L.A. Phil unfurls a new banner for a new season at Walt Disney Concert Hall

It's time for that rite of summer: The Los Angeles Philharmonic -- anticipating the opening of a new season -- is changing the giant banner that hangs outside the entrance to its administrative offices at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

On Thursday, the orchestra will take down the bold fuchsia sign that for the past year has proclaimed "PASION" and "GUSTAVO" in honor of the 2009-10 debut of maestro Dudamel, its young Venezuelan music director.

In its place will rise 2010-11's golden-hued "LA PHIL. Share the Passion." Both the old and new designs show Dudamel in action. The new one also depicts members of the orchestra.

"Last season's banner introduced Gustavo to the community," says a Phil spokeswoman. "His name was featured prominently and the Spanish word for 'passion' described Gustavo and his energy and his Latino heritage."

This season, now that Dudamel is one of the city's most familiar figures, the Philharmonic "wanted to focus on Gustavo and his connection with the orchestra and the energy they have together and also his connection with the community."

Images of either Dudamel or his predecessor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, have graced Disney Hall since the building opened in 2003, appearing on reinforced-vinyl rectangles made by AmGraph of Ontario. Traditionally, a vertical Philharmonic building banner faces Grand Avenue while a horizontal banner looks out on Hope Street. Last season's horizontal creation --which offers three views of Dudamel conducting the Phil -- will continue to be displayed.

Esa-Pekka Salonen and his Violin Concerto take a new step at New York City Ballet

Since leaving his position as Los Angeles Philharmonic music director last year, Esa-Pekka Salonen has been a regular at New York theaters. Last fall he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, leading an acclaimed run of Janacek’s “From the House of the Dead,” and Tuesday night, he was in the pit of Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater to conduct the world premiere of Peter Martins' ballet “Mirage,” set to Salonen's own Violin Concerto.

“Mirage”  featured the New York premiere of Salonen's concerto, which received its world premiere in April 2009 when performed by the L.A. Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (It was the composer's first piece to be presented as a ballet — back in 2007, the L.A. modern dance troupe Diavolo set his 2001 work, "Foreign Bodies," to dance at the Hollywood Bowl.)

Before the New York City Ballet performance began, Martins and Salonen were presented with Letters of Distinction from the American Music Center. Accepting his award, Salonen said: “My primary interest in music is the new — but not the new in isolation. The new that comes out of what we have already. It’s fitting that I receive this as I conduct a ballet, a new work on top of tradition.”

Then, after Maurice Kaplow led the New York City Ballet Orchestra through Prokofiev and Balanchine’s “Prodigal Son,” Salonen took over at the podium. The curtain rose to reveal Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s modernist designs as the skittering violin sounds of the opening bars were heard.

Esa-Pekka Salonen remembers an inimitable Ernest Fleischmann

Ernest Fleischmann, who died late Sunday night, left a very large footprint in Los Angeles. Just imagine the Cahuenga Pass as a collection of Playa Vista-like condominiums rather than the home of the Hollywood Bowl (which he saved). Just imagine a still-dowdy downtown sans Walt Disney Concert Hall (which he envisioned and built). Just imagine the Los Angeles Philharmonic without Esa-Pekka Salonen.

The tributes have been, as expected, pouring in for the imperious leader of the L.A. Philharmonic from 1969 to 1998 who revolutionized orchestra life in this country and abroad and who played a major role in the cultural maturation of our city.

“One thing that L.A. really needs to know,” Salonen said over coffee Tuesday in Santa Monica, “is that Disney Hall would not be here without Ernest. During the darkest days, when everyone said the hall was dead in the water, against all logic and probability, he just stubbornly pressed on.”

Esa-Pekka Salonen receiving honorary degree at USC

Esa-Pekka Salonen has returned to Los Angeles -- but just for a few days.

The Finnish conductor and former music director of the L.A. Philharmonic is receiving an honorary doctorate at Friday's commencement ceremony at the University of Southern California.

In its citation, the university described Salonen as a "preeminent composer, conductor and advocate of contemporary music."

Salonen is one of five people receiving honorary doctorates this year at USC. The others include William J. Bratton, the former L.A. Police Department chief; John Hood, former vice chancellor of the University of Auckland and of the University of Oxford; Ting-Kai Li, a physician and scientist; and Festus G. Mogae, the former president of Botswana.

Salonen is receiving his honorary degree from the university and then speaking at the satellite ceremony for the Thornton School of Music on the south lawn at Ramo Hall at 10:30 a.m.  A spokesman at the USC Thornton School of Music said that Salonen participated in an informal master class at the school earlier this week during which he reviewed students' scores.

The meeting was organized by Don Crockett, chair of the composition department.  Salonen reviewed student compositions, listened to recordings and offered comments.

In 2009, Salonen stepped down as music director of the L.A. Philharmonic after a tenure of 17 years. During his time in L.A., he championed the programming of new music and helped to oversee the orchestra's move to Walt Disney Concert Hall. He is currently the principal conductor of London’s Philharmonia.

USC is broadcasting the ceremony online and you can watch it here.

-- David Ng

Photo: Esa-Pekka Salonen. Credit: Agnethe Schnittkrull / For The Times

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Music review: Gustavo Dudamel under the Green Umbrella for the first time

The green umbrellas were lowered Tuesday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall. No longer floating from the rafters as they usually do for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s New Music Ensemble programs, they were this time planted on the stage and seemed like handsome, stately reminders of the large shadows cast over Gustavo Dudamel’s first Green Umbrella concert.

The most obvious shadow was that of the orchestra’s conductor laureate, Esa-Pekka Salonen, who made history with the innovative new music series time and again. He will continue to, even without further involvement. The evening’s two premieres were the first pieces underwritten by the orchestra’s Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund, established in honor of its former music director. 

The other shadow was that of music critic Alan Rich, who died on April 23 and to whom the program was dedicated in recognition of his influential championing of the orchestra’s new music mission. My curmudgeonly colleague would have expected no less, although that would have never stopped him from picking a deserving bone or two about the program.

Esa-Pekka Salonen composes a piano tribute to Steven Witser

A new piece by Esa-Pekka Salonen will have its world premiere in Los Angeles this month as part of the current season of the new-music group Piano Spheres. But the composition arrives on a note of sadness because it was composed in honor of Steven Witser, the principal trombonist of the L.A. Philharmonic who died of a heart attack last April.

Salonen's "Pavane in Memory of Steve" will be performed on March 16 at the Colburn School's Zipper Concert Hall in downtown L.A. The piece is part of a concert featuring Joanne Pearce Martin, the principal keyboardist for the Philharmonic.

Pearce Martin said Salonen's new composition is a work for solo piano.

In a statement sent by Piano Spheres, she stated, "Steve Witser’s untimely death this past spring left the entire L.A. Phil family in utter shock. We were just recovering from all the wonderful celebrations of Esa-Pekka’s last two weeks with us, and then suddenly Steve was gone.  Esa-Pekka wanted to make a musical gesture in honor of Steve, and this piece is his way of showing how much this great musician and colleague positively affected the lives of everyone who knew him."

Salonen stepped down as music director of the L.A. Philharmonic at the end of the 2008-09 season.

Witser joined the orchestra as principal trombonist at the beginning of the 2007-08 season. He had previously served as acting principal trombonist of the Cleveland Orchestra, which he joined in 1989.

The Piano Spheres concert will also feature performances of Stephen Hartke's "Post-Modern Homages,"   Meyer Kupferman's "Distances," Gabriela Frank's "Sonata Andina," György Ligeti's "Chromatische Phantasie," Gernot Wolfgang's "Theremin's Journey for Theremin, Piano, & Electronica" and George Antheil's Toccata No. 2.

-- David Ng

Photo: Esa-Pekka Salonen. Credit:Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times

New York Philharmonic looks west ... mostly

At noon on Tuesday, New York time, the New York Philharmonic announced its 2010-11 season, the second with Alan Gilbert as music director. It beat the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s season announcement, which was at 10 a.m. L.A. time, by an hour. Give the classical music Yankees a point for timing. And give them more points for having some very attractive offerings next season.

We should know. Many of the New York season’s highlights given top billing in the orchestra’s press release read like L.A. Philharmonic redux.

A three-week “Hungarian Echoes” festival in March 2011, for instance, will pair Haydn, Bartók and Ligeti. In 1998, Esa-Pekka Salonen put on an “Around Ligeti” festival pairing Ligeti and Haydn at the Music Center in celebration of the contemporary Hungarian composer’s 75th birthday. The conductor for the tamer New York follow-up? Salonen.

The main Bartók news of  “Hungarian Echoes” moreover, will be Salonen’s concert performance of the opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” direct from the West Coast – Salonen will be doing that first when he returns to visit his his old band in Walt Disney Concert Hall in November.

That is not the only music hopping onto the jet stream in L.A. Thomas Adés’ “In Seven Days,” a work for piano and video created for Disney Hall in 2008, will make it to New York in January.  (It returns to L.A. next season as well, as part of an Adès festival, which will include the premiere of a major new orchestral  work by the British composer). 

The New York Philharmonic’s composer-in-residence, Magnus Lindberg, will be the pianist in the much-belated New York premiere of his kitchen-sink orchestral 1985 blowout, “Kraft,” just as he was at the U.S. premiere given by the L.A. Philharmonic in 1999. Meanwhile, Salonen will conduct the U.S. premiere of Lindberg’s new large-scale work for orchestra and chorus, “Graffiti,” in Disney in November. No New York date for this thus far.

But to give the New York Philharmonic its due, L.A. will finally only next season hear Messiaen's wondrous last work, "Éclairs sur l'au-delà…" -- which was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in 1992 and premiered by Zubin Mehta to what appeared the dismay of his audience.

Plus, New York does have its firsts coming up. It will premiere a new work by Wynton Marsalis for jazz band and orchestra on its Sept. 22 opening gala. A co-commission with the L.A. Philharmonic and other orchestras, the piece reaches the West Coast later in the season. The New Yorkers will also premiere an orchestral work by Aaron Jay Kernis and three chamber pieces it has commissioned from Lindberg, James Matheson and Jay Alan Yim.

The full New York season is here.

-- Mark Swed

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L.A. Phil announces 2010-11 season

The full L.A. season

Photo: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the New York Philharmonic in Avery Fisher Hall in 2008. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times
 

 

Los Angeles Philharmonic announces 2010-11 season: 12 weeks of Dudamel

Basking in the popularity of Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is using an online press conference Tuesday morning to announce that — unlike most recession-weary arts organizations — it will hold the course.

The orchestra’s 2010-11 season and the Venezuelan’s second as music director will include 12 subscription weeks conducted by Dudamel at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the return of Esa-Pekka Salonen and the premieres of 19 new works, 12 commissioned by the Philharmonic. Two composer-focused festivals, a European tour, new-music concerts and an expanded education program will also compete for attention amid dizzying myriad programs and activities.

“This is where we can make a difference, by not relenting,” Deborah Borda, the L.A. Philharmonic president, said recently. “And Gustavo has been the spirit behind everything.” She also noted that ticket sales have remained high, with Dudamel’s concerts regularly selling out and that the organization averages around 92% capacity for the more than 150 concerts it presents each season at Disney Hall.

Dudamel, taking part in the press conference via video from Caracas, Venezuela, is inevitably the season’s center of attention. His opening-night gala will feature Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez. The big work of his two fall subscription concerts will be Olivier Messiaen’s massively ecstatic “Turangalila” Symphony.

Throughout May and in early June, Dudumel will continue the “unbound” series, which Salonen began to place classical composers in 21st century contexts, with “Brahms Unbound.”

Saying on the press conference video that “music is not about moments, music is about eternity,” Dudamel will pair Brahms’ four symphonies with, respectively, the world or U.S. premieres: of Osvaldo Golijov’s Violin Concerto (written for Leonidas Kavakos), Sofia Gubaidulina’s “Glorious Percussion,” Peter Lieberson’s Percussion Concerto (with Pedro Carneiro as soloist) and Henryk Górecki’s Fourth Symphony. Steve Mackay’s “Beautiful Passing” will complement Brahms’ “A German Requiem.”

Click here for the full story and here for a full list of the season.

-- Mark Swed

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Music review: Lorin Maazel conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Leave a house you’ve had for 17 years and the new occupants will no doubt make changes. Esa-Pekka Salonen no longer lives at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and its sound and sensibility are moving in new directions under new music director Gustavo Dudamel, sometimes startlingly so.

But nothing quite prepared me for Lorin Maazel’s chameleon-like Sibelius Second Symphony on Friday night, as he began a two-week guest conducting stint at Walt Disney Concert Hall. With eyes closed and by pretending the acoustics or the weather weren’t quite so good, I could have easily imagined myself in Avery Fisher Hall a year ago, hearing the New York Philharmonic while Maazel was still its music director.

How a conductor can, after only three days of rehearsal, magically create a new sound is one of the mysteries of the art form and managed by only a select few (Valery Gergiev is another such magician). The L.A. Philharmonic might still be expected to be a Sibelius orchestra in the Salonen mold, given that he led a cycle of Sibelius’ seven symphonies in 2007, toured with them and recorded the Second for a DG Concerts download on iTunes.

Esa-Pekka Salonen + New York City Ballet = 'world premiere'?

Earlier this week, the New York City Ballet announced that it would produce a "world premiere" ballet in its  spring 2010 season featuring a score by Esa-Pekka Salonen and choreography by Peter Martins, the company's ballet master.

As it turns out, the use of the term "world premiere" in this case is highly debatable.

The new production will be set to Salonen's Violin Concerto and will be performed by the NYCB orchestra with soloist Leila Josefowicz. Salonen will conduct the performances, which begins June 22 in New York.

As Los Angeles audiences know, Salonen's Violin Concerto isn't a new work. The piece was first performed with the L.A. Philharmonic in April 2009 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Josefowicz played the solo part on that occasion as well.

So why is the NYCB calling the production a "world premiere"? In its press literature, the company has acknowledged that Salonen's concerto was co-commissioned by the NYCB, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the L.A. Phil, and that the piece debuted at Disney Hall.

A spokesman for the NYCB said that the term "world premiere" in this case refers to the "ballet" whether or not the music has been heard before.

This brings up an old question: Does the term "ballet" refer to the music or the choreography? Or the two together? At its most basic level, ballet is a fusion of movement and sound. But the score can, and often does, have a life of its own, like Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker."