As I've mentioned here before, one of the features that makes Los Angeles such a wonderful city is all the hidden gems that abound, teasing you to find them. When you do, the pleasure of having found them really glows inside you for a while. Typically, you'll find that pretty much everybody who knows anything about the city (and has not already prejudged it by viewing it through the glasses of European or European-wannabe (read: East Coast) models of cities) shares this feeling. This is also why people often hate the city. They can't find things immediately, they see it from the freeway, and they decide that it is just an awful place, and pretty quickly the stupid cliches about there being "no culture" (which always means "no European culture", sigh) begin to be repeated. So imagine my delight when there was an article on Thursday called "Stages of Discovery", in the Weekend Calendar section of the LA Times. It talked about some of the places in the region you can go to see music concerts of the "classical" (in the broad sense) type, besides the excellent Music Center Downtown, housing among other things the Disney Hall, of which I've told you of events several times before. Have a read of the article, by Chris Pasles, here. Well, I had other things to do on the bus the next morning (which is when I read the Calendar Weekend section...it gives me ideas about what extra activities I might get up to that weekend beyond things already planned) and so I did not read it as thoroughly as I should have. I skimmed through in that way that one does when one is happy to satisfy oneself smugly that one already knows of and had been to at least some of the "hidden gems" already, and then made a mental note to keep the article for later detailed analysis, to learn more about the places that I did not know about. On the cover was a picture (by Genaro Molina) of a particularly interesting looking performance space, with the Janaki String Trio posing in it:
... and somehow I did not really consciously note where it was. I was to read the article later, of course. Well, later that evening I was to meet a friend of mine to go to a concert. She'd got the tickets from a friend and I was going along as her guest. I'd agreed to this a long time ago without even knowing what exactly they were for. I knew it was music, and assumed that it was the Disney Hall. Turned out I was wrong. It was at the Doheny Mansion, which happens to be just North of (imho, right next to) the USC campus. Convincing my friend to walk over there from campus (via that wonderful hidden gem, La Taquiza, sampling some excellent mulitas, for dinner), we showed up there in good time for the pre-concert talk, and went inside. Well, of course, you've guessed. I went into the splendid historic mansion, walked to the performance space, and was treated to the view above! Without the Janaki, of course. It is called the Pompeian Room. Here's a nice link to the Doheny mansion, complete with some history and some pan-able photos of the interiors. Once upon a time, this part of LA was the place to be if you were part of the high-class crowd. You woud have had a well-appointed house here, etc. The Doheny family were as high-class as it gets in these parts: Oil money (La Brea tar pits, etc...). This also explains why there are all those fantastic craftsman houses all over the neighbourhood that people are now giving any amount of money for, but that's another story. It was not until later that the Beverly Hills' of this world began to rise in stature, and the high-class set moved away....but the remnants are still here, if you know where to look. Turns out that there is a society/club whose mission in life is to arrange chamber music concerts in several of these stately homes and other historic places all over Los Angeles County, and this was one of the perfomances I was attending! They are called the Da Camera society, and their website is here. We saw the Avalon String Quartet perfom pieces by Schubert, Schumann and Wolf, and it was wonderful. They arranged the Quartet in a circle (facing inwards), and we the audience surrounded the musicians, sitting very close to them, so it was especialy intimate, and also afforded an interesting hearing of the pieces, since the no-traditional positioning allowed you to separate out the parts in interesting ways. I like to do this a bit in my head when I listen anyway, and so it was nice to be helped a bit by geography. Turned out (I learned from speaking to one of the musicians afterward) that the musicians found it fun to do, since they too had not heard it in that way before. (They are performing the same programme tonight -in a traditional confirguration- in Santa Barbara, for readers up there looking for something to do. They were excellent.) The excellent pre-concert lecture was given by MaryAnn Bonino, the Founding Director of the Society, who I'd met before a lot at Categorically Not!..... I'd previously no idea that she had an office so close to me all this time. Here's something different: This was a really dedicated crowd, and not the usual lot that one seems to get in LA (and several other cities in the US, I've noticed...but especially LA): (1) They all came back (more or less) after the interval, and (2) They stayed out late! (Contrast with e.g. here). There was food -excellent food- and wine served *after* the concert, starting almost at 10:00pm, and people stayed and chatted intelligently about the music afterwards. In other words, they did not rush off to get on the highway like the building was going to explode, which is the usual pattern you get of concert attendees. Wow. I guess this means they joined the club to do this sort of thing and they really meant it. Excellent. Ironically (given the name of the Da Camera Society -and I know the meaning is different- they were not happy with the idea of anyone taking any photos, so I did not press the point. I cannot offer you any shots of the space or the performers this time.) I really recommend that you look at the LA Times article and also the Da Camera society's websites if you live in the area. Especially if you've been deceived -as so many have- by the lie that there's "no culture" in LA. There's lots to do and see, and lots of great people to meet.... Come on out. -cvj
