Wednesday, December 13, 2017

RSVP now for December 18th Holiday Event and Toy Drive

Online reservations are now closed.
  
 
December Holiday Night!  
this coming Monday, the 18h @ 8 p.m. 

Toy Drive and Holiday Potluck!
Music & Arts in the Studio  
  

Special thanks to our unwavering founding patron
Rand Resources
, LLC.   
 
     
If smoky skies, relentless winds, and depressing fire reports have put a damper on your holiday cheer, come join us for our December Classical Underground program!  We promise it will warm your heart, but come dressed for a chilly December evening, even if it feels like summer in the daytime.
If you think you've seen pianist Alex Slobodyanik somewhere besides his appearances at CU, maybe you've been watching the latest season of The Americans.  As if it weren't enough to be a world class pianist, Alex has also been gaining recognition as an actor and filmmaker.  On this program he'll be performing a beautiful selection of Chopin etudes.
Los Angeles has been lucky to hang on to Roberto Cani, a wonderful violinist with top soloist and orchestral credits with leading orchestras around the world.  He came to LA to study with Abram Shtern at USC and stayed to become the concertmaster of the LA Opera. It's always a special occasion when he returns to Classical Underground.
The delightful soprano Jennifer Lindsay will sing a trio of stellar arias, accompanied by Mary Au on piano: Puccini's "Mi chiamano Mimi" from La Boheme, Verdi's "O patria mia" Aida, and Rossini "Bel raggio lusinghier" from Semiramide.
And our resident supervirtuoso Harout Senekeremian tackles the bluesy and rhythmically dynamic Nikolai Kapustin Sonata #12.
Happy holidays, everyone!
        
 Roberto
         Roberto Cani   
 Slobodyanik
         Alex Slobodyanik
Harout 
Harout Senekeremian
 
                 Jennifer Lindsay           Mary Au
                    
CLASSICAL UNDERGROUND SHOWCASE:

 
California occupies a special place within the contemporary realist movement in American Art. One of the fortunate reasons converging around the Southland is its venerable plein air tradition. Giving impulse to study the impact of color and light, it greatly expanded the palette of California representational artists, refreshing and modernizing the feel of their work. A uniquely Californian voice shaped by its plein air tradition is the artist Peter Adams.
His prolonged interest in mystical sensation delivered through expressive use of color gives his works a thoroughly individual and authentic presence, while making his landscapes in particular distinctly personal.
Peter also dedicated almost two decades of his life to raising the profile of the California Art Club, and as its president built it into one of the leading organizations dedicated to the support of representational art in the US.
We are very happy to showcase Peter's new work "Copper Canyon Falls; San Gabriel Mts."
Peter Adams
    Peter Adams "Copper Canyon Falls; San Gabriel Mts." 48" x 36" oil on panel  

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

Please RSVP via Paypal through our website by clicking on the button above 

  
******


We are most grateful to our supportive friends at


for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument

   
Steinway  

   
    We are grateful for a continuous support of our founding patron 
RAND RESOURCES, LLC.

   
in ART we trust!

*******
20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745
Doors open at 7 p.m. No assigned seats - first come-first served. Potluck. Entrance from the parking lot.  Free parking.  
 
For more information on the event please go to classicalunderground.com

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

RSVP now for November 13th CU

Online reservations are now closed.
  
November Night!
this coming Monday, the 13th @ 8 p.m. 

   
Special thanks to our unwavering founding patron
Rand Resources
, LLC.   
 


 
Acclaimed contemporary pianist and multiple-Grammy nominee Nadia Shpachenko-Gottesman returns to CU with the Piano Sonata #6 of Yuri Ishchenko, a key figure of contemporary Ukrainian music.  Plus a curious gem by Tchaikovsky contemporary Antonin Arensky: his own transcription of his cantata, The Fountain of Bakhchisaray.

Guitarist and composer Donovan Butez will play a selection of his own works, joined by fellow guitarist Bryan Fasola, violinst Mann-Wen Lo, and Shaul Kofler on cello.

Our wonderful cellist Evgeny Tonkha and the brilliant pianist Alex Slobodyanik get together for Romances of Schubert and Rachmaninoff, and guitarist Omar Torrez joins Evgeny in an arrangement of Schubert's Arpegione Sonata.

Virtuoso clarinetist James Hodges and pianist Hee Jung Ju will play an arrangement of Sarasate's ever-popular Carmen Fantasy, based on themes from the Bizet opera.


 
Nadia Shpachenko  
              

                    
CLASSICAL UNDERGROUND SHOWCASE: 


It is a distinct pleasure to showcase a long time close friend, stalwart Classical Undergrounder, and very influential contemporary representational California school painter Daniel W. Pinkham, a.k.a "The Big Pink".

Dan's aesthetic influence and reach have few equals. A determined pioneer of the California plein-air revival in the 70s-80s, he was a star student of an important Ukrainian painter who resided in California after WWII, Sergei Bongart. The deep connection to the Kiev school of painting -- where I was born and where my Dad spent the most significant portion of his career -- was among many things that created a very special connection between Dan and my Dad and me. That, and of course his famous/infamous storytelling!

The painterly beliefs that Dan inherited from Sergei and deftly developed are specific and effective. Sophisticated color harmonization and balancing that comes out of a narrow tonal range replacing more common tonal contrasting, all coupled with simplified, efficient and primal shaping of main color masses. This core approach that stands apart from often seen artificial gimmicking, results in Dan's unmistakable and authentically personal style of painting.

To achieve this goal, Dan practices the very heart and soul of the plein-air process. He rapidly captures the essence of what he is looking for on location, choosing and extracting what is of most importance to him -- all the tonal, coloristic and compositional qualities that lie firmly outside of photo-technological capabilities. He then brings those visual notations of his in-the-moment sensory-cognitive process to the studio, where they are examined, and the ones presenting the greatest opportunities and aesthetic interest are further developed in larger sizes.

In our showcase, we are presenting examples of Dan's field studies, as well as a comparison of how one of them is developed into a final work of singular artistic importance.
Go, Dan, go!

Daniel Piknham "Stillness. Studio Version" 36" x 30" oil on canvas 

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

RSVP through the Paypal button on the top of this page.



  
We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument

   
Steinway  

   

    We are grateful for a continuous support of our founding patron 
RAND RESOURCES, LLC.

   

in ART we trust!
*******
20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745
Doors open at 7 p.m. No assigned seats - first come-first served. Potluck. Entrance from the parking lot.  Free parking.  
 
For more information on the event please email to classicalunderground@yahoo.com
    **********

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

RSVP now for the Opening Night - October 9th!

Online reservations are now closed. 
  

October Night!
The 10th Season Opening!!!   

this coming Monday, the 9th @ 8 p.m. 


   
Special thanks to our unwavering founding patron
Rand Resources
, LLC.   
  

  
The tenth anniversary season of Classical Underground is here!   Thank you to all the musicians, artists, our sponsors Steinway and Rick Rand, and especially you, the audience, for making our monthly celebration of music and art possible.
We are pleased to welcome the distinguished Portuguese pianist Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro in his debut appearance at Classical Underground, performing Mussorgsky's monumental piano suite, "Pictures at an Exhibition."  Conceived as musical illustrations of works featured in a memorial exhibition of the composer's dear artist friend Viktor Hartmann, who died suddenly at the age of 39 in 1873, perhaps no work better exemplifies the inspirational cross-pollination of music and art that we aspire to at CU.

 
Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro
 
                                                      Elena Mindlina
Also appearing for the first time at CU is Russian-born American-trained soprano Elena Mindlina along with our friend from CSUN, pianist Dmitry Rachmanov, performing beautiful romances.  In a recent review Elena was praised for her "sophisticated musicality, and outstanding artistic talent that transformed each song into a dramatic scene." 
Our dear friend Eduardo Delgado is barely in town for long these days, having just returned from a summer of festivals in Italy and about to depart for concerts in Japan and China and overseeing a piano competition in Thailand... luckily he has just enough time to stop by the studio to share Schumann's Fantasiestucke, op. 12.
Violinist Philip Vaiman makes a long overdue return visit to perform Astor Piazzolla's "Histoire du Tango" with guitarist Kenton Youngstrom.
And to cap things off, more Piazzolla with CU favorites Evgeny Tonkha on cello, Anton Smirnov on piano, and CU newcomer David Lisker on violin, performing "The Seasons."
                    
CLASSICAL UNDERGROUND SHOWCASE: 


Flowers, 2016, oil on linen, 22 x 20
It is a special pleasure to showcase at the opening of our 10th CU season Patricia Watwood. Based in Brooklyn, NY, Patty is one of the nation's landmark artists of the contemporary classical movement. Her subjects are primarily women and figures, often using allegory and mythic imagery depicting timeless human essence within the contemporary experience. 
Patty's work has been exhibited at the Beijing World Art Museum, The Butler Museum, St. Louis University Museum of Art, The New Britain Museum of American Art, and the Forbes Galleries, among others. She has produced instructional DVDs including "Creating Portraits from Life," with Streamline Art Video, and is a featured art instructor with Craftsy.com. She has an MFA from New York Academy of Art, and was a founding member of the Water Street Atelier. 
More info at patriciawatwood.com 
  
 As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.   

 

Online reservations are now closed.  


  
******

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

   
Steinway  
   


    We are grateful for a continuous support of our founding patron 
RAND RESOURCES, LLC.

   
in ART we trust!
 
  
*******
20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745
Doors open at 7 p.m. No assigned seats - first come-first served. Potluck. 
Entrance from the parking lot.  Free parking.  

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Save the date: October 9th - Opening Night - 10th Season!

Opening Night - 10th Season! 

Music & Art + potluck party  

Save the date!  
 
Monday, October 9th, 2017   

Look for the email invitation next week,  
or check back our website at that time 
    
 
                           
Please also check your bulk folder, as many of you reported that you are not getting our emails.  We email everyone on the list!

Sponsored by:  
 
Steinway
 
in ART we trust!

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

CU June 5th - RSVP now for Season's Finale!

Suddenly June has arrived and with it the last program of our 10th season, featuring a double dose of industrial strength Brahms...bring plenty of bratwurst, potato salad and beer for the potluck!
The end of the season always marks the happy return of our dear friend Jura Margulis, who will play young Brahms'  magnificent, symphonic Brahms Piano Sonata #3 in F minor, Op. 5.
 
Then virtuoso violinist Robert Cani will perform late Brahms in the form of his Violin Sonata #3 in D minor, Op. 108, with Mitsuko Morikawa on piano.
 
Delayed from our last program, the ever-tantalizing tenor Timur Bekbosunov and pianist Dzovig Markarian present Russian composer Sergei Slonimisky's "Six Romances on Poems of Osip Mandelstam,"which Timur sang to high acclaim in its U.S. premiere in Washington, DC last year.
 
And for a lighter dessert, the multi-gifted CU regular Georgi Slavchev will play a couple of his latest piano compositions, "This We Have Now" and "A Good Piano Day."

        
 

                                   
         Geori Slavchev  
 

See you on Monday!  As always - bring your spirits food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy. WE ARE SOLD OUT!
    
 

   ******

STEINWAY PIANO DEBUT - a brand new CD 287!

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at


for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument

   
Steinway  


   
 
    We are grateful for a continuous support of our founding patron 
RAND RESOURCES, LLC

   
in ART we trust! 
   
 
*******
20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745
Doors open at 7 p.m.









 



 
 








































 






   
 

   
 


 
 






















Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Save the date June 5th Season's Finale




Save the date! 
Season's Finale! 
 
Monday, June 5th, 2017   

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

   Jura Margulis           

 

in art we trust!

 


 
*******
 

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

RSVP for May 1st now!

online reservations are now closed 

 
Music and Art lovers unite for our May Day program!
The superb Russian pianist Vadym Kholodenko, winner of the latest Van Cliburn Competition, returns to CU playing the virtuosic, mysterious and highly seductive music of his fellow Russian, Scriabin.
   
The LA Times described Timur Bekbosunov as "extravagantly transgressive," which is especially appropriate for singing Slonimsky's "Six Romances on Poems by Osip Mandelstam" - a poet whose own "transgressions" got him sent to Stalin's gulag. 

Eduardo Delgado  
 
We are already salivating for the debut pairing of CU favorites Evgeny Tonkha and Eduardo Delgado, playing Schumann's intensely romantic Fantasiestucke for cello and piano.
Any of the above makes for a not-to-be-missed evening, but we'll have more details soon including our Classical Underground Art Showcase. 

See you on Monday! 


Classical Underground Showcase: Michael Klein   



"Wandering" oil on panel 36" x 30"   
It is always a great pleasure to see any new work by one of my favorite Contemporary Realist painters, Michael Klein. It is certainly even more exciting to see the beginning of a whole new series by such an important artist.
In his new body of work, Michael turns his attention to an intriguing and thought-provoking subject: the Spanish mustangs that have been roaming the East Coast for the past 450 years, abandoned by early explorers to the Americas. "Day after day, as history has unfolded around them, several herds of wild horses have been roving the shore aimlessly," says Michael.
Depicting a parallel world with a different perception of time is a unique mark of Michael's works that we can see in the ethereal, time- suspending qualities of his widely admired still lifes. In his new subject, Michael found an unexpected direct representation for such a contemplative and evocative theme.
      
     
 As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.   

   

******
We are most grateful to our supportive friends at
for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument

   
Steinway  
   


    We are grateful for a continuous support of our founding patron 
RAND RESOURCES, LLC
   
in ART we trust!
    
  

20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745
Doors open at 7 p.m. No assigned seats - first come-first served. Potluck. Entrance from the parking lot.  Free parking.  

Monday, April 24, 2017

Save the date - May 1st - our next CU night of music and art!

 
 

  
 
Music & Art in the Studio    

Save the date! 
Just a week away - an outstanding program! 
 
Monday, May 1st, 2017   
Look for the email invitation tomorrow,  
or check back our website at that time 
    
                   
 
 

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

RSVP now for March 20th Music & Arts in the Studio

Online reservations are now closed.

March Night! 

this coming Monday, the 20th @ 8 p.m. 
Music & Arts in the Studio  

 



In the midst of March Madness, we balance the CU bracket with both Bruins and Trojans, as well as that basketball powerhouse, the Colburn School.

 
UCLA piano professor and commanding performer Inna Faliks will play Beethoven's last work for the piano, the concise, noble, and exquisite Bagatelles Op. 126, plus the bravura Mephisto Waltz #1 of Liszt.
 
Young Ukrainanian violinist Orest Smovzh, a student of Midori at USC, makes his CU debut with Bach's Partita in D minor for solo violin.
 
Camille Avellano has been a vital part of the LA Philharmonic string section since 1981 (and somehow during that stellar gig she also found time to be a violin professor at UCLA).  For her CU performance of Stravinsky's Suite Italienne she is bringing a special friend, pianist Liliana Cino, who in her off-keyboard time just happens to be LA's Consul General of Peru!  They will also treat us to Fritz Kreisler's arrangement of "Danse Espagnole" from De Falla's La Vida Breve. 
 
Our Colburn representative, Russian pianist and CU regular Anton Smirnov, will be joined by Ukrainian pianist Angelika Fuchs to tackle the delightfully jazz-inflected Sinfonietta for Four Hands by contemporary Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin.
 
And we invite you to please stick around for some late evening surprises!
    
 
Inna Faliks          

 

Please RSVP via Paypal through our website by clicking on the button above. 
 



Gutsul's Yard
""Gutsul's Yard" 1962, 41" x  55"  
 
 
My father Leonid Steele was a great embodiment of Russia's venerable cultural tradition of going "to the people." Like his cultural forebears, the artists of the famed "peredvizhnik" movement, he believed that the people from the far reaches of society, far away villages and factories, are the best and most important material for serious Art. He also believed that these very same people also are the ones who need the exposure to Art the most. He believed the vitality and necessity of Art shows itself in the clearest way in such context.
 
This belief resulted in my dad's continuous journeys away from big cities in his quest for true characters and subjects. This quest fueled his remarkable oeuvre  with humanistic representations of his era, and became a foundation for his iconic masterpieces of epic multi-figure paintings. In his travels throughout Ukraine, he produced the most compelling and heartfelt depictions of true people from Western, Central and Eastern regions, showing them as the same brotherly people despite all the differences that were painfully lurking under the polished surface of the Soviet Union even back then.  Dad believed that through affecting the people Art has a power to affect society, much as he believed in the ability of our common humanity to bridge all cultural and historic differences.
 
I grew up in the midst of the highest stage in my Dad transforming his great material into his most important works, and it left an indelible mark on me. I spent many months at a time accompanying Dad on his trips to the farthest villages as he would conceive, research and create his new works.
 
Dad's ideas and example became the blueprint for my current Love My Neighbor public art project in the City of Carson and for the works of My Neighbor Series at its center.
 
You can learn more about the project at www.lovemyneighbor.us  

Sproose Grouse.  Boiler Riveting Worker. The Wood Grouce

"Sproose Grouse.
Boiler Riveting Worker: The Wood Grouce (Gluhar)" 1958 53" x 39"
    


 "Friends" 1961, 52" x  35"
 
   
 As always - bring your spirits, food and drink for you and your friends to enjoy.   
 
 

 

  
******
We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument CD213!

  

Steinway  

   
******



    
in ART we trust!
        We are grateful for a continuous support     

of our founding patron 

RAND RESOURCES, LLC 

   
     

 
 



 
*******
20795 Main St. Carson, Ca 90745
Doors open at 7 p.m. No assigned seats - first come-first served. Potluck. Entrance from the parking lot.  Free parking.