This summer, as always, Culver City will present a series of free concerts — on Thursday evenings at 7 pm from July 7 through August 11 — in the courtyard of Culver City City Hall, at 9770 Culver Blvd.

This year's lineup includes:

• Country/Bluegrass music from 2015's Grammy-nominated Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley (July 7);
• The sounds of World Music…

This summer, as always, Culver City will present a series of free concerts — on Thursday evenings at 7 pm from July 7 through August 11 — in the courtyard of Culver City City Hall, at 9770 Culver Blvd.

This year's lineup includes:

• Country/Bluegrass music from 2015's Grammy-nominated Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley (July 7);
• The sounds of World Music…

Fluxus artist Yoshi Wada, and his son, composer Tashi Wada, will present a a free concert this Sunday, September 27, at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook.  

Wada and his son will present "an expansive duo performance using a loose structure and a unique mixture of acoustic and electronic instruments that includes: sirens, alarm bells, audio…

Ok, this one is kind of crazy in a great way. If you're of a certain age (mine), you may well have fallen in love with a largely unheralded 1991 album by Matthew Sweet. The album is full of classic pop melodies (AllMusic cites "the Beatles, Big Star, Byrds, R.E.M., and Neil Young," and, uh, yeah) as well as soaring guitar leads from Sweet himself as well as guitar gods Robert…

This Saturday, February 28, at 8:00 pm, the Culver City Symphony will perform works by Mozart, Wieniawski, Stravinsky and Schumann at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium. 

The program will include: 

Mozart: Overture, "The Magic Flute" (1791)

Wieniawski: Violin Concerto, No. 2 (1870)

Kevin Miura, Violin (Miura…

This Saturday, January 31, at 8:00 pm, the Culver City Symphony will perform works by Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Glazunov, Grieg and Britten at Veteran's Memorial Auditorium. The Glazunov concerto will be particularly unique -- a rare classical pairing of the saxophone with a string orchestra. The Culver City Symphony is conducted by Frank Fetta, and Mathew Ennis will serve as the…

The Culver City Council approved 16 grants for the 2015 Culver City Performing Arts Grant Program.  The program, which is also supported by Sony Pictures Entertainment, provides music, dance and theatre performances throughout the year -- many of which are certainly familiar to regular readers of this website.  The 2015 grantees include:

The Actors’ Gang

Benita…

The Los Angeles Doctors Symphony Orchestra will perform a free concert this Sunday, November 23, at 3 pm at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City. The program will include excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty;” Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance;” Stravinsky’s “Firebird;” Ravel’s “Minuet Antique;” and more.  

Soloist Mariano…

The Culver City Symphony's first concert of the 2014-15 Season is this Saturday, November 1, 2014, 8:00 pm at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

The program includes:

Fauré: Masques et Bergmasques (1919)

I. Overture, II. Menuet, III. Gavotte, IV. Pastorale: Andantino

Massenet: En…

The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound (SASSAS) will be performing a free concert featuring Matt Barbier, Sarah Petersen and "Southern California Sonic Ecology" at the top of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook in Culver City this Sunday, October 5, from 4-7 pm.

The concert is described as "an exciting aural re-­imagining of one of the most…

This Thursday, August 7, the Summer Music Series in Marina del Rey's Burton W. Chace Park continues as Frank Fetta conducts the Marina del Rey Summer Symphony in music from Star Wars, Titanic, and The Wizard of Oz. Also: Gerwhin's "Rhapsody in Blue," and Richard Addinsell's "The Warsaw Concerto" from Dangerous…

Blue Oyster Cult, the geniuses behind “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and “Burnin’ for You” will play a free outdoor concert at Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey this Saturday, August 2, at 7 pm.

Bring your own cowbell.…

The Summer Music Series in Marina del Rey's Burton W. Chace Park continues this Thursday, July 24, with a "symphonic celebration" featuring the Marina del Rey Summer Symphony playing "Violin Concerto" by Tchaikovsky, "Romeo and Juliet" by Prokofiev, and "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Mussorgsky. All concerts begin at 7 p.m., generally lasting two hours, and are free…

The Summer Music Series in Marina del Rey's Burton W. Chace Park -- a must for all music lovers in Culver City -- begins on July 10 this year. On three Thursdays over the next month, the 75-member Marina del Rey Summer Symphony will set up right on the Marina-front, in Burton W. Chace Park.

Arrive early and bring low beach chairs and blankets for first-come,…

The Culver City Symphony's annual "Concert for Young Musicians is this Saturday, April 26, at 8:00 pm at the Veteran's Memorial Auditorium. The evening, featuring Beethoven's "Pastorale" Symphony No. 6, will offer performances by the two young violinists who were the winners of the orchestra's most recent Parness Concerto Competition: Aileen Chung-Age 14 and Yu…

The Culver City Symphony will perform this Saturday, February 22, at 8:00 pm at the Veteran's Memorial Auditorium. The program is unique in that it will feature concertos for both the viola and for the bass in one concert. The works will include:

Handel/Casadesus: Concerto for Viola (1924?), Benjamin Chilton-Viola

Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1, C Major, Hob. VIIb/1 (1761-65), Will Cravy-Bass

(Arranged for Bass…

The Culver City Chamber Orchestra welcomes the New Year with A Night in Vienna on Saturday, January 4, 2014, at 8:00 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium.  The concert begins at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $35 for priority seating and backstage talk with one of our musicians, $30 general seating, and $15 Seniors and Students with ID. Tix are available…

Music is the best -- can we all agree on this? And 2013 was another stellar year for the stuff. Here are some of my very favorite albums this year. Click on each title to hear a song from the album on YouTube. Please share what you loved this year -- music. movies, books, tv programs, events, anything!!

Top Ten…

The Culver City Symphony's season opening concert will pay tribute to the 200th Anniversary of the births of Verdi and Wagner -- this Saturday, November 5, at 8:00 pm at the Veteran's Memorial Auditorium. The evening will also offer a unique concert aria by Beethoven, and a Mozart symphony. 

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll…

Local dulcimer player Leo Kretzne will be joined by Tull Glazener (a mountain dulcimer player from Indianapolis) and Sam Rizzetta (a hammered dulcimer player from Inglewood, West Virginia) for a concert this Saturday, October 5, at 6 p.m. at the Culver Palms United Methodist Church. Admission is $20, and the church is located at 4464 Sepulveda Blvd. 

The concert will…