Rob Kapilow What Makes it Great? Beethoven’s First Symphony

We semi-recently did two shows with Rob Kapilow and his series, What Makes it Great? I’ll write here about the show titled, Beethoven’s First Symphony, the other show was about the Beatles, as I have no photos of that one!

Kapilow performed at The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts 

https://ccpa.cerritos.gov

Rob has been returning to the Cerritos Center for thirty something years, three or four times a year. So it’s easy to say that he has been here more than any other performer in our history. And that’s great because he is a pleasure to work with, and is also a very talented musician, conductor, author and performer.

From Rob’s website https://robkapilow.com/

“Rob Kapilow “gets audiences in tune with Classical music at a deeper and more immediate level than many of them thought possible,” hails the Los Angeles Times. In a three-part format. Kapilow dissects a musical composition. The pieces are performed, and a lively Q&A concludes the evening. “You hang on to every word and note,” says The New York Times.”

Essentially he takes a piece of music, breaks it down, explaining each part of the composition in language that anyone can understand and tells the audience what makes it great. He also gives the audience background about the composer/ musicians who wrote the piece so that the audience gets a good idea about when, where and why the music came into the world. His show is always fascinating and I never fail to learn something about the history of music.

The Beethoven’s First Symphony show was of course interesting, informative and something to hear. Rob played along with the Fullerton College Symphony.

https://music.fullcoll.edu/index.php

The Fullerton College Musicians often accompany Rob, and they are extremely talented. The school has, over the years provided many musicians for this endeavor and all the many generations of students have been exceptional musicians.

Some quick video from rehearsal.

The other show we did with Rob Kapilow was about the Beatles. I didn’t really have time to write about this show as I was busy preparing for a corporate event which followed the morning after. So sorry!

Here you can find his books through this search link: Rob Kapilow’s Books.