What to expect:

Every week, Essential Arts covers the depth and breadth of Southern California's complex cultural sphere: The latest biennial, the avant-garde building design, a ground-breaking opera and the Pulitzer Prize-winning play — along with all the bits of related news emerging from the region and beyond.

This begins with the voices of our award-winning critics, who bring a depth of reporting and experience to the region's cultural scene: Christopher Knight's profound knowledge of art in Los Angeles, Mark Swed's long-time immersion in classical music, Christopher Hawthorne's singular view of our region's landscape and urbanism and Charles McNulty's deep understanding of theater, able to identify the idea that stays with you long after the performance is over.

But it also includes our reporting: Investigations, profiles, interviews, photo essays and explanatory pieces produced by a team of long-time journalists who know what's happening in the creative corners of L.A. — and beyond.

Host: Carolina A. Miranda

I'm a staff writer who produces the Culture: High and Low blog. In my years at the Times, I have talked to Frank Gehry about boxing and the painter Gronk, about monster movies. I've admired the wig collection belonging to artist Jim Shaw and observed an experimental opera by Lisa Bielawa that included llamas as extras. And I once spent the early dawn hours with a crew of anonymous artists who surreptitiously installed a tea house on a hilltop in Griffith Park. I am as moved by a Renaissance masterpiece as I am by roadside graffiti.

What I hope you'll take away from this newsletter: Fresh insights, serious reflections, bits of inspiration and a greater knowledge of the myriad strains of culture that make up this sprawling, messy, wonderful place we call L.A.

Join in — and be part of the conversation!