Art and Culture Events in Orange County

I’ll bet your significant other is not wild about fundraisers. Maybe you aren’t either after you’ve attended a few. Fundraisers can be homogeneous. The good news is that Casa Romantica has a tonic for the fundraiser season and it is ideal for the culturally inclined: The annual Toast To The Casa with its enchanted garden theme. Truly, The Toast will stimulate the most experienced philanthropist and will offer something for every sense and sensibility.

Enchanted Gardens, Fairies and Unicorns. Oh my

Toast attendees get an exclusive preview of Casa Lumina prior to its limited run. Casa Lumina is a festively lit evening walk through Casa Romantica’s gardens overlooking the ocean. Accompanying this enchanted garden walk will be the enchanting sounds of DJ NOMIS. The cherry on top of this fantasy will be the fairy – that is, performances above the Ocean Terrace by acrobats in themed costume. 

The toast includes another otherworldly experience: A preview of Otherworldly Glaciers, a series of ceramic sculptures by Mary Beierle. Some of these pieces exceed 6 feet in height.

Finally, no fantasy is complete without a unicorn. There will be a unicorn. A full-sized, live unicorn. Attendees are encouraged to document this sighting by taking photos. I encouraged Casa Romantica to have their employees stand next to the unicorn, hold rainbow placards and toss glitter. That would really pull the concept together.

Something For The Old School Attendees

The Toast will be infused with food, drink, music, dancing and prizes at locations and stages throughout the Casa property. Included are:

• Gourmet food and beverages from 25+ vendors.
• A cigar lounge with an ocean view. You can’t get more old school than this. There won’t be sports on a big screen. You will have to use your smart phone for that.
• 18-piece Empire Swing Orchestra.
• Pop-fusion violist and YouTube sensation Jeremy Green.
• Contemporary dance beats from DJ NOMIS.
• Silent Auction featuring 100+ items.
• Wishing Well of Wine. A carnival-style game where you could win…..wine!

Worthy Causes

There is a reason for this fundraiser. Casa Romantica is a nonprofit, a registered landmark and a cultural center. And what a cultural center it is! The number of programs it offers is astonishing, both for arts patrons and for students. Truly, Casa is upping its game since I have been watching it. There is no equivalent in Orange County.

The other worthy cause is YOU. How often do you get to mingle with kindred spirits, make connections and share beautiful experiences with others? That won’t happen on Facebook.

So, go enchant and be enchanted. But please enchant responsibly.

Summer is over but art events are not! Now is the time to clone yourself so you can take in all these opportunities.

Friday, Sept. 6

Costa Mesa ARTventure inside The Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall lobby. FREE community event featuring 125+ juried artists. Friday hours are 5pm – 9pm and includes the reception and awards ceremony.

The Other Art Fair in Santa Monica. A Saatchi Art production, which brings 140+ up-and-coming artists to Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Friday hours are 6pm to 10pm. Admission is $13, but you can find free tickets through some Google searches. I’ve attended these in the past and was impressed. Most of the work is abstract.

Fullerton Art Walk. Monthly event, first Friday of the month.

Saturday, Sept 7

Irvine Fine Arts Center All Media Show reception from 4pm – 6pm.  60+ artists, juried by Constance Mallinson. The show lasts until Oct. 26. Reception and regular hours are FREE.

Dupuis Design No Limits Art Show in San Clemente. Affordable fundraiser ($15) held at interior architect Peggy Dupuis’s private residence. 

Dana Point Fine Arts Show. Quarterly event. 80+ artists! This weekend coincides with the Tall Ships and Ocean Festival. FREE admission and free shuttle service. Hours are 9:30am to 5pm.

The Other Art Fair continues in Santa Monica. Saturday hours are 11am to 8pm. 

Costa Mesa ARTventure continues at the Segerstrom Concert Hall. .Saturday hours are 10am – 3pm and includes live entertainment and demonstrations.

Downtown Santa Ana Art Walk. Carnival atmosphere and live music everywhere! Every first Saturday of the month.

Sunday, Sept 8

Hawthorne Arts Complex open studios. FREE. 80+ artists at a 44,000 square foot studio complex.  Originally an annual event, recently experimenting with a quarterly approach. Please support it!

Tribute to Tony DeLap, local artist and pioneer of West Coast Minimalism. At the Irvine Barclay Theater. Program: 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Reception: 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. FREE.

The Other Art Fair final day.  Sunday hours are 11am – 6pm

Dana Point Fine Arts Show final day  Hours are 9:30am to 5pm.

I am happy with the southern California jazz offerings. There is enough here to keep jazz aficionados busy, but as any arts fanatic will tell you, NYC is the place where the giants and legends take residence. That’s why Casa Romantica’s upcoming Casa Jazz Club is the west coast jazz event of the year. It combines a rare visit from NYC jazz royalty with the rare ambiance of Casa Romantica.

The Music

Both Ravi Coltrane and Nasheet Waits are sons of jazz legends, protégés of jazz legends and are busy sidemen of jazz legends (their resumes are too long to list here). You can’t buy this kind of education. You must be born into it. Furthermore, Coltrane and Waits’ sidemen for these dates are accomplished bandleaders, composers and producers themselves, with several recordings bearing their names. In fact, Bennie Maupin is a living legend. I recall seeing his name in the record stores 40 years ago (his name stood out because it looked like Bernie Taupin).

The jazz style they play is best described as post-bop. Admittedly, post-bop is a very broad category, but what you should know is this: It is not smooth jazz, but it is not chaotic or free jazz either.  It’s the kind of music Miles Davis et. al. started playing in the mid-1960’s. It can energize you; it can put you in a transcendent state (it did for John Coltrane); it can make your jaw drop from the sheer artistry. Mine does!

These performers rarely venture west of the Mississippi River and when they do it is to San Francisco or LA. Orange County venues are outliers for these guys.

The Ambiance

The typical experience at a marquee jazz club is an in-and-out transaction. It’s a hustle into a dark, cavernous, curtained room, a food/drink minimum, a cover charge and a hustle-out for the next seating. The Casa Jazz Club is quite the opposite. It starts with a complimentary cocktail reception on Casa Romantica’s Ocean Terrace (food by Carbonara Catering), where you can mingle with fellow patrons and take in the lovely vistas.

The concert follows in the Main Salon, an intimate, yet open room that is used as one of the institution’s main performance spaces. The icing on this cake: The artist will meet and greet with the audience at the conclusion of their sets.

The Total Experience

Indeed, this will be a multi-sensory pleasure: aural, visual, epicurean and social. I’ve often complained that the car-centric southern California life, the Internet age and working from home diminished our opportunities for fellowship and shared experiences. Rich events such as these held on an intimate scale are the antidote to that trend.

I am jazzed about this jazz!

Too many free concerts, too little time. Fortunately, you have my spreadsheet. It itemizes all the events that I believe are worth your while. You can download the file from my Google drive at this link: https://bit.ly/2J6hKrc

I will be updating this file, perhaps on a weekly basis. It depends on when the local venues update their calendars. Check back!

And I almost skipped it! I thought, how interesting could a collection from a high school be? Very interesting, as it turns out. Those Gardena students had great taste and a fantastic supply of local artists! Also interesting is how the collection was amassed, lost, found, restored and made its debut at The Hilbert Museum.

The full story is best captured by Laura Bleiberg, an arts journalist I admire and follow, and Mary Platt, Director of The Hilbert Museum.

Don’t be like me. Don’t risk missing this exhibit. GIFTED: Collecting the Art of California at Gardena High School, 1919 – 1956 is on view until October 19, 2019. Admission is free.

I love summer because of our outdoor music events. Unfortunately, everybody else feels the same way! Even the newer summer music venues such as the Argyros Plaza aren’t well-kept secrets. They get crowded quickly and are a bit of a schlep. Fortunately, Casa Romantica may be the antidote to the summer music chaos with their Casa Cool Series.

The series is not free (tickets are $15 – $20 per show), but certainly it is easy, and it sounds like a great summertime chill-out experience. Tickets are limited, the shows are held in the historic courtyard, the Casa art gallery and gift shop are open for viewing and you can buy high quality, affordable food from gourmet food trucks. Parking is free.

The other thing that strikes me about Casa Cool are the performers. Their names are new to me but don’t let that scare you – you will love their YouTube clips in the links below. This is a pleasant change vs. all those familiar names who play the local concerts on the green. In fact, many of the performers throughout the year at Casa Romantica are names I don’t hear often in The OC.

Casa Cool lineup:

June 13: The Black Noise. Food provided by Soho Taco.

July 11: The 3rd Degree Blues Band. Food provided by The Kala Truck.

August 22: Lizzy and The Triggermen. Food provided by The Cut.

Lizzy and The Triggermen sounds like the ultimate show for me! I hope to see some of you at Casa Cool….but not too many of you.

There are stars in the classical world who started practicing around the time they could walk. Then there are those story-worthy stars who faced considerable odds, began unusually late or have incongruous backgrounds. OC native Christopher Job represents the latter. I believe opera chose him.

It Started with Sports, Heavy Metal and Carpool Karaoke

Christopher Job’s path to opera stardom was indirect, to say the least. He was an accomplished athlete at Mater Dei High School (his family has deep roots in Orange County) and was recruited by several colleges to play volleyball. When not on campus or on the court, Job sang in heavy metal garage bands. He loved to sing, especially in the car, but was reluctant to join the high school choir. After some prompting from a fellow carpooler, he joined the choir in his senior year. And he was slow to admit to his friends that he joined willingly. Unexpectedly, the choir experience made him realize he could sing well, possessed a rare range (bass) and enjoyed opera. He impressed his choir teacher who then encouraged Job to take private voice lessons.

College Epiphany

Despite his senior year revelations and some very successful private voice lessons, Job hadn’t enough faith in himself as a professional singer. He entered CSU Fullerton as a biology major and joined the college choir for the purpose of having fun and making friends. Again, opera came calling. By the completion of his freshman year, he took a job selling tickets with Opera Pacific and joined the company as a chorus member. Watching the professional soloists up close inspired him.  He did not want to become the regretful older audience member watching an opera and thinking ‘I could’ve done that.’  He was ready for the full, head-first commitment to music, so he changed his major to vocal performance and did not look back.

After graduating from CSU Fullerton, he pursued a master’s degree in vocal performance at Northwestern University. During the summers, he attended opera programs in the US and Europe.

Post-College Pharmaceutical Startup

You might think that Christopher Job was fully committed to his art form at this point but remember that he is the unlikely star.  After Northwestern, an Orange County classmate offered Job a partnership in a pharma startup based in Colorado. Job accepted the Colorado offer under the condition that music would remain his priority. It turns out, Colorado was the best thing to happen to his music career. There were several small classical music companies within a two-hour drive where Job found paid work, which inspired him to quit his pharma job. These gigs led to regional opera competitions, regional workshops, lots of auditioning and all the networking that comes with the process.

Continue reading “Unlikely Opera Star Christopher Job Makes His Feature Debut in The LA Opera”

The 4th annual Feria de Abril will be a full day of flamenco and celebration of Andalusian culture. This is an all-volunteer event; all proceeds will benefit the St. Isidore Historical Plaza. Besides flamenco dancing, there will be live music, authentic Spanish food, free flamenco classes, kids’ activities, vendors and fashion shows. Tickets are $25 when purchased online and are available at this link. Parking is available on nearby streets and is free.

The feria is modeled on the actual Feria de Sevilla in Spain, an event that started in 1847 and has evolved into a weeklong fair hosting over 1 million people.

The event promises to deliver a great time due to the setting, the cause and, above all, the content (flamenco AND food).

The Setting: St Isidore Historical Plaza

Sarah Parra is the event organizer and proprietor of the Los Alamitos-based Esencia Flamenca Dance Studio. She sees the St. Isidore Historical Plaza as a natural fit for the event due to its rich history, Spanish architecture, courtyard layout, and address (Reagan St. was the original main street in Los Alamitos). In fact, she chose her studio location because it was near the plaza and in a city that was part of the original Rancho Los Alamitos.

The plaza is also a natural fit because the St. Isidore board members love flamenco. One board member witnessed the feria in Seville and saw the potential for a local event. At the same time, Sarah wanted to resurrect a similar Spanish fair that took place over the years in Long Beach: La Peña Andaluza en California (now defunct).

Continue reading “4th Annual Flamenco Feria Returns to Los Alamitos”

Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens, a nonprofit southern California cultural center, is launching a game-changing new program for children. For each concert produced by the institution’s Casa Classic classical music concert series, a limited number of $1 tickets will be available for school children ages 6 to 16.

The Casa Classic concerts are open to all ages but are typically marketed to adults.

However, children who study music and dance have proven to develop better focus, higher self-confidence, and a better long-term memory. In turn, the foundations of performing arts drive these individuals to achieve greater success in higher education, teamwork, and critical thinking.

$1 tickets will be available for two concerts: The Orchestra Collective of Orange County on January 31, and opera soprano Liv Redpath on February 14. Parents or caregivers must register their child in advance.

$1 tickets are limited to children ages 6-16 and must be purchased in advance of the concerts for which they are available. Tickets are available online at CasaRomantica.org/Calendar, by telephone at (949) 498-2139, or in person at the administrative offices during public hours.

I admit it: I can be a party pooper when it comes to most Christmas environments. They are too garish for my taste. But I do love it when it is done beautifully. I have fond memories of Christmas in small towns in New England and Germany, or the elegantly immersive Nutcracker Suite as performed by The American Country Ballet. Thankfully, I am happy to see that Sonatasia adapting their artistic, multisensory approach to Christmas.

There is so much more I can say about Sonatasia but I can’t because the event happens this Friday! Get your tickets now!