I first heard the hall's acoustics while attending a concert there in October. Based on that experience, I can surmise that the skills of the Pacific Symphony's woodwind players, thanks to the hall's cherry wood walls and Alaskan white cedar floor, will shine more marvelously than in the conditions the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall provides.
It is a venue not to be missed.
Also not to be missed is the appearance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — its first in Orange County in about 25 years — on Feb. 17. This much-anticipated evening, under the baton of Riccardo Muti, in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall begins at 8 p.m.
A pre-concert lecture by Christopher Russell is at 7 p.m.
The program consists of César Franck's Symphony in D minor, Arthur Honegger's "Pacific 231" and Mason Bates' "Alternative Energy."
Tickets for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County concert start at $50 and are available at http://www.philharmonicsociety.org or by calling (949) 553-2422.
A 2008 story by a panel of critics writing for Gramophone, a leading British publication on the world's classical scene, ranked Chicago as the greatest of the American orchestras — a distinction that, like all art, is up for debate. What's less up for debate, however, is validity of Chicago having its famed pull-you-back-in-your-seat brass section.
And if you can't get enough of that brass, at 3 p.m. Feb. 19 the Laguna Concert Band is playing host to Chicago's principal tuba, Gene Pokorny, in a program titled "America the Tubaful" at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tickets for what is sure to be a fun concert are only $10.
For more information, visit http://www.lagunaconcertband.com.
*
