By David Amos SAN DIEGO — About two weeks ago, the San Diego Union-Tribune weekly supplement called American Profile included an article by Audrey T. Hingley titled Great American Composers. The title obviously perked my interest, but I found it disturbing and misleading on different levels. Here are the ten composers who were listed as [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO — The Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra will present one of its most eclectic programs ever on April 14 and 16. The traditional part of the concert is represented by two post-Romantic composers that are household names and their music reign as concert favorites. The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius wrote tone [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO– The motto of San Diego Jewish World, “there is a Jewish story everywhere,” came to life last weekend when my wife and I visited Texas for four days. The main reason for the trip was to attend the Bar-Mitzvah of the son of my cousin. They live in Austin, and the [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO — Do we want it to be all-candy for the ears, or do we want it to provoke us? To challenge us and create an emotional response? Would we accept to go to a theatre play, or watch a film, or read a novel where everybody is sweet, everybody [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO — About a month ago, the PBS Network presented an extraordinary and revealing documentary called Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy. We all know of the many composers, singers, and writers of Jewish roots who have contributed to the Broadway stage, from its humble beginnings in New York, to the golden [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO–The Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra will present its second series of concerts of the 2012-13 season on Sunday, January 27, at 4:00 p.m., and Tuesday the 29th at 7:30 p.m. The orchestra is in the midst of its 39th year of continuously giving concerts to the San Diego community at large. [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO –During the weeklong celebration of Hannukah, which just finished, I was pleased to find Radio Hannukah on the Sirius-XM satellite radio in the car. It was a special channel, entirely devoted, 24 hours a day, to recorded music related to the festival. Most of it was Hannukah music, while other [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO–I would like to call to your attention to a very special concert which the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra will present at Tifereth Israel Synagogue. This is a program with strong Jewish content, and is titled Rebirth, Remembrance, Revelation. The Youth Philharmonic String Orchestra and String Ensemble, directed by Alyze Dreiling, is [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO–Here are some intriguing things to think about: Mozart lived to the age of 35; Schubert, 32, Beethoven, 57, to name just a few who had relatively short lifetimes. The list is long, but we should add to it here the names of Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Bizet. Can you think of [...]
By David Amos SAN DIEGO –In my enthusiasm and involvement in serious classical music, it really all starts with the work of the composer. One of the Twentieth Century’s most important composers of symphonic music, Paul Creston, very correctly said that for music to take place, three elements must take place in this sequence: The [...]