Our March Music & Art Event is on Tuesday - March 1st

Online reservations are now closed.

March Night   this coming Tuesday, the 1st @ 8 p.m.

Please note - as an exception it is a Tuesday!

Music& Arts in the Studio   @ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier            After a longer than usual holiday break owing to a worse than usual cold and flu season, we are happy to be back this coming TUESDAY with a trio of fantastic musicians.   Longtime Classical Undergrounders no doubt remember the previous performances of the amazing cellist Boris Andrianov, a true master of everything from Bach to Sollima who has played in concert halls around the world and with the greatest names in classical and contemporary music.  When he is not on tour, Boris can be found teaching at the Moscow Conservatory, but luckily for us he is in Los Angeles this week.  He will be performing works of Bach, Piazzolla, de Falla, Tarrega, and Albeniz, as well as duos with guitarist Dimitri Illarionov - an acclaimed virtuoso in his own right and teacher at the famed Gnessin School in Moscow.  Making his CU debut, Dimitri will also perform a selection of solo guitar works.

Also for the first time at Classical Underground we are very pleased to welcome pianist Nadia Shpachenko, whose latest CD "Woman at the New Piano" was nominated for 3 (!) Grammys this year.  Particularly renowned for contemporary works, Nadia has given the premiere performances of piano pieces by many of the greatest living composers, some written especially for her.

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

Please RSVP via Paypal at the top of this invitation. Online reservations are now closed.

****** We are most grateful to our supportive friends at  Steinway Piano Gallery Los Angeles for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument Model CD-587 .

Classical Underground Showcase     JEREMY LIPKING            "Between Past and Present" oil on linen 40" x 60"

Classical Underground is proud to showcase "Between Past and Present," a new important painting by Jeremy Lipking -- one of the greatest painters of our generation, and a longtime Undergrounder. It is an utter joy to witness the continuous development of Jeremy's extraordinary talent. He invariably pushes the expressive possibilities of the painting medium with his exceptional hyper-understanding of tonal subtleties, manifested in the delicate color transitions within any value range, and superbly shaped into clear harmonies of compositional masses.   In this new masterful painting completed for the upcoming Prix De West show and which we are fortunate to preview at Classical Underground, Jeremy is displaying  an unmistakable artistic maturing of subject matter, thematic depth, technical execution and compositional design.  In Jeremy's new works we see magnificent examples of exciting  developments in the use of 21st century realism as a tool of deeply personal contemporary artistic expression.  This emerging form of realism that I call Novorealism is drastically different from photorealism of the past in its mechanisms and objectives, as well as standing in direct opposition to all basic principles of tired establishment post-modernism, which by now has primarily degraded to not much more than manifested excuses for hyper-greed.  It is exciting to see LA on the forefront of the artistic search in the first quarter of the 21st century, as part of a multi - threaded tapestry within newly pluralistic and rich contemporary expression.  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

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!

  

******

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.

  

 

   

******

                   

   

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

Save the Date - December 14th - our holiday event

 

Music & Art + potluck party

and our annual Toy Drive

 

Save the date!  

 

Monday, December 14, 2015

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

 

                           

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

 

 

   

 

We look forward to seeing you soon!  

 

In ART we trust!   

November 16th Music and the Art in the Studio

November Night  

this coming Monday, 
November 16th @ 8 p.m.  

Music & Arts in the Studio 

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

   

We are doubly lucky to have not one, but two esteemed LA Philharmonic violinists, Mark Kashper and Camille Avellano, performing Prokofiev's rarely heard Sonata for Two Violins - a preview of their Tuesday, Nov. 17 performance in the LA Phil's Chamber Music night at Disney Hall.

Pianist Anton Smirnoff has returned to LA after receiving a master's degree in music at Yale. He will show off the extra burnishing of his already considerable chops with Liszt's formidable Dante Sonata, inspired by The Divine Comedy.

Our dear friend and wonderful cellist Evgeny Tonkha will play 3 solo works, by Debussy, Bach and the Preludes for Solo Cello by the great living Russian composer, Sofia Gubaidulina.

Making their Classical Underground debuts, USC doctoral students Hung-Tao Lin and Daniel Linder will perform Debussy's delightful Petite Suite for piano duet.

Also making his CU debut, Santa Monica native James Hodges will perform the exquisite but rarely heard First Rhapsody for clarinet of Debussy, with Pepi Pilibossian once again taking the place of an orchestra with her ten impressive fingers on piano.

  

 

     

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

  

Our online reservations are closed.  Please dress warm!  It is chilly in the studio tonight.

  

******

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery Los Angeles  

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument
Model D.

  

  

         

******

                    

   

Classical Underground Showcase 

JULIO REYES and CANDICE BOHANNON   

   

Candice Bohannon  "Long Valley" 33" x 33.5" Oil on mounted linen, 2015

Classical  Underground is proud and happy to showcase  the works of two of the most important and promising young forces  in the emerging movement of serious contemporary representational Art  - Julio Reyes and Candice Bohannon.

Julio and Candice's works are soulful, intensely personal and introspective, often melancholic and contemplative, and always exquisite in their precision of conception and  layered fluidity of execution.

Never stale and always exciting, they both in their own ways constantly introduce new technical approaches and variety to their use of painting and drawing materials that add and reinforce the restrained complexity of their haunting and beautiful pictorial poems.

It is precisely the relatively recent emergence of such bright and distinct artists as Julio and Candice that makes it impossible to deny that this new and vibrant movement within contemporary art is well on its way.

 Julio Reyes "Dark Waters" -- 30"x 45" oil on panel 2014

Julio's and Candice's new works can be seen during the month of November at Maxwell Alexander Gallery in Culver City. Candice is soon to be represented by R J Demato Gallery in Sag Harbor, NY.

In another bit of really exciting news, and as a form of public notice, we are very happy to welcome to Los Angeles in early 2016 the incomparable Arcadia Contemporary which represents Julio. Arcadia Contemporary is one of the foremost galleries representing a significant share of today's top realist artists and close artistic friends. Arcadia Contemporary's Los Angeles re-launch signifies a seismic shift in the art market and Los Angeles's emergence as a viable New York alternative. Serious California collectors can now feel confident that they don't really need to fly to New York to buy California artists. Just as I've been saying for the last fifteen years: "LA is the Paris of the 21st century"!

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 

 

Save the Date Nov 16th

Our next CU is November 16th.
Look for the invitation next week!

We are in the 9th season! October 12th @ 8 p.m.

We are sold out!

9th Season 
Opener   

this coming Monday,
October 12 @ 8 p.m. 

Music & Arts in the Studio

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

 

  

The most sensational debut in the eight years of Classical Underground belongs to soprano Delaram Kamareh singing a challenging program of virtuosic coloratura arias last December, which she dispatched with captivating vocal flair and the charismatic stage presence of a born star.  A short time later she stole the show as the pyrotechnic soloist in Tan Dun's "The Water Passion" at Disney Hall.  We are delighted to have Delaram back at CU to perform an aria that should be a knockout: Zerbinetta's "Großmächtige Prinzessin" from Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, accompanied by Mitsuko Morikawa on piano.  Not to be missed!

Delaram's CU debut youtube link: https://youtu.be/KC9u16_O65o

And that's just one of the delights on this wonderful opening program. Violinist Moni Simeonov and pianist Pepi Pilibossian will perform Ralph Vaughn Williams' ever-popular "The Lark Ascending," in the piano version of its premiere in 1920.

Pianist Eduardo Delgado will bring his lifetime of keyboard wisdom to the ultimate Beethoven piano sonata, Op. 111.

Guitarists Bryan Fasola and Donovan Butez of the Los Angeles Duo will perform classic and contemporary pieces,  La Valse d'Amélie by Yann Tiersen, Arabesque No. 1 by Claude Debussy, and Donovan's own work, Emergency Room. 

And our resident piano virtuoso Harout Senekerimian will perform Scriabin's Fantasie in b minor, op. 28.

 

 

  

 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 SOLD OUT!

  

******

We are most grateful to our supportive friends at

 Steinway Piano Gallery Los Angeles  

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument
Model D386.

  

 

         

******

                   

   

Classical Underground Showcase 

Michael Klein

 

"Pink English Roses" 12"x15" oil on linen
on loan from Maxwell Alexander Gallery 

Classical Underground is proud to showcase the work of one of the leading figures in serious contemporary realism -  Michael Klein.

It's a rare treat to see the works of this superb artist on the West Coast, so when the Maxwell Alexander Gallery of Culver City assembled a sizable collection of his recent still lifes for a show, it was an opportunity not to be missed.

In his work, Michael steps much beyond just the scene in front of him -  he uses his subject matter as the starting point in a personal and complex visual expression. Much like in any great work of ART, it is not the scene that affects us in Michael's works, but the experience brought up by the aesthetics of its presentation and by the level of its execution.

Michael's thoughtfully arranged harmonies balanced just enough by well-decided contrasts, a sensation of space between the shapes of his objects, the delicate transition of colors -- all together bring the poetic feel surrounding Michael's work, delivering a magic sensation and a mood of underlying lament.  His good, "in-its-place" use of impasto, and the combination of decision and spontaneity in well-measured  alla prima passages within a multilayered paint world, create an optical feast for an engaged viewer.

Michael's elegant, fluid and exciting use of paint fully and authentically informed by a cool-headed visual decision making are remarkably rare and welcomed qualities in the field saturated with track-loads of "photo finish" attempting fare on one side, and sloppy trick-chasing on the other.

In his paintings, life just slowed down to remain still, and this is a kind of still life that is very hard to come by. The trembling petals of a flower or wet scales of a fish are transformed into elegies in paint by Michael's work.

Michael Klein's works are sophisticated expressions of a tall order. This is why they will always find themselves at home next to the most sophisticated and highest ART expressions of any style and of any time.

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  

Season's Finale this coming Monday, June 1st @ 8 p.m.

on line reservations are now closed

  

Season's Finale   

this coming Monday,
June 1st @ 8 p.m. 

Music & Arts in the Studio

(and Potluck Party)

@ Alexey Steele Grand Atelier 

    

 

For our season finale, dear friend and superhero piano virtuoso Jura Margulis is back in town with a prodigious set, including his own piano solo arrangement of the Toccata & Passacaglia from Shostakovich's Symphony #8, Valse Caprice #6 from the Schubert-Liszt Soirées de Vienne, and Scriabin's Poeme Op. 72 - Vers la Flamme.

  

Violinist Leonard Chong returns to CU with his cellist brother Erick Chong in tow to perform the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, a virtuosic transcription by Norwegian composer and violinist Johan Halvorsen of one of Handel's harpsichord suites.

  

Classical saxophonist Chika Inoue and flautist Dr. Rik Noyce will team up for Epitaphe by French composer Charles Koechlin, who isn't often heard today despite his prolific output and influence on many composers as varied as Poulenc and Cole Porter.  Chika and Rik will also take a jazzier turn through Chick Corea's classic Spain.

  

The delightful soprano Jennifer Lindsay makes her long-anticipated return to CU singing the lyrical and emotional fireworks of Violeta's aria  E Strano...Ah, fors e lui...Sempre Libera from Verdi's tragic opera La Traviata.  And then to ease us into our off-season break, Summertime from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, accompanied by Mary Au on piano.

   

 

     

 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

 Steinway Piano Gallery Los Angeles  

for graciously providing us with their incomparable instrument
Model D.

  

 

       

******

                     

Classical Underground Showcase 

Adrian Gottlieb   

Figure and Color II 

   

"Aurora," 24"x36,""  

Reconciling two important aesthetic impulses, Form and Color, was for a very long time one of the most exciting areas of refined representational art as well as one of its most hotly debated topics.

At the last CU showcase, we explored the influence of the emerging strong California figure school on the venerable California plein air tradition.

For our second installment on the subject, we are fortunate to showcase the new work by one of the best living American figurative painters, Adrian Gottlieb. Within the classical representational vernacular he mastered, the human figure remains the highest and most complex expression of Form. Effectively depicting it with elusive and complicated outdoor lighting is crucial in order to achieve the authentic experience, as well as the specific mood, and requires a remarkable degree of artistic prowess.

Processing the great California plein air tradition of California's leading figure painters is  uniquely important in attaining such rare ability. In his recent paintings Adrian is exploring new levels of coloristic subtleties that greatly advance their impact.

Effectively combining the expressive potentials of both Form and Color was long considered the holy grail by generations of representational masters. It is remarkable and exciting to see the cutting edge California artists today writing a new chapter in this quest. 

in ART we trust!

The doors open at 7 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m.  Unassigned seating.  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