Music

Billy Joel & Stevie Nicks

• By Sasha Gary

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks are set to play Sofi Stadium this month. In this concert, titled Two Icons One Night, they will come together and perform some of the most popular songs in music history. Between the two of them the hits will flow all night.

Billy Joel is one of the most popular recording artists of our time. Some of my favorite songs (Piano Man, We Didn’t Start the Fire, Uptown Girl, Movin’ Out, New York State of Mind, Allentown) are among the many he’s sure to perform. He is the sixth best-selling artist of all time and third best-selling solo artist. He is a six-time Grammy Award-winner, and he won a Tony for Movin’ Out, a Broadway musical based on his music.

Stevie Nicks, a legendary singer, songwriter, multi-platinum Grammy winner, and member of Fleetwood Mac, has sold over 140 million albums. She is the only woman to have been nominated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Some of my favorite songs are Dreams, Everywhere, Go Your Own Way, and Gold Dust Woman. Her fashion influence is still seen today on Bohemian-styled women, especially here in Los Angeles. Many women in the crowd will undoubtedly be wearing her signature shawl! This will be a night to remember. Don’t miss it!

Her fashion influence is still seen today on Bohemian-styled women, especially here in Los Angeles. Her signature shawl will be adorned by many women in the crowd. Definitely, this will be an iconic night to remember. Don’t miss it!

For tickets, click here.

Pelléas et Mélisande

• By Cyntia Lum
• Photo Courtesy of LA Opera

LA Opera continues its 2022/23 season with Claude Debussy’s enigmatic masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande, conducted by Music Director James Conlon.

Based on a play of the same name by Maurice Maeterlinck, the opera which premiered in Paris in 1902 takes audiences to the imaginary kingdom of Allemonde where forbidden love blossoms. Lost in the forest, a prince encounters an ethereal beauty with a mysterious past. But after she’s brought home to his family as his bride, she begins to grow increasingly close to his handsome younger brother. Debussy’s sensual, exquisitely nuanced score casts a hypnotic spell, capturing an enigmatic dream world. 

This unique, timeless and fascinating lyric masterpiece stars two riveting young performers, soprano Sydney Mancasola and baritone Will Liverman, as the doomed lovers, and Kyle Ketelsen as the jealous prince. The magnificent Susan Graham makes her role debut as Geneviève, mother of the two rival brothers, and the legendary bass Ferruccio Furlanetto returns as King Arkel, the family patriarch unable to grasp the tragedy unfolding before him.

Debussy’s sensual, exquisitely nuanced score casts a hypnotic spell, capturing an enigmatic world where the story unfolds in a sensual and fanciful world lost in the mists of a never-ending dream.

One hour before each performance begins, ticket holders are invited to join Music Director James Conlon for a pre-show talk about Pelléas et Mélisande in the Stern Grand Hall.

For tickets, click here.

GINA ZOLLMAN

• By J. COOK
• Photo By Lesley Bohm

Gina Zollman, singer, songwriter, and linguist has been harvesting her life over the last few years, as so many of us have, but her personal bounty yielded a debut album, Anywhere with You. It features many classics of the American songbook that spoke to her truth, along with a self-penned original or two. All will be performed live at her upcoming CD release party, and you are invited.

Catalina Jazz Club will be hosting the event on March 22, at 8:30pm. She will be accompanied by a quintet of LA’s finest — Steven Applegate and Bill Cantos on Piano (unclear as we are going to press if this will be at the same time), Jennifer Leitham on bass, Dave Tull on drums, and Merek Szpakiewicz on cello. Tod Macofsky of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles is slated for a special appearance. 

Zollman says she has been having the time of her life since releasing the CD, as it is something she’s always wanted to do and is putting all her heart into it. When passion projects get filtered through a life path that has meandered from that initial dream, there are always special results when the goal is finally reached. Those results will be live for all to hear at Catalina this month!

For tickets and more, click here.

I’m With Her

• By J. Cook
• Photo Courtesy of GMCLA

Some years back, LAArtsOnline covered A Night with Janis Joplin at The Pasadena Playhouse. It was a hot show fresh off its Broadway run, starring the unforgettable Mary Bridget Davies in the title role. She is slated to return to the LA stage at Glendale’s Alex Theatre to celebrate Women’s History Month in the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles’s spring concert, I’m With Her. Davies has been off touring Europe with Joplin’s original band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and is preparing a concert series that will be adding Etta James and Bonnie Raitt to her repertoire. But this show will take a different direction.

This time the focal point of the music will be Diane Warren. You know, that Diane Warren. She really put the rhythm into the Rhythm of the Night, a song that ponders If I Could Turn Back Time when you hear it today, and over the years has proven Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. And when you need a break from the hits you know, VOX Femina will be performing a world-premiere song written by Grammy Award-winner Sharon Farber. But don’t worry — Aretha, Madonna, Beyoncé, Gaga, Lizzo, Lovato, Lipa, Eilish, Estefan, Gaynor, Morton, Aguilera, Jett, Morrisette, and others will not be left off the cue sheet!

There will be only two shows, March 25th and 26th. For tickets, click here.