No Child Play

Today, juvenile crime is no longer child's play. In November 1998, for example, two teenagers, one an adult and the other a juvenile, brutally attacked the cashier of an Arco gas station in Camarillo during an armed robbery. The juvenile tried to stab the employee in an effort to force him to open the cash register drawer. When he could not reach the cashier, he passed the knife to the adult and yelled "stick 'em, stick 'em!"

"Majestica" is a nine-minute piece of classical music so rich and powerful you easily can visualize it as the score for a blockbuster movie, or as the centerpiece of an Orange County Performing Arts Center oratorio. I looked at Ruben Sanchez, an architect, sitting next to me the day I heard it played on an electric organ at the Yamaha Music School in Irvine. Eyes shut tight, Sanchez swayed and tapped hard with a foot. He's heard the piece many times but is always deeply moved by it.