Latest news with #L.A.Phil
Los Angeles Times
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Venezuela's Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra cancels Hollywood Bowl shows: L.A. arts and culture this weekend
In early July, the Los Angeles Philharmonic quietly canceled all four Hollywood Bowl performances featuring Venezuela's Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. The L.A. Phil, in a statement, attributed the cancellations of the L.A. leg of the orchestra's 50th anniversary tour to 'travel complications,' and said it looks forward to 'welcoming the Orchestra back in the future.' Venezuela is on the list of countries on President Trump's recently announced travel ban list. The ban for the country is partial, but it does affect the types of visas typically used for tourism and business. A number of readers wrote in about the cancellations, speculating about visa issues and the Trump administration's aggressive immigration policies. Asked if this was the case, or if any further details about the cancellations were available, a rep for the L.A. Phil declined to comment beyond what was provided in the organization's statement. In a review of the Bowl's opening night, Times classical music critic Mark Swed credited the loss of the orchestra's visit to Trump's travel ban and lamented that the cancellation would reduce Dudamel's appearances on the Bowl's stage to a single week during his 16th and penultimate season before he leaves L.A. to become music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. The Bolívar Orchestra likely won't have any trouble traveling to the United Kingdom, however, because it is set to play as a special guest alongside Dudamel for 10 sold-out shows with the rock band Coldplay at Wembley Stadium in late August and early September. (Turns out Coachella was just a warm-up for Dudamel, who really has achieved rock star status in the music world.) Ticket holders for the canceled Bowl shows received emails about the cancellations and were told that their tickets would remain valid for newly announced programming: Elim Chan, James Ehnes, and the L.A. Phil on Aug. 12 for Tchaikovsky and The Firebird; Gemma New and the L.A. Phil performing Tchaikovsky's 4th on Aug. 14 with Pacho Flores; and Enrico Lopez-Yañez and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra performing Aug. 15-16 with Los Aguilar. When the Bowl season was first announced, L.A. Phil President and Chief Executive Kim Noltemy told me that much of the season was organized to highlight Dudamel's work, including performances featuring composers, musicians and music that he is particularly fond of. At that time, Dudamel was set to conduct eight shows in August, four of which were with the Bolívar Orchestra — a situation that speaks to his deep, decades-long ties with the organization, which started as a youth ensemble and is composed of musicians trained by Venezuela's famed music education program, El Sistema, which also counts Dudamel as an alumnus. I'm arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, dreaming of a trip to London for an extraordinary show. In the meantime, here's your arts news for this weekend. 'A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical'This jukebox musical that ran on Broadway for more than a year finally reaches L.A. on its national tour. Featuring nearly 30 of Diamond's songs, including 'Solitary Man,' 'Sweet Caroline,' 'I Am … I Said' and 'Song Sung Blue,' the show is framed by therapy sessions in which the singer-songwriter reflects on his life's highs and lows and the genesis of his writing with different actors playing 'Neil - Then' (2015 'American Idol' winner Nick Fradiani) and 'Neil - Now' (Tony nominee Robert Westenberg).7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, through July 27. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. 'Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking'The exhibition shares the narrative of how European artists worked on paper with various media from the 15th through 19th centuries. The show also includes large-scale works by L.A.-based artist Toba Khedoori.10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturdays; closed Monday; through Sept. 14. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. A Joan Crawford Triple FeatureThe Academy Museum screens three late-period Crawford vehicles in 35 mm in its Ted Mann Theater. 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?' (1962), directed by Robert Aldrich and co-starring Bette Davis (who received an Oscar nomination) relaunched the actors' careers and became a cult classic. In 'Strait-Jacket' (1964), directed by British horrormeister William Castle, Crawford played a woman released from a psychiatric hospital 20 years after being convicted of murdering her husband and his lover with an ax. Finally, Crawford's last big-screen appearance came in 'Trog' (1970), wherein she starred for director Freddie Francis, the noted cinematographer, as an anthropologist who attempts to domesticate a caveman in the 20th century U.K.2:30 p.m., 5 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. Saturday. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. The Cinematic Scores of Alexandre DesplatHot on the heels of the release of the hit movie 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' in which Desplat incorporated John Williams' stirring 'Jurassic Park' theme into his new score for the film, the celebrated French composer takes the Hollywood Bowl stage to conduct a career-spanning evening of his work. In addition to his Oscar-winning scores for Wes Anderson's 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' and Guillermo Del Toro's 'The Shape of Water,' the program includes musical selections from 'The Imitation Game,' 'The King's Speech' and more.8 p.m. Tuesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. Times theater critic Charles McNulty writes an appreciation of playwright Richard Greenberg, who died July 4 of cancer at age 67. Greenberg's rise to fame began with his 1988 play 'Eastern Standard,' which received a rave review by theater critic Frank Rich in the New York Times. McNulty remembers seeing the play on Broadway as a student and was 'dazzled by Greenberg's New York wit, which struck me as an acutely sensitive, off-angle version of George S. Kaufman's Broadway brio.' The casting news continues for 'Jesus Christ Superstar' at the Hollywood Bowl. We already know that Cynthia Erivo is set to play Jesus and Adam Lambert will play Judas — now we have it that Milo Manheim will play Peter and Raúl Esparza will play Pontius Pilate. The musical will run Aug. 1, 2 and 3. The Pasadena Playhouse is fast moving toward artistic director Danny Feldman's goal of once again making its historic campus a buzzing hive of educational activity. The playhouse announced earlier this week that it is expanding its offerings, adding options for adults and seniors to its still-growing roster of classes and camps for kids and teenagers. A musical theater community choir, a storytelling workshop and acting lessons for non-actors are also joining the lineup. Check out the schedule, and sign up, here. IAMA Theatre Company announced its 18th season at the Atwater Village Theatre, featuring the world premiere of Matthew Scott Montgomery's 'Foursome,' a story about queer love and family that is produced in association with Celebration Theatre. There will also be two original workshop productions, including Mathilde Dratwa's 'Esther Perel Ruined My Life,' directed by Ojai Playwrights Conference Producing Artistic Director Jeremy B. Cohen. The 8th annual New Works Festival gets things started from Oct. 9 to 13, and offers audiences the ability to see fresh stagings by playwrights in need of early reactions to help develop and hone their writing. The season ends with a final workshop production of JuCoby Johnson's '…but you could've held my hand,' about the ongoing relationships of four Black friends. Pack snacks and a blanket and head for the 405 because the Getty's annual Garden Concerts for kids are back. The series begins Aug. 2 and 3 with 123 Andrés. The next weekend will bring Kymberly Stewart to the stage, followed by Divinity Roxx Presents: Divi Roxx Kids World Wide Playdate on Aug. 16 and 17. The fun begins at 4 p.m., so make a day of it and check out the art first. A free reservation at is required for entry. — Jessica Gelt Need a stiff drink after a hard day of doomscrolling? The Food team has created a handy guide featuring 14 martinis that are shaking and stirring the cocktail scene.
Miami Herald
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Empty seats, no Dudamel: LA Phil opens its Hollywood Bowl season on somber notes
LOS ANGELES - Tuesday night the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened its 103rd season at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a beautiful evening. Lustrous twilight. Bright moon. Paradisal weather. Unusually light traffic. A program featuring Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev favorites. Cares could easily slip away once walking through welcoming and efficient security. Still, the real world is never far away from the Bowl. One of the highlights of this season has fallen victim to a baffling Venezuela travel ban. Gustavo Dudamel can no longer bring his Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra in August. That now means that Dudamel will spend only a single week at the Bowl during his penultimate summer as L.A. Phil music director. Some of the Bowl's facilities have been dolled up a bit, but the amphitheater feels fragile after the January wildfires. The military on our streets has produced an L.A. edginess. Could that have contributed to the Bowl's unusually low opening-night attendance? Ticket sales were said to have been strong, making the many empty seats worrisome no-shows. What Tuesday night did herald was an L.A. Phil summer season with fewer splashy events than usual (no opera, for one), several conductors making their Bowl debuts and a good deal of Russian music. It was, moreover, a Tuesday that proved a relatively somber occasion, which, despite the lovely atmosphere, fit the mood of the times. Danish conductor and Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Thomas Sondergard made his L.A. Phil debut. There is temptation to place every debut, along with every conductor invited back to the Bowl, as a potential candidate for the long list, short list or whatever list to be the L.A. Phil's next music director after Dudamel departs for New York next year. But Bowl concerts tend to be hit-and-run events. Sondergard demonstrated a sense of grandeur, sometimes shattering, other times starchy. But there were all the opening-night kinks to be worked out with audio, video, an orchestra just coming back from vacation and coping with minimal rehearsal time. None of this played into Sondergard's or the Bowl's strengths as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Ballade in A Minor opened the program. The bland Ballade is a lesser score by the late 19th and early 20th century British composer who deserves a revival for his more substantial works. For Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the subdued blue shell lighting suddenly turned a shockingly vivid orange. Amplification met the glaring illumination with the evening's piano soloist, Kirill Gerstein, unnaturally dominating a sonically repressed orchestra. The video monitors went their own crazy way, whether unmusically flipping from close-ups of fingers and lips or attempting surreal cornball special effects. It was all too much (and in the orchestra's case, too little), but Gerstein is a gripping pianist in any situation. He has just released an iridescent recording of a piece written for him and vibraphonist Gary Burton by the late jazz great Chick Corea. Thomas Adés wrote his heady Piano Concerto for him. Of all the great recordings of Rachmaninoff's over-recorded Second Piano Concerto, Gerstein's recent one with the Berlin Philharmonic may be the most powerful. Every note, important or incidental, he hit in the Rhapsody had a purposeful intensity. What you could hear of Sondergard's contribution was a starkly effective percussive response from the orchestra. It was, under any conditions, a striking performance. Video and audio settled down for Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, which was written in 1944, a decade after Rachmaninoff wrote his Rhapsody. The world had momentously changed in those 10 years. Both composers fled Russia after the 1917 revolution, but their relationships with their native land was very different. Although Rachmaninoff never returned, he remained thoroughly old-world Russian. He wrote his Rhapsody in idyllic Switzerland, before immigrating to the U.S., where he died in Beverly Hills in 1943. Prokofiev spent years in Paris and in the U.S. as a modernist, but ultimately Mother Russia was too strong of a pull, and he returned despite the artistic restrictions of Stalinist Russia. His Fifth is a war symphony, written at a time of great nationalism, and it premiered in Moscow in January 1945 just after Russia had routed the Nazi invaders. Sondergard's performance lacked the soul of, say, André Previn. (Previn performed the Fifth at his first concert as L.A. Phil music director in 1985). Here, threatening thunder of the monumental first movement was followed by threatening lightning in the faster scherzo followed by the threateningly dark cloudy skies in the slow movement followed by the victorious bombing of the final movement. The overpowering bigness of this performance happened on the day that the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine in its war with Russia. Three years ago, some questioned whether Russian music should be performed at all. Several other orchestras canceled performances of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture." The Bowl's annual "Tchaikovsky Spectacular" retained the Overture although the program began with the Ukrainian national anthem. This summer Russian music abounds at the Bowl with the usual Tchaikovsky, a full week of Rachmaninoff, along with more Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. It was with Tchaikovsky that Dudamel made his U.S. debut at the Bowl, the rest being history. Russian music has, in fact, been a mainstay of the Bowl for 103 years. Russian performers and composers helped to make L.A. what it is artistically today. And how Russian composers, those who stayed and those who left, dealt with militarism, nationalism and the threat of repression has never felt more relevant. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Los Angeles Times
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Empty seats, no Dudamel: L.A. Phil opens its Hollywood Bowl season on somber notes
Tuesday night the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened its 103rd season at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a beautiful evening. Lustrous twilight. Bright moon. Paradisal weather. Unusually light traffic. A program featuring Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev favorites. Cares could easily slip away once walking through welcoming and efficient security. Still, the real world is never far away from the Bowl. One of the highlights of this season has fallen victim to a baffling Venezuela travel ban. Gustavo Dudamel can no longer bring his Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra in August. That now means that Dudamel will spend only a single week at the Bowl during his penultimate summer as L.A. Phil music director. Some of the Bowl's facilities have been dolled up a bit, but the amphitheater feels fragile after the January wildfires. The military on our streets has produced an L.A. edginess. Could that have contributed to the Bowl's unusually low opening-night attendance? Ticket sales were said to have been strong, making the many empty seats worrisome no-shows. What Tuesday night did herald was an L.A. Phil summer season with fewer splashy events than usual (no opera, for one), several conductors making their Bowl debuts and a good deal of Russian music. It was, moreover, a Tuesday that proved a relatively somber occasion, which, despite the lovely atmosphere, fit the mood of the times. Danish conductor and Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Thomas Sondergard made his L.A. Phil debut. There is temptation to place every debut, along with every conductor invited back to the Bowl, as a potential candidate for the long list, short list or whatever list to be the L.A. Phil's next music director after Dudamel departs for New York next year. But Bowl concerts tend to be hit-and-run events. Sondergard demonstrated a sense of grandeur, sometimes shattering, other times starchy. But there were all the opening-night kinks to be worked out with audio, video, an orchestra just coming back from vacation and coping with minimal rehearsal time. None of this played into Sondergard's or the Bowl's strengths as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Ballade in A Minor opened the program. The bland Ballade is a lesser score by the late 19th and early 20th century British composer who deserves a revival for his more substantial works. For Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the subdued blue shell lighting suddenly turned a shockingly vivid orange. Amplification met the glaring illumination with the evening's piano soloist, Kirill Gerstein, unnaturally dominating a sonically repressed orchestra. The video monitors went their own crazy way, whether unmusically flipping from close-ups of fingers and lips or attempting surreal cornball special effects. It was all too much (and in the orchestra's case, too little), but Gerstein is a gripping pianist in any situation. He has just released an iridescent recording of a piece written for him and vibraphonist Gary Burton by the late jazz great Chick Corea. Thomas Adés wrote his heady Piano Concerto for him. Of all the great recordings of Rachmaninoff's over-recorded Second Piano Concerto, Gerstein's recent one with the Berlin Philharmonic may be the most powerful. Every note, important or incidental, he hit in the Rhapsody had a purposeful intensity. What you could hear of Sondergard's contribution was a starkly effective percussive response from the orchestra. It was, under any conditions, a striking performance. Video and audio settled down for Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, which was written in 1944, a decade after Rachmaninoff wrote his Rhapsody. The world had momentously changed in those 10 years. Both composers fled Russia after the 1917 revolution, but their relationships with their native land was very different. Although Rachmaninoff never returned, he remained thoroughly old-world Russian. He wrote his Rhapsody in idyllic Switzerland, before immigrating to the U.S., where he died in Beverly Hills in 1943. Prokofiev spent years in Paris and in the U.S. as a modernist, but ultimately Mother Russia was too strong of a pull, and he returned despite the artistic restrictions of Stalinist Russia. His Fifth is a war symphony, written at a time of great nationalism, and it premiered in Moscow in January 1945 just after Russia had routed the Nazi invaders. Sondergard's performance lacked the soul of, say, André Previn. (Previn performed the Fifth at his first concert as L.A. Phil music director in 1985). Here, threatening thunder of the monumental first movement was followed by threatening lightning in the faster scherzo followed by the threateningly dark cloudy skies in the slow movement followed by the victorious bombing of the final movement. The overpowering bigness of this performance happened on the day that the U.S. reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine in its war with Russia. Three years ago, some questioned whether Russian music should be performed at all. Several other orchestras canceled performances of Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture.' The Bowl's annual 'Tchaikovsky Spectacular' retained the Overture although the program began with the Ukrainian National Anthem. This summer Russian music abounds at the Bowl with the usual Tchaikovsky (which will be part of the 'Classical Pride' program Thursday), a full week of Rachmaninoff, along with more Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. It was with Tchaikovsky that Dudamel made his U.S. debut at the Bowl, the rest being history. Russian music has, in fact, been a mainstay of the Bowl for 103 years. Russian performers and composers helped to make L.A. what it is artistically today. And how Russian composers, those who stayed and those who left, dealt with militarism, nationalism and the threat of repression has never felt more relevant.
Los Angeles Times
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
There's more to Korean music than K-Pop. Young composers show how in L.A. Phil's Seoul Festival
K-pop. Oscar-celebrated cinema. Samsung in the living room. Political urgency in the press. However prominent Korean culture seems to be, there is surprising lack of coverage of the classical scene at large. Already at 21, Yunchan Lim, winner of the 2018 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, has reached superstar status. Myung-Whun Chung, whose conducting career began as an assistant to Carlo Maria Giulini at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1977, was just selected, over a veteran Italian conductor, to head La Scala in Milan with the blessing of Italy's nationalist president, Giorgia Meloni. And now the L.A. Phil has turned to the South Korean capital for an eight-day Seoul Festival as a follow-up to its revelatory Reykjavik and Mexico City festivals. Unsuk Chin, today's best-known Korean composer, is the curator. She is, in fact, today's only Korean composer who's well known internationally. Despite a seeming wealth of renowned performers, Korea remains a musically mysterious land. Most of what happens, even now, in Seoul's classical music scene doesn't roam far from Seoul. The mostly youngish composers and performers in the first L.A. Phil festival event, an exceptional Green Umbrella concert of new music at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Tuesday night, were all discoveries. Korean music is a discovery for much of the world. But California does have a head start. Chin, whose music has a visceral immediacy, has long fit in to L.A., championed by Kent Nagano at Los Angeles Opera and by Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel and Susanna Mälkki at the L.A. Phil. Moreover, ancient Korean court music and its instruments became an obsession with the echt-California composer Lou Harrison. Its noble gentility has been subtly adding to the DNA of the California sound. Only two Korean composers before Chin have made an indelible impression on the world stage, and both, as is Chin, became avant-gardist emigres. As outsiders, they have striking relevance. Isang Yun ((1917–1995) had a shocking career. A brilliant pioneering composer who melded traditional Asian music with contemporary techniques, Yun had been briefly arrested for his participation in the Korean independence movement of the early 1940s. He fled to West Germany, where he became a prominent composer before being kidnapped and returned to Korea. Imprisoned, tortured and threatened with a death sentence, he was eventually freed thanks to pressure from a consortium of internationally influential musicians (Igor Stravinsky, György Ligeti and Herbert von Karajan among them) and returned to West Berlin. And then there was Nam June Paik (1932-2006). Though famed for having been the first major video artist, Paik was a classically trained pianist and composer who began his career following in Schoenberg's footsteps by writing 12-tone music. His route to video was an erratic one that began when he fell under the spell of John Cage and became one of the more outrageous members of the anarchic Fluxus art and performance movement. I once asked Paik, who taught briefly at CalArts when it opened, about whether he always considered himself a composer. He said only a yuppie — 'you know, those people who work in a bank during the day and only go to concerts at night' — would think he wasn't. The Yun and Paik zeitgeist of going your own original and expressive sonic way while always being aware of tradition, whether embraced or rejected, pervades Chin, 63, and the generation of Korean composers who came after her and whom she has invited to the festival. Chin herself left Seoul to study with Ligeti in Europe. The Hungarian composer's music, thanks to Salonen's advocacy, is also in the L.A. blood. The orchestra has, of course, had a Ligeti festival. For the Green Umbrella concert, Chin revealed a great range of approaches among the four exceedingly interesting next-generation composers. She also invited a dazzling array of soloists specializing in Western and Korean instruments as well as the magnificent Ensemble TIMF, which joined the L.A. Phil New Music Group. All were making debuts alongside the luminous and poetic young conductor Soo-Yeoul Choi. In the four pieces (each about 15 minutes), Korean, European and American traditions can serve as sources for reinvention. Juri Seo's Concertino for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, given a dashing performance by pianist HieYon Choi, consists of short movements that include a jazz fughetta and Schumann-esque romanticism. Sun-Young Pahg's austerely formal 'L'autre moitié de Silence' for daegeum and ensemble featured Hong Yoo as soloist bending notes and bending time on the bamboo flute used in Korean folk and traditional music. In Yie-Eun Chun's spritely Violin Concerto, which was commissioned by the L.A. Phil for the festival, scale-like passages got the Paganini treatment from soloist SooBeen Lee. Dongjin Bae's 'reflective — silky and rough' for standard western flute and spacey strings, another L.A. Phil commission, had an ancient feel with its silences and breathy solos played with enthralling focus by Yubeen Kim. Chin's 'Gougalon (Scenes From a Street Theater),' which ended the program, is a riotous evocation of Hong Kong. Rather than musically reproduce street sounds and people sounds, Chin transforms them into spectacular orchestral chatter. The effect is what their joy must sound like, what their meals must sound like, what their walking and talking and laughing and crying must sound like in a language you don't understand because exhilaration isn't language. All of this is music by distinct personalities, each striving for something sonically personal. Musically mixing East and West dispenses with regulations when crossing borders and becomes an an act of individuality and often resistance. Chun's do-re-me scales become cockeyed before you grasp what's happening. Bae's silky flute, when rough underneath, evoke the feeling you might get when taking a break from Bach an instant before the world's most compelling composer overtakes your own senses. The conductor Soo-Yeoul Choi favors transparency and sensuality at the same time with expressive gestures that seem to magically mold sound. Each piece had different instrumental combinations involving both L.A. Phil and TIMF players. Everything worked. The festival continues with weekend orchestra concerts featuring different mixes of four more new Korean scores commissioned by the L.A. Phil, Chin's 2014 Clarinet Concerto and a pair of Brahms concertos. A chamber music concert with works by Schumann and Brahms played by Korean musicians is the closing event Tuesday. Meanwhile, for a better idea of what Unsuk Chin is up to, last month in Hamburg Kent Nagano conducted the premiere of her new opera, 'The Dark Side of the Moon.' It is a philosophical reflection on the relationship between quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung that profoundly reflects how ideas and traditions interact. It can be watched on YouTube.
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.
