Concerts

With fortunes and reputations at stake, attorneys began opening statements Monday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom where a powerful entertainment giant stands accused of playing a critical role in the death of entertainer Michael Jackson. The wrongful-death suit filed by Katherine Jackson and her grandchildren -- Prince, Paris and Blanket -- accuses AEG of negligently hiring and controlling Dr. Conrad Murray, who administered a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol to Jackson shortly before he was to begin his “This Is It” comeback concerts in London.

First they put a lid on it, and now they're pulling the plug. Universal City's Gibson Amphitheatre, a fixture on the Southern California live music scene for more than 40 years, will close in September and be demolished to make room for the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios theme park, officials announced Wednesday. The announcement came a day after Universal Studios Hollywood won approval from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to begin construction on its planned $1.6-billion expansion of the theme park.

File this under the Universe Abhors a Vacuum in Pop Music Too file: Just as news came down that the long-running Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal City will close in September and be razed to make way for a new Harry Potter attraction, a new pop music venue is about to come online in Los Angeles. Nederlander Concerts has entered a deal to book concerts at USC's Galen Center, a sports arena that can handle events for audiences of 5,000 to 11,000 capacity, Nederlander Concerts Chief Executive Alex Hodges told The Times on Wednesday.

New Yorkers may go out of their way to sneer at L.A., but hey, we don't mind recognizing accomplishment when it's due to our East Coast brethren. At the more indie-rock-inclined edition of the L.A. Phil's Brooklyn Festival, marquee acts from the neighborhood including Chairlift and the Antlers will push their experimental rock and electronica in a grander orchestral direction. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Fri. $30-$55. Laphil.com .

A tree grows most surely in Brooklyn. But what's in a ZIP Code? The Los Angeles Philharmonic began its Brooklyn Festival on Tuesday night with a Green Umbrella concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The hip New York City borough is not just a destination for visual artists, artisan picklers and other assorted foodies, but also host to a significant new music scene. Meanwhile, Hear Now held its third annual Festival of Contemporary Los Angeles Music in Venice - where foodies (along with artisan picklers)

The day after a fertilizer plant exploded in central Texas, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 160, country music icon Willie Nelson announced he would hold a benefit concert for the victims. Nelson was born about five miles from the site of the disaster in West, Texas.  “West has been in my backyard all my life,” Nelson tweeted Wednesday night. “My heart is praying for the community that we call home.” Nelson still keeps a house in his birthplace,  Abbott, Texas.

Large classical music ensembles are no strangers to economic challenges, but the Santa Monica-based Verdi Chorus may be the only one whose existential crisis came when an Italian restaurant went out of business. The opera-only ensemble of about 50 voices has lived to tell the tale, and this weekend, it will celebrate its 30th anniversary while also honoring the 200th anniversary of the birth of Giuseppe Verdi, the great composer after whom it is only tangentially named. The chorus began in 1983 as a house organ of Verdi Ristorante di Musica, a fancily redone former Wilshire Boulevard funeral parlor where singing was as much a fixture as veal scaloppine.

Meat Loaf has cited illness for the cancellation of another concert during his "Last at Bat" tour. The 65-year-old rocker pulled out of a Nottingham concert at Capital FM Arena during the farewell tour just 30 minutes before doors were scheduled to open Sunday, the Associated Press reported . The concert was the fifth of eight shows lined up for Britain on the tour that kicked off April 5. The performance was " postponed due...

PALO ALTO - We hallucinate. But we are often of two minds about having two minds. We produce drugs to enhance hallucinations and drugs to dull them. Medical science seeks to relieve schizophrenics of their visions. Religion, on the other hand, sanctifies visionaries. Neurologists hunt for explanations. Art is haunted by the haunted. Where would opera be without its mad scenes and wild fantasies? Where would the Beatles have been without LSD? Stanford University made an ambitious attempt to bring together much of the above in its new Bing Concert Hall on Friday night with the premiere of "Visitations" - two short chamber operas about hallucinations by faculty composer and neurological researcher Jonathan Berger.

Singer Barbra Streisand is adding a second concert in Israel this summer after the first one sold out in about a day -- even with tickets priced at $700 each. This is the first time the 70-year-old singer has gone to Israel to perform, and the engagement comes during the country's 65th anniversary, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism announced Tuesday. The added show by Streisand, who sang at the Oscars in February, is to be June 22 at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv. The first concert will be June 20 at the same location, which seats about 16,000 people.