawn is conceived as an epic saga spanning the wide range of visual themes that engage our senses. The magic, majesty and the promise of a fleeting moment just before the sun breaks through a dark horizon and when the world is filled with the glow of ever-expanding and imminently rising light. The lone modern-day Madonna invokes the singular sanctity of motherhood and of a blissful paradise, an island of love. In the midst of a dark infinite expanse are forces much beyond our control that threaten us where we do not see, but feel their presence.

The status quo of the world is crumbling all around us, yet the force of life is inextinguishable and the mystery of a new life holds the future in its hands, in fact being more powerful than all the forces of the world.

The many anxieties about the future of our world serve as a perfect symbol signifying the vastly transformative nature of our times. The world will go on; it is up to us to chart its future course, but for this to happen we need a revolution that inspires an elevated consciousness...as we greet "The Dawn" and the new beginning. 

  

In ART we trust!