A few words from the Philharmonic players

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Culture Monster spent some time with musicians of the L.A. Philharmonic this evening just before they embarked on their performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with their new boss -- Gustavo Dudamel.

Here is what some of them had to say about their busy week, and what they expect in the days to come:

‘It’s the beginning of a new era, but it’s just the beginning. As music director, he’s going to have a lot of different jobs -- like raising money and personnel issues. He’s going to have to play the bad guy sometimes. But I feel optimistic overall -- it’s definitely an exciting time.’ -- Ben Hong, cello.

‘Personally, I just had a private rehearsal with Gustavo, where I accompanied the four soloists for the Ninth. The words that come to mind are ‘pure joy.’ So far, we’ve had one rehearsal for [John] Adams’ ‘City Noir’ -- we’re going deeper and deeper into that.’ -- Joanne Pearce Martin, keyboard.

‘He has every possible color Izod shirt in the world. Which is a change from Esa-Pekka, who always wore black. What can I say I’m high on Gustavo. He makes us not nervous when we perform.’ -- Daniel Rothmuller, cello.

‘There’s no relaxing with Gustavo. He’s a string player, so we in the string sections get more focus. He knows what he wants.’ -- Jonathan Karoly, cello.

-- David Ng