SECTION E
SUNDAY • DECEMBER 24, 2017
CLASSICAL MUSIC E4
POP MUSIC E4
VISUAL ART E6
5 GIFTS WE’RE THANKFUL FOR THIS YEAR
THEATER E3
BOOKS E5
DANCE E3
BOOKS ‘It’s All Relative’ by A.J. Jacobs E7 TRAVEL Quebec City’s chilly charms E9
E4
THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
SUNDAY • DECEMBER 24, 2017
5 GI F TS W E’ R E T H A N K FU L F O R TH I S YE AR
Pop Music BY GEORGE VARGA
San Diego produced and received myriad musical gifts in 2017. Here are five that struck a major chord: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Whether performing songs by Jaques Brel, Albert Ayler, Ralph Stanley or Thelonious Monk, she sounds like no one else on Earth.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ triumphant, festival-closing Sept. 17 performance at the third annual KAABOO Del Mar was the highlight of the weekend. Simultaneously rousing, reverent and rhapsodic, Petty and his band soared through hits and deep album cuts with infectious verve and vigor. He looked and sounded like a man very much on top of the world. His sudden death just 15 days later, at the age of 67, was as numbing as his KAABOO show was uplifting.
Andra Day
Charles and Camille McPherson Charles McPherson has been one of the jazz world’s leading saxophonists since the 1960s. At 78, he is half a century older than his daughter Camille, one of the San Diego Ballet’s leading young dancers. The two first teamed here in 2015, when Charles composed and performed “Sweet Synergy Suite,” which featured Camille’s dancing. They reunited with the San Diego Ballet this year for “Reflection and Hope,” which Charles composed in the wake of last year’s presidential election. Watching father and daughter in action together on the same stage is a double treat that should become an annual tradition.
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Tom Petty headlines the final day of KAABOO Del Mar in September. Sax player Charles McPherson and his daughter Camille, a dancer.
Andra Day a 2003 graduate of the San Diego School of Creative & Performing Arts who has been nominated for multiple Grammy Awards, joined Stevie Wonder, The Killers, Green Day and other artists to perform at September’s Global Citizen Festival in New York’s Central Park. She delivered a suitably chilling version of “Strange Fruit,” which was famously first recorded in 1939 by Billie Holiday and recorded this year by Day in conjunction with the Equal Justice Initiative. Wearing a broken handcuff on each wrist as she sang, Day linked “Strange Fruit’s” lyrics about the lynching of black men in the American South to current social and racial inequities. In October, she teamed with rapper Common to sing “Stand Up for Something,” the theme song for “Marshall,” the film chronicling the early career of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In December, the song earned a Grammy nomination. An Oscar nod could follow.
Vinyl Junkies Record Shack
CHAD BATKA NEW YORK TIMES
Avant-garde composer, vocalist and performance artist Diamanda Galas at her home in New York.
Diamanda Galas
After a recording hiatus of nearly a decade, San Diego-bred vocal wizard of awes Diamanda Galas released two stunning new albums in 2017, “All the Way” and “At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem.” They are the 17th and 18th albums of her singular career as a
singer whose solo voice concerts and recordings create an intensely visceral aural world of adventure. Galas’ hair-raising performances are simultaneously draining and cathartic, as befits a maverick artist who goes for the jugular every time with her remarkable, finely calibrated voice.
Thanksgiving weekend saw the opening of Vinyl Junkies Record Shack, which is located in South Park, across from the Whistle Stop bar. It’s a joint venture between Casbah honcho Tim Mays and Eric Howarth, the former owner of the Mission Hills record store M-Theory and the Hi-Speed Soul record label. This bright and airy “shack” offers about 10,000 vintage albums (and some cassettes). Its stock ranges from blues, jazz and heavy metal to psychedelic, Kraut-rock and more. Fittingly, it’s located barely a block from the site of the original M-Theory store. Under any name, it’s a welcome addition. george.varga@sduniontribune.com Twitter @georgevarga
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Classical Music
Pianist Cecil Lytle..
BY BETH WOOD
From the lively variety of baroque and chamber-music concerts to the rich mix of offerings from the San Diego Symphony, classical music aficionados here are blessed with an embarrassment of riches. Add to that the vibrant community-engagement programs of Art of Élan and the San Diego Opera, among others, and the future looks as bright as the holiday lights in Balboa Park. Here are five of the many highlights of 2017: Art of Élan and Fresh Sound
La Jolla Symphony & Chorus The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus has been a gift that’s kept on giving here since the 1950s. Five years ago, it launched a $1.5 million fundraising drive for its “Sostenuto” Endowment Fund. During its seasonopening Nov. 4 and 5 concerts, the organization proudly announced that the goal had been reached. Thanks to donors big and small, it can continue presenting its eclectic programs for years to come. Its two November concerts, conducted by music director Steven Schick and featuring pianist Cecil Lytle, were a compelling example of the orchestra’s penchant for performing both classics (Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”) and newly commissioned works (Concertino for Two Pianos & Orchestra by Asher Tobin Chodos).
“Cuatro Corridos” It’s not a shiny or cuddly present, but “Cuatro Corridos,” a provocative chamber opera by UC San Diego professor Susan Narucki and Mexican author Jorge
Singer and UC San Diego professor Susan Narucki.
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Volpi, offers a needed glimpse into the grim reality of sex trafficking. The 2016 recording of the opera earned a Best Classical Contemporary Composition Latin Grammy nomination for “Azucena,” composed by Hebert Vázquez and sung by Narucki. UC San Diego professor Lei Liang also composed a piece for “Corridos.”
Two adventurous local music presenters celebrated landmark anniversaries this year. Bonnie Wright’s Fresh Sound series kicked off its 20th season by inviting percussionists extraordinaire Steven Schick (of UC San Diego and the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus) and UC San Diego alum — and former Schick student — Vanessa Tomlinson. The dynamic duo’s return on Feb. 24 — they performed at the series’ inaugural concert in 1997 — was inventive, playful and profound. On June 17, Art of Élan completed its gem-packed 10th season with a concert by the delightful Myriad Trio featuring Julie Smith Phillips, the San Diego Symphony’s principal harpist; violist Che-Yen Chen of the Formosa Quartet; and flutist Demarre McGill, who cofounded Art of Élan. A highlight of their performance was the exquisite, Art of Élan-commissioned “Variations on a Simple Theme” by Israeli-born Avner Dorman.
SummerFest SummerFest is like
SERGIO FERNANDEZ
PAUL BODY
Cho-Liang “Jimmy” Lin, music director for SummerFest.
Christmas in August. Deftly led since 2001 by music director Cho-Liang “Jimmy” Lin, the La Jolla Music Society’s monthlong festival is beloved by audiences and the performers who happily gather to make music together. This year, many events were held at UC San Diego’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, as the La Jolla Music Society builds its new performing arts center, The Conrad, which is expected to be completed in early 2019. The 31-year-old SummerFest’s educational encounters, coaching workshops and open rehearsals were free to the public, making it a true community affair.
San Diego Symphony It’s difficult to choose what’s most enriching about the San Diego Symphony — the increasing excellence of the orchestra, its “edutaining” Beyond the Score presentations, the intimate chamber-music concerts, or its community outreach. But the frequency of visits by the esteemed conductor Edo de Waart has been particularly gratifying. His guest appearance in October was the fourth in the last three years and the first of three this season, including the 2018 May finale. He inspires the orchestra and delights audiences. Wood is a freelance writer.
San Diego Symphony at FOX 5 San Diego, January 8, 2018 Promoting It’s About Time Festival & Community Drum Circles
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