Author: Steven Lieberman

LOS ANGELES, CA-The Los Angeles Ballet kicked off its 2018-19 season in October at Royce Hall performing a program with three different scenes called “Modern Moves.” With the season now in full swing, the LA Ballet is now engaged in the populated holiday favorite “The Nutcracker” with “Serenade & La Sylphide” coming in March 2019. The LA Ballet’s anticipated season debut with “Modern Moves” gave ballet fans a tease into their dance mastery with  Aszure Barton’s “Les Chambres des Jacques,” Alejandro Cerrudo’s “Lickety-Split,” and George Balanchine’s 1954 classic “Western Symphony.” LA Ballet ventured into unchartered waters, taking a road not…

The Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) kicked off their 2018-19 season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, their 55th, in September with two epic compositions that rocketed the audience to the next dimension: Shawn Kirchner’s “Songs of Ascent” and Mozart’s “Requiem.” Artistic director and conductor Grant Gershon was very wise in laying the foundation with these two masterpieces which will be sturdy enough to build the rest of the season on. In the first half, Kirchner warmed up the audience with his delightful and awe-inspiring work which had its world premiere in 2015, also performed by the LAMC. But this time,…

To honor the memory of the late, great superstar singer and guitarist Glen Campbell, his chief Grammy-winning songwriter Jimmy Webb, and his youngest banjo-strumming rising country star daughter Ashley Campbell will be appearing together at Smothers theatre on the campus of Pepperdine University in Malibu on Saturday, Sept. 22. In June of 2011, Glen announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease six months earlier and decided to go on a farewell tour to say goodbye to all of his adoring fans. This first stop on the tour was at Club Nokia in Los Angeles in October and included…

The Dodgers welcomed to the party infielder David Freese and his 2011 MVP Cardinals World Series championship experience just in time for their final push for postseason action. Freese made his first appearance in Dodger blue against National League Western Division rival-the Arizona Diamondbacks. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn’t waste any time and inserted Freese into the lineup at first base, batting in the fifth spot for his debut. Freese brought a gift to the party by hitting safely in his first at-bat, a solid single and finished the game going 1-for-2 with a hit by a pitch and displaying…

Peter Cetera, former frontman, lead singer and The Voice of Chicago, treated the intimate crowd of 1,200 fans to a great concert at Hyatt Regency Newport Beach Amphitheater. After leaving Chicago in 1985, Cetera tore off the rear-view mirror and never looked back. His career skyrocketed to the next dimension when he went solo. The charismatic stage performer and Grammy Award-winner sang all of his big hits with his distinctive and unmistakable golden tenor voice. He also is famous for not only the lead singer but also being the bass player for Chicago at their inception. On his present tour,…

Max “Mad Max” Muncy has been a pleasant surprise for the Dodgers so far this season. With the first half of the 2018 Major League Baseball season concluded, the Dodgers have rolled back into first place with a lot of kudos going to Muncy. For the season, Muncy has delivered 22 home runs while driving in 41 runs. He had a big hand, or bat rather, in the Dodgers claiming two of the three games played against crosstown rival Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of the Freeway Series played at Dodger Stadium. In the Dodgers’ 3-2 win against the Angels,…

INGLEWOOD-CA-Two Classic Rock bands “keep pushing” on. REO Speedwagon and Chicago teamed up for a concert tour and landed at the Fabulous Forum on Friday to the delight of all their adoring fans. Nobody can call these guys fossil rockers…they sounded as good as they did when the two bands started making hits back in the ’70’s. REO got the party started with frontman Kevin Cronin belting out the first song of the set “Don’t Let Him Go,” and ending with a tribute to the late, great Tom Petty singing “Listen to Her Heart” as the final encore. The audience…

On Tuesday, the NBA league coaches chose the 14 players that would serve as reserves in the NBA All-Star Game taking place on February 18 at Staples Center. The announcement was nationally televised on TNT. Disappointingly, Clippers standout Lou Williams was not among those chosen to participate despite having another outstanding season and helping the Clippers to achieve wins during a plague of injuries to the teams starters. Williams was named Western Conference Player of the Week twice already this season, but obviously that was not enough for the veteran guard to be picked. He led the league in scoring…

Are the Clippers better or worse this season without Chris Paul? If I were to cut right to the chase, and I am, the Clippers ultimately were never successful in the playoffs mainly because of re-occurring injuries to Paul and Blake Griffin. No matter how well the team performed in the regular season, the two superstars were either never 100 percent healthy or on the shelf during the Clippers playoff runs. Without one of them, the team had no chance to advance to the Finals. The injury curse has followed Paul to Houston where he’s been rehabbing a left knee…

Actor Robert Creighton was born to play the part in a staged musical about the life of James Cagney, and that’s just what he’s doing at the El Portal Theatre in NoHo. Not only is Creighton acting, singing and tap dancing his way through this entertaining production, but he also co-wrote the music and lyrics along with Christopher McGovern. Direct from its hit run in New York off-Broadway, Cagney: The Musical  is the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated musical that follows the life of Cagney from the streets of New York to his rise as one of the…

Los Angeles Dodgers bright-eyed slugger Cody Bellinger has gone yard again. That’s nothing new for the rookie phenom. Hitting home runs seems like its what Bellinger is called to do. Bellinger continues to shatter through records with his hot bat. Just ask the San Francisco Giants or any other ballclub in Major League Baseball. The son of former major league player Clay (Yankees and Angels) and fourth round pick of the 2013 MLB Draft (by then-general manager Ned Colletti), here are some of 22-year-old Cody’s accomplishments since he made his debut on April 25. Bellinger, an Arizona native, ended his first…

“If there’s a guy with the game on the line, I still trust him,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts chimed-in about Logan Forsythe’s walk-off hit. “It takes a lot of mental strength to strike out four times, take a walk, and then come up with the game on the line and get a hit.”  LOS ANGELES-The Dodgers took two of the three games they played in a recent homestand against the Cardinals. It was a tough go, as it always is for Los Angeles against St. Louis. Dodgers pitching ace Clayton Kershaw faced down his arch nemesis, the Cardinals, during the first…

It was Cirque du Soleil meets burlesque meets risqué comedy show when Absinthe arrived from Las Vegas and opened up downtown under the tent at LA Live. Produced by Spiegelworld and now playing for six years at Caesars Palace in Vegas, they decided to take the show on the road. The 90-minute show is inspired by the absinthe-drenched cabarets of late 19th century Europe. In Vegas, Absinthe has been playing to sold-out audiences and 1 million people have already seen it. Dirty-joke telling Gazillionaire is the host with his sidekick Daisy.  If you can get past his raunchiness and her being loud…

The Verdi Chorus continues their 34th season with their spring concerts entitled “All’s Fair in Love and War” at the acoustically-sound First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on April 29 and 30. Their Founding Artistic Director/Conductor Anne Marie Ketchum and Julliard-trained piano accompanist Laraine Ann Madden have fashioned the first half of the program with choral numbers and arias of Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula, I Puritani, and Act I and the finale of Act II from Norma. The second half begins with the famous baritone prologue of Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, followed by the choral opening in which the tenor…