Tag Archives: LA Phil

Peter Sellars on the Threat of Cultural Impositionalism

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On the flight to London last week, Air New Zealand had loaded up a bunch of James Bond movies on the monitors in our seats. An appropriate gesture, I think, to get us in the mood for our final destination. Naturally, I got sucked in. I watched 007 besting bad guys all the way from Los Angeles, over Central Canada, past Greenland and Iceland, and into Her Majesty’s airspace.

In the arts world, if you want something shaken, not stirred, bring in Peter Sellars. That’s just what the LA Phil did for the world’s music educators during the recent symposium “Future Play: Music Systems in the 21st Century” at the Barbican Centre. Sellars is a natural pick for an orchestra which purports to be–and by all accounts is succeeding at being–a 21st Century Orchestra. (Not to mention, of course, his decades-long relationship with the LA Phil.)

The LA Phil’s President and CEO, Deborah Borda, has long recognized that the days of an orchestra existing solely to play music by dead white guys are over. An orchestra–any arts organization, really–must be a vibrant, relevant member of a community as that community exists in the present.

Enter Peter Sellars, who stood in front of a room full of people who work for arts organizations and told them, “Arts organizations are my favorite fascist structures.”

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Postcard from London: The Gospel Truth

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Last year, at the world premiere of John Adams’ passion-oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,” I wrote an extensive review. At the time, I said I was “less interested” in seeing how Peter Sellars would stage the work in the future, than I was simply excited to hear the music again. Turns out, I should have been more excited to see Sellars’ staging. It was vivid, yet minimal. It was transparent. And it helped connect the libretto together.

At the premiere a year ago, I wrote the audience retention rate at Walt Disney Concert Hall was about 70%. A year later, the work is a bit shorter (Adams cut some scenes), and Adams bumbed up some of the tempos. At the Barbican Centre Saturday night, the audience retention rate was close to 100%. (One couple near where I was sitting got up at a particularly conspicuous time and clattered out of the hall, never to return.)

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Postcard from London: Discover Dudamel

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Yesterday was a moment several months in the making for the 10 traveling musicians from YOLA (Youth Orchestra LA). It’s why they wrote two essays, gave an interview, and played an audition just for the opportunity to come on this trip to London. Yesterday was the rehearsal and performance of the Discover Dudamel orchestra at the Barbican Centre, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel himself.

Dudamel bounded on stage, a bundle of energy even though he had just come from an interview that went late and had barely had time to grab a snack for lunch. He surveyed the large group of mostly high-school age kids, paused to count the number players in the flute section, “How many?” He asked. “Six flutes? I love this: Venezuelan-style,” referring to the giant orchestras of several hundred he has conducted countless times with El Sistema.

“Okay, let’s play,” Dudamel said quickly, and raised his arms for the downbeat of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet Fantasy-Overture. But there was an impish look in his eye. He turned to the concertmaster and asked, “Romeo and Juliet?” She nodded. “Prokofiev, right?” Dudamel said. “No, Berlioz?” Giggling from the orchestra. “Oh…I remember,” Dudamel said, grinning. “Tchaikovsky.”

Downbeat.

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Postcard from London: A Candy Conclave

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In addition to the music-making here in London, the LA Phil is hosting a symposium about music education. They’ve put together an orchestra comprised of students from all over Great Britain, plus ten members of the LA Phil’s own Youth Orchestra LA—or YOLA. It’s called the Discover Dudamel Orchestra. Last night, the young musicians met one another for the first time. Later today, they’ll rehearse and perform with Gustavo Dudamel at the Barbican Centre.

So, naturally, the kids had to get to know each other very quickly. And they did so with the help of Skittles. The orchestra gathered in groups of 3-4, they were given a handful of Skittles, and depending on which colors they had, answered different questions about themselves.

Then, it was down to business. Rehearsing Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet, which they’ll play for Gustavo Dudamel later this afternoon.

They sound pretty damn good, wouldn’t you say? And they can’t wait to meet Gustavo in a couple hours.

Postcard from London: The Music of the Future

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On KUSC today, you’ll hear me mention an ensemble called Future Band. Future Band is a group of a couple dozen musicians, ages 8-14, from all over London. The ensemble has no set instrumentation, the members write their own music, and it is open to just about anyone. Future Band meets during school vacation periods for several days of intensive rehearsal…and they often perform here at the Barbican Centre. The philosophy is, basically, that creative expression in music should not be bound by the strict rules of one particular style of music.

Last night, Future Band performed at the symposium that the LA Phil and Barbican Centre are hosting called “Future Play: Music Systems in the 21st Century.” Here is a bit from that performance.

This morning, the always-provocative Peter Sellars spoke about activism in music education. I’ll have more thoughts from his talk later here on the blog, but just to whet your appetite, here are a couple quotes from Sellars today:

“Arts organizations are my favorite fascist structures. At a musuem, you see only what the curator wants you to see. An orchestra conductor only lets you hear what he wants you to hear. Nothing else. It’s exclusively top down.”

“Equality is not based in sameness. Equality can only exist in our differences.”

That’s vintage Peter Sellars.

Arrival in London

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Greetings from London! After a long, bumpy flight–complete with a two-hour line for a manual check-in with handwritten boarding passes (ask me about that later when I’m not grumpy)–I, along with 10 YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) musicians, ages 14-16 arrived in London town this morning. We were immediately greeted by something quite familiar to us Angelenos…and something quite unfamiliar to us: traffic and snow. Here’s proof:

After arriving at our hotel, which is a hop, skip, and a jump from the Barbican Centre, I grabbed sandwiches, a quick interview with the LA Phil’s Director of Educational Initiatives Gretchen Nielsen, and put together our first Postcard from London, which you heard on KUSC today. (We have nothing if not quick turnaround times.)

Then, it was off to the opening panel discussion of the symposium Future Play: Music Systems in the 21st Century. Co-hosted by the LA Phil and the Barbican Centre, this is a quite a gathering of arts luminaries, from the heads of the world’s major orchestras (LA Phil, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, many many others). In this photo, Sir Nicholas Kenyon (Managing Director of the Barbican Centre) was joined by Deborah Borda; LSO Managing Director Kathryn McDowell; Simon Reining, General Director of the Concertgebouw; and Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music.

They introduced some of the concepts up for discussion in the symposium as the week progresses (for example: the tension between the artistic integrity of an organization versus its social activism responsibility). To me, it was just amazing to see so many of these VIPs gathered in one place, with time and determination to tackle some of these major challenges in music education. More on that to come.

Tomorrow, it’s a busy day at the symposium, plus I’ll be hanging out with the YOLA musicians once again as they rehearse for their big presentation later this week. Then, it’s off to a Green Umbrella concert at the Barbican with Gustavo Dudamel conducting members of the LA Phil in music by John Adams, principal timpanist Joseph Pereira, and Unsuk Chin. 21st century music. Just business as usual at the LA Phil.

LA Phil 2013-14: By the Numbers

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LAPhil2013-14Much has already been written about the LA Phil’s new 2013-14 season, just announced yesterday at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (In my estimation, the most insightful summations come from Mr. CK Dexter Haven at All is Yar and Timothy Mangan at Classical Life.)

As orchestras around the country hemorrhage audiences, money, and relevance, a few–like the LA Phil, St. Louis, and San Francisco Symphony–are thriving. Why? It has to do with the idea that an orchestra cannot survive simply as a museum for great music of the past. It has to be a living, breathing organism that connects audiences to the music of now.

That has been the philosophy and tradition of the LA Phil since the Ernest Fleischmann days. It has been advanced by Esa-Pekka Salonen, institutionalized by Deborah Borda, and continued by Gustavo Dudamel.

Fleischmann

So when the LA Phil announced its new season yesterday, I was curious to run the numbers. And while I’m no math whiz, my calculations, I think, show how the LA Phil is living up to its commitment to today’s music in some very exciting ways.

  • 13 commissions, 11 world premieres, 4 U.S. premieres, 3 West Coast premieres. This is a record amount of new music for the orchestra.
  • In 2013-14, the LA Phil will play music by six Baroque composers; three Classical-era composers; 15 Romantics; and 41 20th-21st century composers.
  • That’s 9% Baroque, 5% Classical, 23% Romantic, and 63% Modern
  • Of the 65 composers on their 2013-14 season, 26 are alive. That’s an astonishing 40%.
  • 129 total works on the 2013-14 season: 24 Baroque, 7 Classical, 49 Romantic, and 49 from the 20th-21st Century.
  • That’s 18% Baroque, 5% Classical, 38% Romantic, and 38% Modern
  • Remove the Tchaikovsky-Fest works and those stats change to 35 Romantic works comprising 27% of the repertoire.
  • Of the seven Classical-era works, five are by Mozart and one is by Haydn.
  • Of the Romantics: no Bizet, Borodin, Bruch, Elgar, Faure, Franck, Grieg, Lalo, Mendelssohn, Mussorgsky, Rossini, Saint-Saëns, Smetana, Verdi, or Weber.
  • The LA Phil will be 95 years old, Walt Disney Concert Hall will be 10, and it will be Gustavo Dudamel’s 5th season as music director.

GustavoHair

 

Happy 100th, Witold Lutosławski!

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“Composers are messengers from an ideal world.” -Witold Lutosławski

2013 is a big anniversary year for classical music. It’s the bicentennials of Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813) and Giuseppe Verdi (October 10, 1813); the centennial of Benjamin Britten (November 22, 1913); and the 100th anniversary of the premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (May 29, 1913).

Perhaps a bit lost in all the hullabaloo–quite unfortunately, I must say–is the centennial of the great Polish composer Witold Lutosławski, whose 100th birthday is today. The LA Phil did its part last month when conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen came to town and led a series of concerts that included the final work Lutosławski wrote before he died in 1994: the brief, but dazzling Fanfare for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

(Here’s that very performance…from a brand new Sony release that came out earlier this week.)

Lutosławski only spent a little amount of time in Los Angeles, but what he did here was important and his visits are still treasured moments of LA classical music history. The Salonen-Lutosławski relationship brought the Polish composer’s music into mainstream LA Phil programming. After all, it was Lutosławski’s Third Symphony that a 26-year-old Salonen brought to Los Angeles for his US debut conducting the LA Phil in 1984. (Watch that first rehearsal here. Click on “video” and scroll down to “One Minute, Maestro.“)

When he was here last month, Salonen talked about the influence of Lutosławski in his life and in the life of the LA Phil.

Lutosławski also spent some time rehearsing with the orchestra at the USC Thornton School of Music, which is chronicled in great detail in this 1984 documentary, Rehearsals with Lutosławski. (The entire doc is on YouTube and well worth a watch. Part 1 is below.)

I’ll leave you with this: a rare video of Lutosławski himself conducting some of his own music. Please enjoy…and raise a glass as we remember this great composer on this, his 100th birthday.

A Gospel of Social Justice: The Premiere of John Adams’ “The Other Mary”

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Gustavo Dudamel and John Adams acknowledging the applause after the performance of “The Gospel According to the Other Mary.” (Photo by: Lawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times)

If it walks like a Passion and talks like a Passion, chances are it’s a Passion. But composer John Adams chose not call his most recent work, The Gospel According to the Other Mary, a Passion.

“I just avoided using the word ‘Passion,’” Adams told me earlier this week in a conversation backstage at Walt Disney Concert Hall, “because so many others had [used it] recently. Including Osvaldo [Golijov], but also Sofia Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm, and not to mention that other guy, what’s his name? J.S. Bach.” Continue reading →