Mark Swed
Lists
The Summer's Best in Classical Music
THE INDICATION of summer in ever-sunny Southern California is that the music has moved outdoors. If the calendar doesn't agree, that's the calendar's problem. Case in point: Our summer starts when the Ojai Music Festival does, June 5 in Libbey Bowl. It ends when the Hollywood Bowl does, Sept. 27 -- no matter that Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra begins its fall season the same day and that Los Angeles Opera's fall season will already be 3 weeks old.
The silliest Bowl night? "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)" with Eric Idle (Aug. 1-2). You need to ask?
And if you must go indoors -- and worse still, indoors in Santa Barbara -- Music Academy of the West will stage the West Coast premiere of William Bolcom's sunny 2004 comic opera, "A Wedding," based on Robert Altman's film (musicacademy.org, Aug. 8 and 10).
The most intriguing Bowl night? "Tchaikovsky With Fireworks." Pyrotechnics may prove beyond the point what with Lang Lang making his Bowl debut in Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, Philharmonic cellist Ben Hong appearing as soloist in Tan Dun's "Crouching Tiger" Concerto and the Bowl debut of an up-and-coming Chinese conductor, Long Yu (July 17).