Ilya Gringolts

Probably everyone who ever took music lessons remembers the exhilarating terror of a first performance with the teacher accompanying. Think of performing, however, at the Hollywood Bowl, with your teacher conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Then further imagine that you are playing one of the best-known and most well-loved of violin concertos and the teacher on the podium is no less than Itzhak Perlman.

Probably everyone who ever took music lessons remembers the exhilarating terror of a first performance with the teacher accompanying. Think of performing, however, at the Hollywood Bowl, with your teacher conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Then further imagine that you are playing one of the best-known and most well-loved of violin concertos and the teacher on the podium is no less than Itzhak Perlman.

PAGANINI: Concerto No. 1 and various solo pieces Ilya Gringolts, violin; Lahti Symphony Orchestra; Osmo Vanska, conductor BIS *** It looks like we will have to make room for yet another teenage violinist. Gringolts, who was born in 1982, comes from St. Petersburg, Russia. He has the patronage of Itzhak Perlman, and he has all the technique in the world. His publicity is filled with the usual baloney about a remarkable maturity for his age. Forget all that.

PAGANINI: Concerto No. 1 and various solo pieces Ilya Gringolts, violin; Lahti Symphony Orchestra; Osmo Vanska, conductor BIS *** It looks like we will have to make room for yet another teenage violinist. Gringolts, who was born in 1982, comes from St. Petersburg, Russia. He has the patronage of Itzhak Perlman, and he has all the technique in the world. His publicity is filled with the usual baloney about a remarkable maturity for his age. Forget all that.

Under far from ideal conditions, two young artists played a perfectly respectable recital Sunday on the free music series presented at the Beverly Hills Public Library. Violinist Ilya Gringolts and pianist Amanda von Goetz, both 18, kept their concentration and focus despite an overly heated, oddly V-shaped room, noise from the hall and the street outside, and distractions from the audience. But it would be exaggerating to say that their music making was more than solid.

Are we in a golden age of violinists? It looks like it. That astonishing young players keep coming up the ranks and capturing the public's imagination is nothing new. But what really seems to mark our time as special is that so many of these young players continue to grow and to keep their hold on the public as they move through their 20s, 30s and 40s. Record companies have noted this and, despite cutbacks elsewhere, support violinists in expensive concerto recordings of standard repertory.

Five violinists--five of the most brilliant and musical fiddlers performing internationally--and two cellists, with a small, 17-member orchestra, earned the cheering that went on, almost from the beginning, at the final concert of SummerFest La Jolla 2001. At the end of a hectic, 35-event, three-week festival, it was an appropriately bright closing.

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5 Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano; Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Nikolaus Harnoncourt, conductor (Teldec) ** 1/2 Aimard is a major specialist in contemporary music who has lately taken an interest in Beethoven. His approach here is surprisingly plain-wrap, with little shading or exploratory phrasing and virtually no assertion of personality. It's all a bit crude and graceless, although the slow movement of No.

7pm Comedy Wayne Brady's star is rising, thanks to winning appearances on the improvisational comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" on ABC, which now has Brady earmarked for his own variety series. You can catch him live at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza in an evening titled "Wayne Brady & Friends." * "Wayne Brady & Friends," Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 East Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, 7 p.m. $27 and $37. (805) 449-2787.

Theater In the West Coast premiere of "Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine," the new play from 1999 Tony Award-winning playwright Warren Leight ("Side Man"), twin brothers and former big-band jazz musicians embark on a poignant and playful journey toward reconciliation after 40 years of estrangement. Opens at the Mark Taper Forum on Thursday.

The urge for violinists to conduct can be overwhelming. After all, they already have a way with a stick. In the 17th century it was the responsibility of the leading violinist in the orchestra to keep things together. And although the typical modern-day maestro is likely to have been trained as a pianist, many violinists have never lost that historic connection with conducting. Now Itzhak Perlman has joined the ranks.

The 79th annual summer music series at the Hollywood Bowl, announced Thursday by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., kicks off with an opening night gala June 23 honoring composer John Williams--the first inductee into a newly created Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame.