December Holiday Night Dec 15th, Annual Toy Drive

The online reservations are now closed. You may pay at the door.  Please dress warm!

December Holiday Night  

this coming Monday, the 15th @ 8 p.m. 

Music & Arts in the Studio

Annual Toy Drive and Potluck Party

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier

We are delighted to be part of the overdue U.S. debut of the esteemed Colombian pianist Teresita Gomez, who will give us a preview of her upcoming Dec. 14 recital at Old Town Music Hall to benefit Fundacion Unidas, on behalf of the underprivileged in her native Medellin.  For CU, Ms. Gomez will perform a selection of dances ranging from Bach (Partita #2) to Colombian composers Adolfo Mejia and Moises Moleiro. 

 

Coloratura soprano Delaram Kamareh has been making a beautiful noise on the local music scene since arriving from Tehran to study opera at UCLA, including in "Invisible Cities," the opera inventively staged at Union Station this year.  She will sing a wonderful variety of arias and lieder by Bach, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky and Vivaldi, accompanied on piano by Georgi Slavchev.

   

Georgi, a talented composer in his own right as demonstrated by his Etudes last year at CU, will also play two of his fantasies based on songs of Sting, and the introspective Fur Alina by the great Estonian composer Arvo Part.  Please listen to his performance of Chopin at CU last year.  

  

Cellist Peter Myers, a graduate of Colburn and USC and a prizewinner at chamber music competitions around the world, will perform songs of Benjamin Britten arranged for cello and piano, accompanied by Mary Au.

 

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.     

******

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at Steinway Piano Gallery Los Angeles for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument Model D. 

 

 

CU Showcase Exhibition:

Aaron Westerberg  

Reexamining the tradition of figurative painting has been sweeping the Nation in the last decade. A growing group of young talents is choosing this venerated ART form as the perfect vehicle to express their contemporary experience.   

Aaron Westerberg is part of the new generation of California figurative painters.

Aaron grew up in San Diego.  It was a class in traditional life drawing that drew him to continue his art training.  He studied with Jeff Watts and attended the California Art Institute, where he himself later taught.

His work received the attention of such publications as Fine Art Connoisseur, Artist's Magazine and American Art Collector, and has been exhibited in fine art galleries throughout the United States and abroad.

Aaron Westerberg, oil on canvas 34 x 22 

   

In art we trust! 

*******

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

   

Save the Date - December 15th - our Holiday event and a toy drive

Save the Date

December 15th

Our Festive Wintery Night

right in time for the Holiday Season!

Music and Arts in the Studio

Holiday event, Toy Drive and Potluck

Look for the information next week! 

November 10th Night Music & Art at the Studio - not to miss!

The online RSVP are now closed. 

November Night  

this coming Monday, the 10th @ 8 p.m. 

Music & Arts in the Studio

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier

For our November program, we are very excited to welcome the eminent Lithuanian cellist David Geringas.  A world-renowned soloist and distinguished teacher, David Geringas studied with Rostropovich in Moscow and won the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1970.  Some of the greatest contemporary composers have dedicated works to him, one of which - Peteris Vasks' haunting "A book for solo cello" - he will perform for us.  Geringas will also be joined by one of his former students, CU's own Evgeny Tonkha, for Haydn's cheerful Duet in D for 2 cellos.

After his smashing duo performance with Danny Holt last season, the highly-regarded LA pianist Steven Vanhauwaert makes his first solo appearance at CU with some most romantic works of Rachmaninoff and Liszt.   

One of the most delightful CU debuts last season was the soprano Jennifer Lindsay, whose radiant and natural voice warmed our hearts.  She will sing selections from Verdi's La Traviata and Gounod's Faust, accompanied by CU's own, pianist Mary Au.

Osaka native Chika Inoue covered all bets  by studying saxophone at both UCLA and USC, where she recently received her doctorate.  Doctor of Saxophone, how cool is that?!  She is making her Classical Underground debut, accompanied by Mary Au. 

CU Showcase Exhibition

Leonid Steele: Artist, Master, Legend - The Legacy Lives!

Leonid Steele was an artistic giant with a remarkable life story. His career in art spanned an astounding 75 years.

The very first exhibition of his life was the 1939 World Fair in New York where he was part of the Soviet Children Art Pavilion. Recovering from a concussion during the war in Novosibirsk, he met and studied with the director of the famed Tretiakov Gallery who was evacuated to Siberia and who was one of the very few students of the great Russian Realist master, Isaac Levitan.

Leonid went to Repin Academy after the war and became part of the core generation that revived the full glory of classical Russian Academic tradition and method. He melted that capability into decades of fearless stylistic feats. He moved mountains in ART. He became one of the founding influences of the Severe Style with his 1958 "Dawn." He participated in 11 All-Union exhibitions, the most prestigious in the USSR, a rare fit for a maverick artist who enjoyed public love, but never held any official post in the soviet art bureaucracy. Because of such public love of his work, he had rare mass media coverage of his art totaling around 30 million in circulation.

His output is truly gigantic. He painted masterpieces. He loved life and was loved back generously. He loved people, and his own visual brand of humanistic rendition of the very depths in personal characters made him unique within Socialist Realism. He touched universal humanity while faithfully portraying a nation in its long and tumultuous stretch of history. His style could be termed Humanist Realism.

His legacy and his life's work are now an inseparable part of our common culture, much as his name now belongs fully to our common history. 

  

Evgeny Tonkha is playing Bach Sarabande from Cello Suite #3 in C Major in Memory of Leonid Steele

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at Steinway Piano Gallery for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument.

 

  

A message from Evgeny Tonkha about David Geringas appearance and his new music series "K17":

When I asked David Geringas if he was interested to do a solo recital in LA, he replied - “For me it’s important to play – because I love it!” Those words really struck a chord – when I first came to Los Angeles all I wanted to do was play. My first recital here took place at the Classical Underground series and I’m very grateful to Alexey and Olga for that opportunity – since then we became good friends. 

Right now I’m happy to be presenting my own concert series “K17”. Our first concert took place at the Frankel Hall in Beverly Hills on October 25th and it featured a magnificent David Geringas. It was a resounding success and I’m happy to share this success with my dear friends at Classical Underground.

Haydn Duett D-Dur Hob X:11 for 2 Cellos
Moderato
Menuet
Presto

Peteris Vasks "A book for cello solo"
Fortissimo. Pianissimo

Legendary Painter Leonid Steele Passing and Memorial October 15

"Self-Portrait in Ukrainian Shirt" 1953

It is with a profound sadness and pain we share the news of my Great Dad's passing on the morning of 

October 4th, 2014. 

  

A True ARTIST and Giant, he lived life anyone can only dream of.

He cheated death so many times that his entire life is a miracle. He survived the 1933 golodomor in Ukraine, a burst appendicitis in 1939 while in the Army (before newly discovered penicillin use it was considered untreatable), a heavy air bomb concussion in a first siege of Kharkov in 1941 that left him in coma for three months...

With all that he created ART, a kid from Kharkov, the first exhibition in his life was a 1939 World Fair in New York out of all places... he was part of the Soviet Children Art pavilion... While recovering from his concussion in Novosibirsk, he met and studied with the director of the famed Tretiakov Gallery that was evacuated to Siberia and who was Levitan's student.

He went to Repin Academy after the war and became part of the core generation that revived a full glory of classical Russian Academic tradition and method.  He melted that capability into decades of fearless stylistic feats.  He moved mountains in ART.  He became one of the founding influences of Severe Style with his 1958 "Dawn."  He participated in 11 All-Union exhibitions, the most prestigious in the USSR, a rare fit for a maverick artist who enjoyed public love, but never held any official post in the soviet art bureaucracy.  Because of this public love of his work he had a high mass media coverage of his Art totaling around 30 million in circulation. His output is truly gigantic.  He painted masterpieces.  He loved life and was loved back generously.  He loved people and his own visual brand of humanistic rendition of very depths in personal characters made him unique within Socialist Realism.  He touched universal humanity while faithfully portraying a nation.  He lived ART to his last breath.  He is a Star that guides, a true compass. 

"Family" 1972

We thank everyone for all your comforting words, good wishes and prayers in this difficult moment.  Old dear friends, who knew and loved him, spent happiest of times together... all who knew and loved his phenomenal work or got to know it... Our family deeply appreciates the outpouring of your support.

Thank you to all remarkable artists and whole Classical Underground Community, who made last CU the most special ever. Though I could not be there in person, I will treasure the recordings and photos forever.

For those who wish to say goodbye in person 

to my Legendary Dad, the memorial is going to be held on

  

 Wednesday, October 15 at 1pm 

Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 

6000 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90038. 

  

Followed by 

 A Drink in Eternal Memory of Leonid 

and

Studio Exhibition:

"Legends Never Die: The Legacy Lives!"

at my studio 

20795 Main Street, Carson, Ca 90745

 

If you wish to make a charitable contribution in Dad's name, you can make it to California Art Club were he was an Honorary Signature Member for Life.

 

The Era is closed - the Legend continues. Dad's Legacy is Forever.
ART lives! 

www.leonidsteele.com

"The Land" 1968

Season's Opening! October 6th Music & Arts in the Studio RSVP open

Season's Opening!
October Night  

this coming Monday,
October 6th @ 8 p.m. 

Music & Arts in the Studio

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

The thermometer may disagree, but the calendar says it is finally fall and time for the opening concert of the 7th season of Classical Underground.   If you've ever found yourself saying, "You know, I love CU but they just don't have enough woodwinds"...well, this is your night!

First we have the glorious sound of four saxophones together: the fabulous City of Angels Saxophone Quartet returns to Classical Underground to perform two movements of the lush Ravel String Quartet, and then for something completely different, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2...which, if you recall Tom & Jerry (or Cziffra if you're an especially Classy Undergrounder), imagine what a hoot that will be on saxophones!

  

In addition to mind-blowing reed transcriptions, we also have a rare performance of the Poulenc Sonata for Two Clarinets, featuring our resident clarinet virtuosos Leo Chelyapov and Uriel Vanchestein.

 

There is no finer proponent of the piano works of the Argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera than our querido amigo, Eduardo Delgado.  Last Sunday he blew the roof off the concert hall with his performance of "Danzas Criollas" at his "farewell recital" (which thankfully is only a farewell to being a professor at Fullerton, and not to performing or teaching!).  We have asked him to reprise that performance, as well as Haydn's lovely Variations in F minor.

Also no stranger to CU audiences, the fine cellist Evgeny Tonkha returns with pianist Anastasia Nemirovich-Danchenko to play a group of dances and elegies by Albeniz, Faure, William Squire, and David Popper, along with a work by contemporary LA composer Juan Colomer, "Realidades Disipadas."

   

 

     

 As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.     

  

******

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood 

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument
Model D, CD-587.

  

 

       

******

              

Classical Underground Showcase 

Alicia Ponzio  

 It is an extreme pleasure to open our season with showcasing one of my favorite contemporary figurative artists - the sculptor Alicia Ponzio. Strong sculptors in many ways are even more rare than strong painters, and Alicia without any doubt possesses a rare strength of three dimensional mastery. Her heads and figures are imbued with a rare nowadays Form Sense and truly musical plasticity of movement.

  

If that was not enough, Alicia bravely tackles something specifically important to my own understanding of what constitutes the ultimate challenge and excitement in our ART form: a multi-figure composition. As I saw Alicia's magnificent "Lingering Shadows" at California Art Club's last Gold Medal Show, I was struck by the seriousness and depth of all her visual decisions masterfully weaving in space the three glorious figures. Force and Grace - what could ever be better to experience.  

Despite all conformist perils, there is some true ART being made within newly emerging post - contemporary cultural terrain!

 

 

  Alicia Ponzio - The Lingering Shadows 

    

      

In art we trust! 
20795 Main Street, Carson, CA 90745

Our online reservation is now closed.

 

Classical Underground for June 2 cancelled

Classical Underground for June 2 cancelled.

Due to a family emergency, we regret that we must cancel the final Classical Underground concert of this season, which had been scheduled for Monday, June 2.  Alexey's father, Leonid Steele, has just been scheduled for surgery on June 2nd. We wish Leonid a speedy recovery, and lots of attention from the nurses!  And we look forward to seeing you all at CU next fall.

April 7th - Music and Art in the Studio

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier  @ 8 p.m.

A friend of Brahms said of his Clarinet Trio, "It is as though the instruments were in love with each other."  We can hear this romance for ourselves as  Uriel Vanchestein (clarinet), Evgeny Tonkha (cello), and Clara Cheng (piano) perform Brahms' Trio in A minor, op. 114.

We are excited to welcome the distinguished pianist and newly minted UCLA professor Inna Faliks to Los Angeles and Classical Underground, performing Beethoven's rarely heard Fantasy op. 77 (watch a video teaser here:  http://vimeo.com/36656346) and Rodion Shchedrin's brawny Basso Ostinato.

Our great friends of CU, violinist Moni Simeonov and pianist Pepi Pilobossian, return to play a movement of the glorious Franck Sonata and some rustic Bulgarian tunes, which he plays with an authentic and irresistible spirit like no else.

Young but already veteran performer Nicholas King continues his CU exploration of Liszt with the titanic Sonata in B minor, one of the touchstones of the virtuoso piano repertoire.

 

     

 As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.  

******

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood 

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument
Model D, CD-551. 

 

       

******          

Classical Underground Showcase 

Leonid Steele
and the Russian Academic Legacy  

 

Having spent the last two weeks with my Dad in the hospital made me appreciate even more so what a fortune it is to have such a true giant among us. We talked about his days in the famed Repin Academy and about some key principles that made the school so incredibly strong.

The very particular and specific approach to seeing and comprehending the form that was developed through intense drawing study of the figure allowed its best students a remarkable stylistic versatility in painting evident throughout my Dad's illustrious career.

Those principles are more relevant than ever today as we witness the incredible resurgence, even if still underground, of a serious realism in the contemporary American Art.

It is a unique privilege to be part of such institutional memory.

 

  

   

     

      

                             

directions to my "Grand Atelier" studio:  

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

           

February 17th - Music and Arts in the Studio

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

With the sudden arrival of 80 degree temperatures, Spring has sprung early in LA, and what better way to celebrate it than with a bit of the Rite of Spring at Classical Underground!

The outstanding piano duo of Danny Holt and Steven Vanhauwaert will perform excerpts from Stravinsky's own 4 hand arrangements of Rite of Spring and Petrushka as well as the first movements of Ginastera's Estancia and Poulenc's four hand piano sonata.

The joyous and surprisingly subtle sound of four saxes in harmony will be on display as the City of Angels Saxophone Quartet performs a Bach fugue and the Glazunov Saxophone Quartet, infused with shades of jazz, Chopin and Schumann as the composer himself once wrote.

Already a veteran performer as he studies for his doctorate at USC, the fine young cellist Michael Kaufman returns to CU with Melody Chang on violin and Brendan White on piano to play the Brahms C Minor Piano Trio.  Clarinetist Benjamin Mitchell will also join Michael for "Capriole" by the contemporary Finnish composer Kimmo Hakola.

 

Last year in his surprise CU debut as a last-minute replacement, pianist Anton Smirnoff received a thunderous ovation for his virtuosic account of the piano solo version of Petrushka. Now we will get to hear his gentler side in Mozart's Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475.

 As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.  

 

We are sold out! 

******

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery West Hollywood 

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument
Model D, CD-587.

  

 

        

******         

 

Classical Underground Showcase 

Sergio Sanchez  

There is so much treasure in our own communities that is fueling and propelling our burgeoning and growing art movement! It is a great pleasure to have as our CU Showcase a distinct contemporary figurative artist, a great friend, and a local San Pedro brother-in-brush Sergio Sanchez.

Sergio is a well-recognized and much loved by his peers part of our awesome LA figurative gang, who is bringing together experiences of LA and his native Mexico. Fusing those experiences with his solid traditional art education as well as his background in illustration, Sergio brings it all together in a volatile and vibrant mix with his well-respected and followed tattoo work, as well as his long fascination with graffiti designs, all of which drives the stylistic and visual choices in his painting.

Sergio's work is always noted at many exhibitions, and it has gained the attention of specialized art magazines as well as media publications.  He is currently teaching the crucial subject of head and figure drawing at such southland important art educational hubs as Art Center School of Design (Pasadena, California), Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art (Van Nuys, California), Laguna College of art and design (Laguna Beach, California), and he is a fellow member of the venerable California Art Club.  

Way to go, brother!

 

directions to my "Grand Atelier" studio:  

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