Summer Guide Calendar of Events

Gods of Modern Music

The last time we ventured to Ojai, the sleepy little town that hosts one of the most enterprising annual events in arts contemporania, locals had taken on a very visible political patina – poster carriers, lobbying for Democrats in the then-upcoming, mid-term 2006 election, greeted us smilingly at the entrance of Libbey Park.

But the town’s not so sleepy anymore. Or, should we just say, it always was a safe little harbor for minority progressives.

This time, when the 62nd Ojai Music Festival gets underway – June 5-8 – we can probably anticipate another political show and, as usual, lots of the big names who champion avant-garde music along with some curiously off-center versions of the old guard.

For starters, there’s music director David Robertson, whose knack for igniting audiences comes not least from his spunky spoken previews. He’s put together a mix of esoterica and the familiar, with proper genuflection to those composer gods of modern music: Elliott Carter (complex), Olivier Messiaen (mystic) and Steve Reich (minimalist).

Now, just in case you’re a virgin attendee, be prepared for grand pleasures like Dawn Upshaw singing a Saturday morning recital (11 a.m.) at Libbey Bowl, an enchanted grotto surrounded in leafy splendor (site of all performances). Yes, it’s one of those special programs the soprano puts together – choice Pete Seeger and Charles Ives mingled with Kurt Weill, Debussy and Schumann.

Oh, and whatever you do, check out Friday night’s bill. It features a screening of Chaplin’s Modern Times, with the filmmaker’s own score, of course, played by the Festival Orchestra. And the U.S. premiere of – are you ready? – Francoise Narboni’s El Gran Masturbador, referring to Dali’s painting of the same title!

Also, don’t forget the big Saturday night bash: Philippe Manouri’s En Echó for soprano and live electronics and Michael Jarrell’s Cassandre, intoned by noted German actress Barbara Sukowa. To send everyone home happy from the 5:30 Sunday finale, Upshaw returns for a bit of baroque-iana, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, and Reich’s Tehillim rounds out the religious forum. Libbey Bowl, 205 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai. Ojai Presbyterian Church, 304 Foothill Rd., Ojai. Ojai Art Center, 113 S. Montgomery St., Ojai. Ojai Playhouse, 145 E Ojai Ave., Ojai. (805) 656-2094. Ojaifestival.org. –Donna Perlmutter

Filmstrip

A town with as much of a pop-musical history as Los Angeles simply demands more film festivals like this, and the folks at American Cinematheque have nicely supplied another round of rock- and pop-culture-themed movies and documentaries for the much-loved Mods and Rockers. At press time, the series is scheduled to kick off with the world premiere of The Seventh Python, Burt Kearns’ look at the career of the brilliantly funny musician Neil Innes, along with the man’s work with the legendary Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band audible and visible in, er, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band 40th Anniversary Concert, both screening at the Egyptian Theatre on June 26. More titles are to be announced, but they’ve let slip this much: A Hard Day’s Night and Wonderwall screen June 28; and two films about L.A. psychedelic greats Love, Love Story and This Is Gary McFarland, are shown June 29. For information, visit Modsandrockers.com. –Joshua Sindell

Grab your sweetie by the hand, and take her down yonder, to graveyard land … . For kicky summer-night thrills, it’s hard to top a picnic dinner and a kitschy movie whilst lounging among the dead. This year’s Hollywood Forever cemetery’s Cinespia series is still mostly in the programming stages, but get ready for laffs, as May 31 serves up the Peter Sellers swingin’ ’60s spoof The Party. The following week (June 7) finds the scene-appropriate vampire flick The Hunger wafting its way over the heads – and headstones – of unwary onlookers. 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 469-1181. www.cemeteryscreenings.com. –JS

Westwood Village celebrates the diversity of the world of film from June 19 through June 29, as the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival screens more than 230 feature films, shorts, and music videos at 13 venues. Strangely, there’s a decidedly escapist, comic-book theme going on with the keynote films, with both the Angelina Jolie-starring Wanted and director Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy sequel providing action-movie thrills as the festival’s bookends, but in between those two is a slate of world-class cinema ranging from adults-only releases to family-friendly fare. The festival’s “Centerpiece Premiere” is also an unusual choice: Sacha Gervasi’s humorous documentary of a mid-level Canadian heavy-metal band, Anvil!: The Story of Anvil. Festival passes are available now through the festival ticket office, and film schedules are posted at LAfilmfest.com. 1020 Westwood Blvd., Westwood Village, (866) 345-6337. –JS

Nights at the Museum

I’m not the first to note that the Getty, with its towering vistas and overstated topography, is as much a destination as it is a museum.

Even the dramatic cable car entry evokes the feet-dangling memories of amusement parks past, or at least of the escalator that rolls gleeful bargain-hunters up and into IKEA. The arts center makes full use of its summer-friendly spaces with a Friday concerts series, the next iteration of which occurs on June 13, when soprano Ailish Tynan and pianist Hugh Tinley – hailing from Ireland – perform a recital of songs by Brahms and Faure, and arrangements of Irish folk songs by Herbert Hughes. With July’s Summer Sessions 2008, we’ll see world music of a less traditional sort, as middle eastern-influenced DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Afro-Soul-ers the Budos Band, and Spain’s indie-kid-sanctioned sampler El Guincho take turns filling up the Museum Courtyard and Garden Terrace. Parents of wee ones can circle August for the Getty’s Garden Concerts for Kids series, featuring the likes of the Jellydots, Guy Davis, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Free. Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Dr., L.A., (310) 440-7300. Getty.edu. –Alfred Lee

The similarly free, but syntactically defiant Also I Like to Rock summer rock concerts series at the Hammer Museum comes hand-picked by the hit-and-miss folks at Indie 103.1. Things kick off July 3, with local bands Nico Vega and the Growlers, and continue on with the Deadly Syndrome, the Duke Spirit, and Tokyo Police Club. The JazzPOP series takes over on July 31 with Graham Connah’s Detention Seven, a jazz septet with ties to prog rock and psychedelia. Things stay outside-the-box with Ron Miles’s Blossom, who draw from folk and Motown alike, and Vinny Golia’s electric sextet. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood, (310) 443-7000. Hammer.ucla.edu. –AL

At LACMA, the jazz flows less, er, freely, though you still don’t have to pay. The more traditional sounds of open-air series Friday Night Jazz forge on at the central court through June 27, including Grammy-nominated Bill Cunliffe on June 6. And when 80-year-old saxophonist Red Holloway plays on June 13, it won’t be a rare sight: He’ll be there a day after contemporary taiko drumming ensemble TAIKOPROJECT, which counts among its 100 drummers both 80-year-olds and 8-year-olds. Tickets for the Bing Theatre performance are $27. LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., (323) 857-6000. Lacma.org. –AL

Are You Ready to … ?

This June 15, the Ford hands over its Father’s Day concert to Notes From the Edge, a program of “cool and intrepid” arrangements for string quartet and vocals of classic and modern masterpieces from the likes of Radiohead, Elvis Costello and David Bowie. The JAM (Jazz and Motivated) series runs all summer, with the public invited to learn dance, vocal and instrumental jazz guided by artists from the Ford season. Volunteers will learn jazz arrangements before proceeding to the mysteries of tango and bluegrass. The Ford hosts Outfest Under the Stars July 16-20 and the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony performs an intriguing program Aug. 24 titled The Sephardic-Latino Connection. 2528 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 461-3673. fordamphitheater.org. –Ron Garmon

The iconic Hollywood Bowl’s long-running affair with rock acts old and new continues

with appearances by The Police on May 27-28, R.E.M. May 29, Stone Temple Pilots June 24, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers June 25, Cheap Trick taking another hack at Sgt. Pepper June 28, Stevie Wonder July 7, and Radiohead Aug. 25. The Playboy Jazz Festival runs June 13-14. On June 20, the dread Liza Minnelli (Lucille 2) will be inducted into the Bowl’s Hall of Fame. Eric Idle’s Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) will run Aug. 1-2. The former promises a fine blast of Tinseltown hoo-raw and the latter is rumored to be part Life of Brian and part Handel’s Messiah. Etta James and the Roots Band appear with brother Solomon Burke on Aug. 13. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood (323) 850-2000. Hollywoodbowl.com. –RG

Indie rock powerhouse KCRW has fingers in half the pies of Clubland, starting with sponsoring space cowboys Gram Rabbit’s appearance on May 31 at Safari Sam’s and the Fiery Furnaces at Spaceland the same night. They host Brad Mehldau at the El Rey on June 6, the Submarines at the Echo June 13 and Robert Plant and Allison Kraus at the Greek June 23-24. The station’s World Music Festival at the Hollywood Bowl will be held selected Sunday nights throughout the summer, featuring Thievery Corporation on June 22, Gilberto Gil and Devendra Banhart on June 26, Feist July 20, Gnarls Barkley July 27, and a Reggae Night on Aug. 3, with UB40, Beres Hammond and Barrington Levy. Ozomatli closes the summer out on Sept. 23. kcrw.com. –RG

Grand Performances promoters say the summer season is “90 percent complete,” with highlights including performances by Seun Kuti on June 20, the Real Tuesday Weld and Lal Meri July 18, the Jdub Caravan, Soulico and Deleon July 20, Fresh Roots Jazz Festival Aug. 1, Jaipur Kawa Brass Band Aug. 8, and Very Be Careful & the estimable Money Mark on Aug. 22. The COLA Artist Project running in conjunction with the city’s Cultural Affairs Department is scheduled June 13 and 14. 350 S. Grand Avenue, Downtown. (213) 687-2198. grandperformances.org. –RG

Elegant Variations

The fine arts multiplex downtown hums this summer with the L.A. Opera’s production of Tosca at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on May 31, as well as A Chorus Line continuing its run past Independence Day at the Ahmanson. Dance Downtown continues its free Friday dance lessons, with experts initiating newcomers in cumbia, salsa, tango, zydeco and salsa all summer long. The free and family-friendly Toy Theatre Festival is slated for the Disney the weekend of June 14-15. 125 N Grand Ave., downtown L.A. (213) 972-7211. musicccenter.org. –RG

The Music Guild’s summer series is itself something of an ode to lazy Sunday afternoons: Coffee, Cookies and Concerts brings piano ensembles and a string quartet to University Synagogue in Brentwood. Tickets are $7 to $40, but parking is free (on Sunset!) – and so are the coffee, fruit, cheese and cookies. The next show is June 1, when Huh Piano Trio takes the stage with works by Beethoven and Dvořak. 3 p.m. University Synagogue, 11960 Sunset Blvd., Brentwood. Info: (323) 954-0404 or Themusicguild.org. –Kirk Silsbee

There are also worse ways to spend those Sunday afternoons than transit-friendly downtown, where the California Philharmonic performs its summer season at Disney Concert Hall starting June 29 (2 p.m.; Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; info: 626-300-8200 or Calphil.org). But Cal Phil will be pulling double duty on those weekends on the L.A. County Arboretum’s concert lawn, which will open up at 5:30 p.m. for prospective picnickers. The series’s themed nights include Andrew Lloyd Webber Meets Puccini July 12-13 and Gotta Dance on Sept. 6, which invites the audience to boogie along to interpretations of Johann Strauss, the Beatles, and the Mamas and the Papas (7:30 p.m.; Arboretum, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia). –KS

Get out your picnic baskets: Alfresco season is almost upon us. The Los Angeles Philharmonic takes up residence at the Hollywood Bowl Tuesdays and Thursdays in its regular repertory of Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, etc. – giving way most other nights to the usual mix of fireworks spectaculars, Bugs Bunny bonanzas, rock and reggae star turns, and jazz and pop parades, much of it featuring the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.

Bramwell Tovey, its new principal guest conductor at the Bowl, takes up the baton for seven concerts scattered throughout the summer – which runs June 20-Sept. 27. Often you’ll find programming attempts that appeal to the general public, like the concert on July 17 that brings in that popular Chinese phenom Lang Lang (he of the flying hair and silent-film histrionics) to play both Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Piano Concerto and the all-time favorite Tchaikovsky No. 1. And, oh, yes, just in case this doesn’t do, fireworks are also on tap.

?On Sept. 9 and 11, we’ll have Esa-Pekka Salonen, in his last Bowl date as music director before departing the Philharmonic, taking on Mahler’s massive Eighth Symphony, a.k.a. “Symphony of a Thousand” with eight solo singers, two choirs and an augmented orchestra.

And don’t worry, opera continues to get into the act, if only once this summer on July 13. Tovey leads the Bowl Orchestra in Carmen, a concert performance, with Denyce Graves in the title role.

Some other noteworthy conductors include Andrew Davis, doing an all-Mozart program July 22 and 24, and Edo de Waart for an evening of German Romantics Aug. 26 and a Russian bill Aug. 28. Two virtuosos with big personalities, violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, take center stage Aug. 19 and 21, respectively.

Summer hits can always be found on the Bowl schedule. If not Pictures at an Exhibition (amazingly absent this season!), then Carmina Burana, yes, yes, on July 8.

Just remember to bring a wrap for cool evenings. And try not to let your wine bottles roll down the concrete steps! Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., L.A. (323) 436-2827. Hollywoodbowl.com. –DP

Festivals for the Rest of Y’alls

Sunday, June 1, is the third annual Lummis Day festivities at Lummis House in Highland Park. An Ohio poet and journalist (and Harvard classmate of Teddy Roosevelt) Charles F. Lummis walked out here from Cincinnati in 1884, the story goes, after being offered a job at the L.A. Times. Ethnographer, doughty defender of Indian civil rights and hard-living hellion, Lummis left a row of books and a fabled hand-built house in Arroyo Seco named “El Alisal.” The festival will sport two stages and feature performances by Latino icon theater group Culture Clash and the music of alleged Daryl Hannah-beater Jackson Browne. Browne is himself as much an L.A. icon as Lummis, with ditties like “Doctor My Eyes” and “Redneck Friend” gaining meanings the longer I stay an Angeleno. Sycamore Grove Park, 4700 N. Figueroa St., L.A. (323) 225-0370. Lummis Home and Garden, 200 E. Ave. 43, L.A. (323) 222-0546. Lummisday.org. –Ron Garmon

Admittedly, not all these gatherings have Lummis’s eccentric cachet. The 26th installation of the annual Salute to Recreation Family Festival at Northridge Park in Northridge May 31-June 1 sounds as family-friendly Valley generic as the name indicates, with carnival rides, a petting zoo, three stages and fireworks on Saturday night. The Venice Carnevale! is a little edgier: a homegrown version of the ancient costumed event thrown by the city’s Italian sister since 1268. This is a merry single day of goofball fashion and counterculture antics that had a heavy Burner tinge the time I attended in 2006. Northridge Park, 10058 Reseda Blvd., Northridge.

(818) 995-1690. Laparks.org/salute. 861 Venice Blvd., Venice. Carnevale.us. –RG

L.A. Pride is June 6-8 at West Hollywood Park. Its ancestry goes back to the Christopher Street West party thrown in the face of police opposition in 1970, a year after the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village. A Carnal Carnival, Leather Contest and the Erotic City party highlight an event the likes of which the Reverend Lou Sheldon may only (wet-)dream of. 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood. (323) 848-6534. Weho.org. –RG

Music fans of all orthodoxies will have ample reason to sweat in the sun, beginning with the pale skronk lovers who’ll doubtless show up June 7-8 in medium-big droves to Higganbotham Park in Claremont for the fifth Cochina Festival. The likes of Amps for Christ and Tik//Tik will rend the air from noon til dusk. Higginbotham Park, 599 Mt. Carmel Dr., Claremont. (909) 399-5460. Myspace.com/prerock. –RG

H.A.R.D. Summer Music Fest at the Shrine Expo Center June 19 is headlining Justice, Peaches and 2 Live Crew. Remember when 2 Live Crew were the filthiest things that had ever come down the pike? These days, they seem about as threatening as the once-also-really-threatening “Tutti Frutti.” Shrine Auditorium and Expo Center, 649 W. Jefferson Blvd., L.A. (213) 748-5116. Shrinela.com. –RG

The first-ever Sunset Strip Music Festival takes place the weekend of June 26-28 at the Key Club, the Viper Room, the Cat Club, the H.O.B., the Roxy and the Whisky on the Strip. Line-up includes such catchpenny acts as Everclear, Juliette Lewis & the Licks, and Hot Hot Heat, with the all-but-mummified Larry King to moderate a “rock icon roundtable discussion” Saturday night. There is nothing in the world less “rock” than Larry King. Oodles of fun! (310) 659-7368. Thesunsetstrip.com. –RG

Less hair farming rockers and more dayglo hippie fun will be had at the Electric Daisy Carnival, slated for the Coliseum and Exposition Park June 28. Six stages (with names like “Neon Garden” and “Comic Meadow”) are to feature the crème de la oontz of DJ culture, with powerhouses like Paul Van Dyk and Benny Banassi jostling with the new-minted likes of Party Shank and Le Castle Vania. Rides and midway attractions are promised, along with fire performers and cheerful freaks on stilts. VIP packages available for the upper boozegeoisie. Exposition Park, 3990 Menlo Ave, L.A. (213) 763-DINO. Nhm.org/expo/expopark.htm. Los Angeles Coliseum, 3939 S. Figueroa St., L.A. (213) 747-7111. Lacoliseum.com. –RG

Golden geezers dominate Hippiefest at the Greek July 16 – with Eric Burdon & the Animals, Melanie, the Turtles and Badfinger as represented by Joey Molland. Can you smell the Freedom Rock, man? Yes. Yes, you can. 2700 N. Vermont Ave., L.A. (323) 665-1927. Greektheatrela.com. –RG

Another tribute to a raffish and glorious past comes off on July 26-27, with the 13th Central Avenue Jazz Fest. Taking place along the old “Great Black Way,” centered around the historic Dunbar Hotel between 31st and 32nd, this local jazz summit celebrates a once-vibrant scene Kerouac took in with awe in On the Road. 4225 S. Central Ave., L.A. (323) 234-7882. –RG

On Aug. 23 and 24, as always, is Sunset Junction, now in its 28th year and featuring, in addition to indie rock heavies like Cold War Kids and Broken Social Scene, soul giants Billy Paul and Isaac Hayes. Other headlining slots remain tantalizingly open – unlike, say, Silver Lake’s parking spots. 4019 Sunset Blvd., L.A. (323) 661-7771. Sunsetjunction.org. –RG

World’s a Stage 

With the babies of boomers having babies – or at least thinking about it – playwrights have heard all those ticking biological clocks. Two new plays on the subject will open on June 6. Julia Edwards’s Family Planning, about a couple suffering fertility angst, will take place in four actual living rooms on successive weekends – in Pasadena, Santa Monica, Hancock Park and Claremont (so there aren’t enough breeders in the Valley any more?), with experts on the subject leading discussions after the Saturday performances. Meanwhile, Cornerstone Theater, which is famous for its own site-specific productions, will occupy an established venue – the black-boxy Bootleg – for its production of Julie Marie Myatt’s Someday. The play will cover some of the same territory as Family Planning but will include a special focus on disabled would-be parents, who’ll be played by disabled actors. –Don Shirley

If you’re one of those who’s often torn between gallery opening and play openings, now you can do both, simultaneously. In A Thousand Words, nine short plays will co-habit Art Space L.A. in downtown L.A. with the nine creations of visual artists that inspired the plays. Each objet d’art will be brought to the stage for its matching play. It’s part of a residence by the Padua Playwrights at Art Space, opening on June 13. –DS 

Most audience members will wear headsets at the latest incarnation of the musical version of The Who’s Tommy, at the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre, opening June 20. “Unlike conventional headphone experience, where the soundscape is a straight line between the wearer’s ears,” writes the publicist for the show, the show’s “EXP3D sound gives the listener a fully dimensional room of sound with height, width and depth.” Adds director Brian Purcell: “For the first time the audience will truly be inside Tommy’s head.” However, “the speakers will also carry all of the sound, so that audience members who are headphone averse have a complete experience.” Will they also provide miniature pinball machines at each seat? –DS

A few of the possible highlights of the alfresco theater season:

Shakespeare Festival/LA will emphasize L.A.’s old-fashioned “car culture” in its July staging of The Taming of the Shrew at the downtown cathedral plaza and South Coast Botanic Garden.

The Independent Shakespeare Company will venture beyond Shakespeare to his contemporary Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, opening in late July at Barnsdall Park in Hollywood.

In August, you can see five plays over one long weekend at Topanga’s rustic Theatricum Botanicum: three Shakespeares (As You Like It, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) plus Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The School for Scandal.