"It has a quality which is almost sort of punk, iconoclastic and in-your-face," [Norman] says with earnest wonderment. "And when you get inside the house, it's incredibly luminous and spacious and whimsical and really lovely." [...]

His assignment for the first of three concerts in a Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra series exploring links between music and architecture was to evoke in music what Gehry made of a nondescript early 20th century pink wooden house he'd bought in 1978. — latimes.com

"I know the progress is great...This is my hometown, and I love to see it grow and expand. But I’d sure hate to see Music Row not be Music Row 20 years from now" - Pat Holt, 61 — NYT

Materials & Applications in Los Angeles has some fun social Saturday night events lined up for the entire month of August! The four-part VIS-Á-VIS performance series will include dance, music, a video and sound installations, and a film screening. — bustler.net

It was an artistic collaboration delayed by some 25 years: The London architect Zaha Hadid responded as much to Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as she did to “Così Fan Tutte” when she designed her undulating all-white set for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of Mozart’s opera this week (it closes on Saturday). “We were responding to the context, to Frank’s design,” Ms. Hadid said in a telephone interview from London. — nytimes.com

“Instruments: Reimaging the Music Room” is a fascinating exhibition of student work from the Piet Zwart Institute’s Master Interior Architecture & Retail Design program, studying the role of sound in the domestic space. Each work creates a physical manifestation, or conduit, of the soundscapes that pervade our most private spaces, either raucously or imperceptibly. — bustler.net

It’s the perfect time to talk to the DJ about structures: in a week in which Moby has released new album Innocents, he is currently in the middle of a residency at LA’s 1920s Fonda Theater, a venue featured on his Los Angeles architecture blog. London-based artist Simpson has imbued today's pictures with a sense of each corresponding track, adding a mysterious figure to add scale and a narrative. — nowness.com

Panicky cost-cutting measures during construction left out elements that would have made the exterior and lobby more dazzling and the hall more flexible. The Music Center, which maintains the hall, seems in danger of taking the venue for granted, not eager to invest in it when it can bask in glory by doing nothing. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning a subway line under the hall, raising concerns that train vibrations will spoil the sound. — latimes.com

“My hopes are that greed for knowledge, art, self-determination and expression go a long way. It is a true honor to have my name attached to so much hard work, alongside great names like Henry Louis Gates Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois and to such a prestigious and historical institution, and all in the name of the music I grew to be a part of.” — latimes.com

Crank the A/C in the office just to stay awake,
Espresso and Red Bull till I got a stomach ache.
With our cotton blazers high, we have a sense of style,
But to the rest of the world we just point and smile
I read code books, while I'm on vacation
Take pictures of, my latest creation
We wear black and gray, with no logos on our threads
So many sleepless nights we're like the walking dead — youtube.com

This was the first time where a musician, Eno -- who said I'm not a musician, by the way, I really construct ideas in a studio -- I felt connected to the idea of music, let's say, as sort of an intellectual project but at the same time it was still music that you wanted to dance to. So this is the architectural song and Eno as a kind of designer. Totally opened my eyes to new things. — kcrw.com

As his career grew, David Byrne went from playing CBGB to Carnegie Hall. He asks: Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation.