The Dude was in town for two concerts, Sunday and Monday night. The Dude, aka Gustavo Dudamel, brought his LA Phil orchestra up north, to start the series of concerts from the other Big Seven US orchestras (NY, Boston, Philly, Cleveland, Chicago, LA) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the last member of the club, the SF Symphony.

Basically, they're coming to sing happy birthday to us, and they have to bring gifts -some incense myrrh and gold, that is some recently commissioned works- and to perform like they care. The LA Phil hit the mark on both counts. On the new works, you can't get any fresher than Enrico Chapela's MAGNETAR, which for some reason is written in all caps. This piece received its premiere three days before the Sunday performance, it's so new the LA Phil can still return it to the composer and get a full refund. Not that you want to, it's a serviceable and sometimes exciting piece, a thirty-ish minutes concerto for electric cello written for Johannes Moser who exchanged his 1694 Guarneri cello for an hollowed electric one.