Christopher Trela was already the Business Journal’s Renaissance Man: in addition to penning our monthly restaurant and food column, Trela also serves as the Artistic Assistant Professor of PR and Advertising at Chapman’s Dodge College, and chips in as an editor for the Newport Beach Independent, among other endeavors.
Add maestro to Trela’s CV. This month he took over conducting duties for the Pacific Symphony. A June 10 performance at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts saw him oversee a performance of “76 Trombones” from “The Music Man.”
The performance was a belated result of Trela winning a live auction to conduct the Pacific Symphony—“it’s been on my bucket list for years”—in March 2020. Pandemic restrictions put his debut performance off until this year.
“I took a conducting lesson with Carl St.Clair in his dressing room last month prior to a concert, and the night of my concert I went on stage before the concert hall opened to get the lay of the land—or the stage,” he said.
He chose the Music Man song in part because it was one of his favorite musicals, said the one-time concertmaster of the orchestra for Surf City’s Edison High, and the drummer for 1980s band Desperate Living. He also played electric violin in a band called Primal Dream. “Still have a violin, no room for a drum set.”
See this page for Trela’s latest OCBJ restaurant column.
A postcard from Newport, pt. 1: A roughly 1,100-mile drive up the coast to Newport, Ore., this month came with perhaps a dozen sightings of Rivian vehicles in use (primarily in Silicon Valley). They still catch attention, as an R1T truck drew a crowd at a spot in Big Sur.
Boosting production and sales at the Irvine-based EV maker (Nasdaq: RIVN) remains a challenge, and to help with the latter, the $14-billion valued firm has begun rolling out what it calls Spaces, a collection of retail and experiential centers, beginning with a location in NYC’s Meatpacking District that opened this month.
Its Laguna Beach Space, at the former South Coast Theater site on Coast Highway, is tentatively scheduled to open at the end of this year, officials say.
Rivian is also trying other methods to boost sales: the Wall Street Journal recently reported the firm “is inviting buyers to shop what is available on its factory parking lot” in Normal, Ill.
A postcard from Newport, pt. 2: A swing through San Francisco suggests the recent surge of post-apocalyptic descriptions of the city in national features are exaggerated, albeit slightly, at least in the areas that cater to tourists.
It’s a good time to visit, if you dislike crowds.
That said, keep an eye on an influx of wealthy SF residents moving to OC.
A stretch of I-95 in Philadelphia that collapsed in mid-June is expected to reopen within two weeks, that state’s governor said on June 17.
If that happens, can Pennsylvania’s transportation department take over Caltrans? The sight of so, so many unmanned construction sites along the 101—compared to a flawless 200-mile stretch of road in Oregon—suggests an agency either incompetent or worse.
