The Long Beach Symphony will close its 2025-26 Classical Series with a sweeping evening of grandeur in “Magnificent Mozart & Mahler” at the Terrace Theater on Saturday, June 6.
Led by music director Eckart Preu, the program pairs two towering works of the classical repertoire: “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor by Gustav Mahler.
Together, the concert promises a journey from the playful elegance of Mozart to the thunderous emotional landscape of Mahler’s monumental Fifth Symphony.
Preu describes Mozart’s beloved serenade as deceptively simple — it’s music that sparkles with ease while hiding extraordinary sophistication just under the surface.
Though the exact reason Mozart composed the piece remains a mystery, Preu notes on the Long Beach Symphony website that it may have been written for gatherings among friends in Vienna during the same period Mozart was creating his opera “Don Giovanni.”
The Long Beach Symphony will launch its new season at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Long Beach Terrace Theater, shown here in a Jan. 14 file photo. (File photo by Christina Merino, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
The Long Beach Symphony performs. (Courtesy of Long Beach Symphony)
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The Long Beach Symphony will launch its new season at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Long Beach Terrace Theater, shown here in a Jan. 14 file photo. (File photo by Christina Merino, Press-Telegram/SCNG)
Whether intended as party music or simply an inspired burst of creativity, “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” remains one of Mozart’s most recognizable works.
The second half of the evening turns toward Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, a work Preu calls one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century.
Composed during Mahler’s isolated summer retreats in the Austrian countryside, the symphony draws from a vast range of influences, including the complex counterpoint of Johann Sebastian Bach, the blossoming songs of Robert Schumann, the monumental symphonic writing of Anton Bruckner, and the dance rhythms of Vienna associated with Johann Strauss II.
Preu also highlights the profound impact of military band music on Mahler’s imagination, rooted in the composer’s childhood experiences.
If you know Mahler’s music, you know how important the concept of ‘the human’ was to this composer.
So it’s through militaristic rhythms, dramatic contrasts, and sudden emotional shifts that Mahler carries listeners through moments of grief, tenderness, chaos, and humanistic celebration.
And just like what it means to be human, Mahler’s Fifth ultimately transforms from funereal darkness into jubilant triumph.
The performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 6. Head to longbeachsymphony.org for information and tickets.
‘Kimberly Akimbo’
Bittersweet, funny, and quietly heartbreaking, “Kimberly Akimbo” will arrive at the Long Beach Playhouse’s Studio Theatre this summer with a story that blends teenage awkwardness, family dysfunction, and an urgent perspective on growing up.
Directed by Michael Hovance, the comedy by playwright David Lindsay-Abaire will be on show from Saturday, June 6 through Friday, July 3.
This play (which directly inspired the Tony-award-winning musical) centers on Kimberly, a 16-year-old girl living with a rare condition that causes her body to age at more than four times the normal rate. Though she physically resembles an elderly woman, Kimberly is still navigating the everyday uncertainties of adolescence, from school and family conflict to friendship and first love.
Set in 1999, before the era of smartphones and social media, the play follows Kimberly as she tries to find moments of normalcy amid the chaos of her home life. Her hypochondriac mother, alcoholic father, and manipulative aunt create a world that feels both absurd and real.
Amid the dysfunction, though, Kimberly develops a connection with Jeff, a fellow outsider.
While many theatergoers may know “Kimberly Akimbo” through its musical adaptation, Long Beach Playhouse’s production returns to the original play that first established Lindsay-Abaire’s reputation for balancing dark humor with emotional depth.
The playwright, known for works including “Rabbit Hole” and “Good People,” crafts a story that explores mortality and resilience without losing sight of the strange comedy called “life.”
The production continues Long Beach Playhouse’s 2026 Studio Season, which also features “A Doll’s House Part 2” and “Hangmen.”
For tickets, go to lbplayhouse.org/event/kimberly-akimbo/.
LBMA
What does “home” mean when the promise of belonging was never really extended to your family in the first place?
That question sits at the center of “The American Home — The Broken Promise,” a new exhibition by artist Scott Carrillo Azevedo on view at the Long Beach Museum of Art Downtown now through Sunday, Aug. 9.
The exhibition marks Azevedo’s first solo museum show and presents personal paintings rooted in a history of exclusion, displacement, and cultural erasure. Drawing from his family’s experiences with redlining in Los Angeles neighborhoods, the artist reconstructs fragments of this history through expressive and detailed domestic imagery.
After moving from Palm Springs to New Haven, Connecticut, Azevedo began incorporating imagery from vintage lifestyle magazines like “The American Home” into his work, using idealized visions of suburban American life as both inspiration and critique.
Ultimately, his paintings examine the distance between the American dream and the lived realities of many Mexican American families navigating racism, poverty, and invisibility.
This lived reality, though, is not without warmth or beauty. Despite his concern with heavy thematic material, Azevedo fills his paintings with lush foliage, ornate shapes, and bursts of expressive color.
It makes perfect sense, then, to learn that the artist was once a floral designer.
Beyond the glorious colors and fractured forms of its paintings, “The American Home — The Broken Promise” asks us: Is home a physical space? An emotional landscape? How can those who have been denied “home” reach a place of connection?
Check out lbma.org/exhibitions if you want to explore these questions and more.