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Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Dr. Gustavo Dudamel leads the New York Philharmonic, with L.A. style
New York — After triumphantly bringing the Los Angeles Philharmonic to Coachella, Gustavo Dudamel is taking his biggest bite so far out of the Big Apple. He is in town for a three-week New York Philharmonic residency. He has devised two ambitious programs to close the orchestra's season in David Geffen Hall and will then be the big attraction for thousands of New York picnickers at free New York Philharmonic parks concerts throughout the boroughs. In the meantime, Dr. Dudamel picked up an honorary doctorate Saturday from the Juilliard School. A welcome mat doesn't get more welcoming than that for a conductor, and this is someone who has yet no official title with the orchestra. The three main 'People of the New York Philharmonic' featured on the orchestra's website are pianist Yuja Wang (artist in residence), Matías Tarnopolsky (newly appointed president and chief executive) and Alec Baldwin (radio series host). In September, Dudamel becomes music and artistic director designate. A year later, having completed 17 seasons as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he takes charge of the country's oldest and most celebrated orchestra. But who's counting days, months or years? From the moment Dudamel walked on stage at Geffen Hall to begin the dress rehearsal of his first concert of the series last week, there could be no question that it's his show. The orchestra has become fully Dudamel-branded, his image plastered everywhere you look. The talk of the town is that a music-director-designate-to-be has already transformed one of the world's great orchestras, which is said to be playing at a new level and with a new sound. New Yorkers still take pride in not being easily hoodwinked. The press glorifies Dudamel as the next Leonard Bernstein one minute and looks for flaws anywhere it can find them the next. But there is something in the air that even an outsider could feel at the rehearsal, which was open to donors and press interlopers. Dudamel simply seemed, without ostensibly trying, to belong. He knew exactly what to do and how to do it. When he asked the players for something, an orchestra famed for being difficult responded instantly. But Dudamel was doubtlessly trying to belong. The program, composed of nothing he has performed elsewhere, was meant to be a tribute to the New York Philharmonic. He began by pairing the first work the 183-year-old orchestra had ever commissioned with a premiere of a startling new commission. After intermission, he introduced the largest and most robust of the recent symphonies by the city's best-known composer, a veritable icon — Philip Glass — to an orchestra that had done its best to ignore for half a century. With orchestra and audience in his hands, Dudamel had yet another triumph. The New York Times called this program a love letter to New York. If so, the love letter had a postmark from L.A. Stravinsky composed his Symphony in Three Movements, written during and reflecting World War II, while he lived in West Hollywood. Like Schoenberg before him, the Russian émigré composer tried but failed to get a lucrative contract scoring a Hollywood film. Instead, Stravinsky reused bits he had meant for the 1943 epic 'The Song of Bernadette' in his war symphony. The newly commissioned work that followed was Kate Soper's 'Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,' a sensationally witty and profound monodrama about the meaning of music for amplified soprano and large orchestra. Soper herself was the talented soloist, as she had been a few weeks earlier when she appeared at the L.A. Phil's Green Umbrella concert in a far riskier early work, 'Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say.' A favorite of operatic progressives, Soper has had three operas staged by Long Beach Opera, including the premiere of her astonishingly fanciful 'Romance of the Rose,' perhaps the most original American opera of the decade. When it came to breaking the New York Philharmonic's Glass ceiling, Dudamel brought an L.A. Phil hammer. The first concert work by Glass that the New York Philharmonic ever performed was Concerto for Two Pianos in 2017, conducted by Dudamel's predecessor, Jaap van Zweden. It was Dudamel, however, who had given the premiere of the concerto and the L.A. Phil that commissioned it. Dudamel's performance of Symphony No. 11 thus became the first New York Philharmonic attempt at a Glass symphony. (He's written 15, and the L.A. Phil commissioned the 12th.) The 11th has everything audiences and orchestra players are said to dread. It is long (40 minutes), orchestrally big-boned in the manner of Bruckner and echt-Glass in its repetitions and romantic effusions. But in an act of remarkable conductorial persuasion, Dudamel emphasized Glass' talent for orchestral go-with-the-flow magnificence to blow the audience away. The crowd stood en mass and cheered the frail 88-year-old composer seated on the first tier. For all that, the performances were nonetheless on the stiff side, the famously virtuosic orchestra effortfully coming to terms with the unfamiliar. But the needle has moved. What felt unfamiliar was a general feeling of acceptance in Geffen Hall. The audience-friendly renovation during the pandemic helps with a powerful acoustic that encourages openness. This is no longer the uptight atmosphere where John Adams was angrily booed and where people noisily walked out as Zubin Mehta premiered major new works by Olivier Messiaen and Iannis Xenakis. The New York Philharmonic, moreover, has many younger players. And Geffen Hall has found novel means of reaching new audiences, particularly with its large video screens in the lobby, where every concert is streamed for free for passersby or those who want to take in the whole event. The video work is the most creative I've encountered. The sound system is not high-end and there are plenty of distractions. But I watched a matinee and found the experience compelling and the sound good enough to tell that by the second performance of the program, the orchestra had already gotten tighter. All this bodes well for Dudamel, who now has the West Coast support team he wanted. Deborah Borda, who hired Dudamel at the L.A. Phil and poached him at the New York Philharmonic, remains as an adviser to the orchestra. When Tarnopolsky ran Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, he became close to Dudamel. Adam Crane, the orchestra's vice president of external affairs, worked under Borda in L.A. when Dudamel made his U.S. debut at the Hollywood Bowl and was hired by the L.A. Phil. It is too soon to tell where this may lead. By now New Yorkers should know that Dudamel will not be the next Bernstein. He may well change New York, but he is not likely to be a New Yorker. Bernstein lived in New York, walking distance from Carnegie Hall and, when it was built, Lincoln Center. Bernstein raised his family at the Dakota and was, day and night, at the center of New York cultural, intellectual and political life. Dudamel says he still thinks of L.A. as home and the L.A. Phil as family. The New York Philharmonic is a new family. But Dudamel, in fact, now lives in Madrid and has Spanish citizenship. Yet for whatever reason, an L.A. mindset does seem to have reached the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center. The orchestra follows Dudamel's appearances with 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back' in concert and then heads off on an Asian tour with conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. L.A. opera directors Yuval Sharon and Peter Sellars, nowhere to be found in L.A. at the moment, are prominent at the Lincoln Center. Sharon's production of 'The Comet/Poppea' he created for the Industry in L.A. last year will have its New York premiere here in June. Sellars' collaboration with composer Matthew Aucoin, 'Music for New Bodies,' is in July.
Bloomberg
20-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Can Frank Gehry's ‘Grand LA' Make Downtown Feel Like a Neighborhood?
Early in 2018, architect Frank Gehry unveiled his firm's final design for a complex in downtown Los Angeles that, after nearly two decades of planning and financing delays, was finally — finally — on the verge of breaking ground. The plan for the Grand LA included a hotel, residential tower, movie theater and a mix of dining and retail spaces, promising to bring some life to a neighborhood that is largely institutional in nature and replace a dire open-air parking structure that had inhabited the site for half a century. For Gehry, the Grand LA wasn't simply a chance to work on a prominent complex. (Part of a larger downtown project led by the Related Companies, the developer behind New York City's Hudson Yards, the Grand LA occupies a whole city block and comes with a price tag of $1 billion.) It was also an opportunity to build a companion to Walt Disney Concert Hall, the swooping Gehry-designed home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic that opened to wide acclaim in 2003, and whose success made the continuing presence of that parking lot an ongoing civic embarrassment. So as not to overwhelm Disney with a single behemoth structure, Gehry's team broke up the program into a pair of irregularly stacked towers set back from Grand Avenue, with commercial spaces that are stepped back from the street over several stories to maintain a human scale at sidewalk level.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dave Grohl, Cynthia Erivo Join Gustavo Dudamel and LA Phil at Coachella
The Los Angeles Philharmonic led by conductor Gustavo Dudamel was in full swing on Saturday for the second weekend of Coachella after appearing last weekend. It was a star-studded affair, which included surprise performances by Dave Grohl and Cynthia Erivo. The Foo Fighters frontman hit the stage with his guitar and he delivered two of his band's songs, including the grittily sung 'The Sky Is a Neighborhood' and merged the classical with the classic on 'Everlong.' More from Rolling Stone Watch Ed Sheeran, Jelly Roll Join Post Malone at Coachella Tyla Brings the 'Bliss' With a New Song Tease at Coachella Morgan Wallen and Post Malone Team Up on 'I Ain't Comin' Back' Erivo also performed two songs. She began with the ballad that appeared from the lyrics to be 'Brick by Brick,' a track from her upcoming sophomore album, I Forgive You. 'Hello Coachella, nice to see you. Would you like a little Prince?' Erivo asked following 'Brick by Brick.' The crowd cheered. 'OK, Prince for you then.' She then launched into a rousing cover of 'Purple Rain' to close out the LA Phil set, as the fan footage below captured. Previously announced guest Natasha Bedingfield also performed, delivering 'Unwritten.' Other performers who appeared during the LA Phil's Coachella set last weekend returned on Saturday, including Laufey and Paco Amoroso and Ca7riel. The first weekend of Coachella featured a finale with LL Cool J, who dropped a medley that included 'Rock the Bells' and 'Mama Said Knock You Out.' The LA Phil sets the past two weekends marked the orchestra's Coachella debut. It's Dudamel's final season with LA Phil. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Los Angeles Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The Ford, Wallis and Soraya reveal new seasons: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
'Tis the season of season announcements. I'm arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, and before we jump into this weekend's most compelling cultural events and our usual roundup of SoCal arts news, let's take a quick look at upcoming offerings from the Ford, the Wallis and the Soraya, as well as the Broadway in Thousand Oaks series at Bank of America Performing Arts Center. The lovely outdoor amphitheater across the street from the Hollywood Bowl is in its sixth season under management by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Performances scheduled from July 18 to Oct. 31 include dance, film, comedy, music, spoken word, theater and family programming. Highlights include Noche de Cumbia: Sonido Gallo Negro & É Arenas; an evening with Leyendas del Mariachi; Lula Washington Dance Theatre; Béla Fleck and the Flecktones; Australian pop star Betty Who with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; French-Moroccan pianist and rapper Sofiane Pamart; Mississippi blues player Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram; and a screening of George A. Romero's 1968 horror classic, 'Night of the Living Dead.' Full schedule and ticket details here. The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills is leading its 2025-2026 season announcement with the Los Angeles premiere of Atlantic Theater Company and Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production of 'English' by Sanaz Toossi. The play won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for drama and earned five Tony Award nominations including best play and best direction by Knud Adams. The season features the world premiere of 'Hildegard,' based on the writings of composer Hildegard von Bingen and produced in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera and Beth Morrison Projects. Also of note: Trisha Brown Dance Company and Merce Cunningham Trust's presentation of Brown's 'Set and Reset,' with visual design by artist Robert Rauschenberg and an electronic score by Laurie Anderson, alongside Cunningham's rarely seen, comedic 'Travelogue,' with music by John Cage. Full schedule and ticket info here. 'The arts play a vital role in how we come together — as neighbors, as storytellers, as citizens,' Robert van Leer, the Wallis' executive director and chief executive, said by email. 'We see each season as a conversation with our community, shaped by artists who are not only interpreting today's world but helping us envision what's next.' The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts at Cal State Northridge opens with a weekend concert production of 'Fiddler on the Roof' in Yiddish. A celebration of the Martha Graham Dance Company's centenary will include Graham's 1947 'Night Journey' and a world premiere pairing Graham and Leonard Bernstein, featuring the ensemble Wild Up performing founder Christopher Rountree's newly commissioned arrangement of Bernstein, as well as William Schuman's composition for 'Night Journey.' The season also includes a Quincy Jones tribute concert, performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and pianist Ray Chen, as well as a 30th anniversary live-to-film concert of the Disney animated feature 'Toy Story.' Full schedule and ticket info here. Last but not least, this series includes crowd pleasers 'Chicago,' 'Kinky Boots,' 'Blue Man Group' and 'Mrs. Doubtfire.' Ticket info here. Performer and writer Demetri Martin enters the realm of painting and drawing this weekend in what's billed as 'a comedy show with no words.' Forty-two line drawings and acrylic works on canvas — including some darkly amusing meditations on stupid humans moving through modern life — will be on view in Martin's first solo exhibition. Look for an interview with Martin by Times staff writer Karla Marie Sanford in the days to come. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or by appointment, Sunday-May 31. Laconic Gallery, 1001 Broxton Ave., L.A. Hrishikesh Hirway, creator and host of the Song Exploder podcast and a composer himself, will introduce Vidiots' 35mm screening of the late David Lynch's 'The Straight Story.' For those who do not recall the 1999 film — a G-rated project from the director of 'Blue Velvet' and 'Wild at Heart' — it stars Richard Farnsworth in an Oscar-nominated turn as a 73-year-old man who, unable to find a ride to visit his estranged, stroke-plagued older brother, makes a six-week journey on his lawn mower.4 p.m. Saturday. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., L.A. Nassim Soleimanpour's 'cold read plays' are performed by actors who don't receive the script until showtime. For the Iranian playwright's 'White Rabbit Red Rabbit' at the Fountain Theatre, the additional wrinkle is that the production's star is changing every night. Sandra Tsing Loh served as the unrehearsed actor on opening night, following the script's instructions and ultimately presiding over an evening of charades dreamed up in advance by an oracle. 'The less I tell you about it, the better,' Times theater critic Charles McNulty said in his review, adding that 'mystery is built into the theatrical experience.' 'Sound of Metal' and 'Sing Sing' actor Paul Raci takes centerstage Friday, Sharon Lawrence stars May 26 and Joshua Malina is on June 7, in addition to the stalwarts of L.A. theater in the cast June 22. Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., L.A. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught a Sunday matinee of L.A. Opera's 'Ainadamar' at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, followed by the U.S. premiere of Rufus Wainwright's new 'Dream Requiem' performed by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, 'which proved an ideal companion to 'Ainadamar,'' Swed writes in his dual review. 'Ainadamar' is about the 1936 political execution during the Spanish Civil War of poet Federico Garcia Lorca, examined through the final minutes of actor Margarita Xirgu's life. Swed describes the opera as 'one of the century's most gratifying' and notes that it, as well as 'Dream Requiem' (featuring recitations of Lord Byron's 'Darkness'), have poets at their core. 'The Life of Pi,' now playing at the Ahmanson Theatre, completely won over Times theater critic Charles McNulty. In a glowing review, McNulty applauds the mechanics, performances and set design of the play, which plumbs the depths of spirituality through magical realism brought to bear onstage. An adaptation of Yann Martel's 2002 Booker Prize-winning novel about an Indian teen who survives a shipwreck in the company of a fierce and majestic Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, the show reveals that 'truth is not necessarily the same thing as wisdom,' McNulty writes. Craft Contemporary raised $100,000 at its 60th anniversary gala honoring founder Edith R. Wyle, who died in 1999, and artist Bari Ziperstein. In case you didn't know, Wyle's son is actor Noah Wyle, the 'ER' veteran who has legions of new fans for his starring turn in the Max medical drama 'The Pitt.' Noah attended the gala with his wife, actor Sara Wells, and other Wyle family members. The 1960s-themed dinner included a silent auction featuring work by Harrison McIntosh, Jerome Ackerman, Jane Bennison Howell, Ramekon O'Arwisters, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, and Kyungmi Shin. Ziperstein was presented with the Visionary Award. The Getty Center is allowing guests to luxuriate on its lovely grounds and enjoy its exhibits later this summer, with extended hours beginning June 17. The new hours will be 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and on Sundays. On Saturdays, the museum will remain open until 9 p.m., and parking after 6 p.m. will be free. Bar service will be expanded to include an evening cocktail program in an outdoor seating area near the arrival plaza. As always, admission is free but requires a timed-entry reservation. DTLA Alliance, in partnership with the city of Los Angeles, Street Art for Mankind and Council District 14, have commissioned three massive murals to be painted in downtown L.A. by local artists in advance of the FIFA World Cup, the Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Collectively, the art project — which will eventually include 12 works — is being dubbed 'Big Art. Bigger Dreams.' The first three murals are by David Flores (on the Los Angeles Athletic Club), Emily Ding (on the Figueroa Eight) and Shamsia Hassani (a triptych on the Bloc). — Jessica Gelt Langer's Deli by MacArthur Park may be having a tough time in its longtime home, but it still has the best pastrami dip sandwich in the city.
Los Angeles Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Could Esa-Pekka Salonen return to the L.A. Phil? Recent appearances raise hope
Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic celebrated the centenary of Pierre Boulez's birth with an extravagance of sonic invention and dance. Eight clusters of Los Angeles Philharmonic players, ranging from a single oboe to groupings of winds and brass and strings seated onstage and around Walt Disney Concert Hall, set a ceremonial tone. Percussion was exotic. Six members of L.A. Dance Project performed as if ejected by each of the 14 sections of Boulez's resonant score. Over its 23-year history, Disney Hall has seemingly seen it all thanks to the L.A. Phil's eagerness to indulge exorbitant (and costly) fancies. It has done it again in an extraordinary tribute concert unlike any other. The question is: Now what? The extraordinary performance of Boulez's 'Rituel' on Sunday concluded Salonen's seasonal two-week appearances as L.A. Phil conductor laureate. It also was his first time back with his old orchestra after announcing last year that he would not renew his contract as music director of the San Francisco Symphony, acknowledging that he did not share its board's vision for the future. Speculation has grown over a Salonen return to the L.A. Phil. No one has yet been named to succeed Gustavo Dudamel, who leaves at the end of next season to take over the New York Philharmonic. When Kim Noltemy became president and CEO last summer, the hiring relieved worry that the L.A. Phil board might take it upon itself to appoint a music director. It is now likely that the L.A. Phil may be without a music director for a couple of years. And from the enthusiastic response of audiences and reportedly of the musicians, nothing would make many happier than having Salonen back to guide the orchestra through a transition period. We'll have to wait and see whether Salonen, who turns 67 next month, would accept such an offer. He has made it clear that — after a long career as music director in Stockholm, London, L.A. and San Francisco — he welcomes a reprieve from institutional demands. He is sought after as composer and conductor and can now do exactly what he wants. Even so, his 17 history-making years as music director of the L.A. Phil and his thus far 16 years as conductor laureate have allowed him to have realized his ambitions on a scale nowhere else imaginable. In L.A. he has a venue like no other in Disney Hall, which he opened. The L.A. Phil is an orchestra more flexible than any other, and in L.A. Salonen has benefited from daring administrations able to afford Salonen's effort to create an orchestra for a new era — a promise the San Francisco Symphony couldn't, or wouldn't, deliver. All of this was evident in Salonen's Boulez tribute with the L.A. Phil. Benjamin Millepied's choreography for 'Rituel,' featuring his L.A. Dance Project, had its premiere with Salonen conducting Orchestre de Paris at the Philharmonie in Paris on Boulez's 100th birthday in March. That program began with a small octet by Stravinsky and Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Even though that concert was in the Philharmonie's Grande salle Pierre Boulez and was arguably the city's most important tribute to a composer who had been a musical monarch in Paris, only that one half-hour Boulez piece was on the program. At Disney, the L.A. Phil's huge program began with French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard playing two of Boulez's solo 'Notations' followed by the composer's massively expanded versions requiring a huge orchestra with large brass and wind sections, three harps and considerable percussion. Fifteen extra players were required for less than 10 minutes of music. When I asked Noltemy about that expense, she asked with a laugh, when has the L.A. Phil ever let budget get in the way of artistic ambition? Along with 'Notations,' Salonen conducted Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3, featuring Aimard, and Debussy's 'La Mer,' works that he recorded with the L.A. Phil in the 1990s. Those recordings hold up for their crystalline sound and youthful spunk. Those qualities remain, but with a new richness and sense of overpowering fullness. Indeed, conductor, orchestra, repertoire and hall all were simply made for one another. Boulez's music is complexly detailed and has had a long history of putting off audiences. But in the right context, it can be heard as though a brilliant flowering of Debussy's colors and flavors. Aimard played the tiny piano fourth and seventh 'Notations' with rapt attention on tiny details, while Salonen saw to it that the orchestral explosions contained multitudes of colors within controlled chaos. Aimard added a couple more 'Notations' as an encore to his soulful, robust way with Bartok's concerto, especially in the beautiful middle movement. 'Rituel' was a memorial to the Italian composer and conductor Bruno Maderna, who died in 1973. They seemed very different personalities, the analytical Boulez and the sensual Maderna, but 'Rituel' profoundly reveals that they had much in common. Boulez's score, full of Asian and Indonesian percussion, is, in its own way, as sonically engulfing as anything by Maderna. It also makes an for an easy connection with the revolutionary influence of Japanese music on Debussy's 'La Mer,' which then went on to influence Boulez, who made conducting it a specialty. Each of the different groups in 'Rituel' has its own highly organized music. They come together, cued by the conductor, with a sense of nature's unpredictability. So was the case, as well, with Millepied's superb dancers, who went their own ways but collided and coagulated, ferociously and sexually. There has been little dance made to Boulez. Millepied shows that however formidable the rhythms, there could be more. For Salonen's previous week with the L.A. Phil, he began with Debussy's 'Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun' floating through the hall. Bryce Dessner's recent Violin Concerto was dominated by soloist Pekka Kuusisto's vivid bowing, creating astonishing acoustical effects with harmonics. Salonen ended with Beethoven's 'Eroica,' which he made sound like it could have been written after Dessner's concerto, not more than two centuries before. What's next for Salonen? His final San Francisco Symphony concerts are next month, assuming the orchestra doesn't go on strike. He has a busy summer that begins by touring the New York Philharmonic to Korea and China. There are appearances with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, a collaboration with director Peter Sellars in Salzburg, the world premieres of his Horn Concerto in Lucerne, a European tour with the Orchestre de Paris. Early fall, Salonen reprises 'Rituel' with the New York Philharmonic, which is a co-commisioner of the choreography along with L.A. and Paris. On it goes pretty much nonstop throughout the rest of the year. He's back in L.A. in January with more ambitious programming. None of this makes a Salonen return to L.A. sound necessary. But there remain opportunities here that can only be dreams elsewhere.
