Eileen Wingard

By Eileen Wingard LA JOLLA, California –SummerFest 2013 began with a sunburst evening in Scripp’s Park at the La Jolla Cove. The program, a wonderful amalgam of old and new, consisted of works by Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Piazzolla, and Bolcom. This concert was just one of the many free features offered by the La Jolla Music

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — Conductor Murry Sidlin is well-remembered by San Diegans for his creative programs with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. For many years, he was the conductor of the Classical Hits series. He also did a stint as conductor of the Summer Pops and, later, conducted the Light Bulb series. Most

By Eileen Wingard LONG BEACH, California — The Long Beach Opera Company’s staging of Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth was an unusual production, taking place in San Pedro’s World Cruise Center. With bleacher seating on two sides of a center aisle, there were no set changes, costumes were minimal, and the three acts were telescoped into 105

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — The decorated French-born violinist, Jacques Israelievitch, who served as assistant concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony, then concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony followed by a two-decade stint as concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony, undertook a marathon performance challenge: playing three violin concerti in one evening! The three concerti, performed

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — Last month, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) concluded its Chamber Music Series at the Scripps Research Institute Auditorium with a program featuring an unusual instrument for classical chamber music concerts, the mandolin. That plucked folk instrument, in the hands of the Israeli-born mandolin virtuoso, Avi Avital, combined with string

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — Although there was a notable sigh of disappointment when it was announced that the scheduled soloist for the evening, 92-year-old jazz cellist Fred Katz, was ill and unable to perform, the audience was well-compensated with two outstanding substitutes, woodwind jazz artist Norbert Sachel, who flew in from New York

By Eileen Wingard PORTLAND, Oregon –For the first time in its seven-year history, I was able to attend the opening program of  “A Journey Through the Generations” at the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland. This is no ordinary exhibit. On view from April 23-May 7, it was created by fifth graders, twenty-two students from my

By Eileen Wingard EL CAJON, California — Jazz violinist, pianist and composer, David Morales Boroff, was clearly the star of the Gala Fundraiser for the Music Department of Grossmont College. This attractive, talented 19-year-old, the recipient of a President’s Scholarship  (four years of free tuition and housing) from the Berklee School of Music in Boston,

By Eileen Wingard SAN DIEGO — Rachel Barton Pine informed us, as she opened her recital at San Diego State University, that she was not Jewish. In fact, with the exception of the Nigun by Bloch and the Hebrew Melody of Achron, she had never played any of the selections on the Jewish Studies program