Los Angeles Philharmonic Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and CEO Simon Woods announce the 2018/19 season at Walt Disney Concert Hall and beyond.
The centerpiece of LA Phil 100, the Centennial program forges an exciting future for the orchestra, its music, its city, and audiences around the world with a forward-looking roster of globe-spanning artistic programs, educational and social impact initiatives and public celebrations for all of L.A., from September 2018 through October 2019.
Highlights will include:
- Premieres of 50 commissions – the LA Phil’s greatest investment ever in music’s future
- 20 programs conducted by Dudamel, ranging from the world premiere of John Adams’ piano concerto with Yuja Wang as a soloist to a climactic performance of Mahler’s monumental “Symphony of a Thousand” in its Walt Disney Concert Hall premiere.
- Cross-disciplinary collaborations with Benjamin Millepied, L.A. Dance Project and American Ballet Theatre for Romeo and Juliet; LA Phil Artist-Collaborator and MacArthur Fellow Yuval Sharon for exceptional performances of Meredith Monk’s ATLAS and John Cage’s Europeras 1 & 2; composer-conductor Christopher Rountree and the Getty Research Institute for an ongoing Fluxus festival; and Barry Edelstein and The Old Globe for The Tempest
- The return of former LA Phil Music Directors Esa-Pekka Salonen and Zubin Mehta, plus a new work by former Music Director André Previn, along with special programs by former Principal Guest Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas
- Major events and focuses include the 11-day eclectic season kick-off LA Fest, a Fluxus Festival and a multi-part Stravinsky focus led by Esa-Pekka Salonen
- Programs celebrating the relationship between movies and music, pairing the orchestra with screenings of excerpts from Stanley Kubrick’s masterpieces and with scenes from films scored by John Williams
- And appearances by internationally celebrated musicians, including Emanuel Ax, Daniel Barenboim, Andrew Bird, Yefim Bronfman, Lila Downs, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Hélène Grimaud, Marc-André Hamelin, our Creative Chair for Jazz Herbie Hancock, Lang Lang, La Santa Cecilia, Audra McDonald, Moby, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Murray Perahia, Bernadette Peters, Itzhak Perlman, Cécile McLorin Savant and many more
It all begins on September 27 with a festive opening night concert and gala, California Soul, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer, in which Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra will celebrate the abundance of the Golden State’s creativity from John Adams to Frank Zappa. Signaling to all Angelenos that the Centennial has begun, award-winning artist Refik Anadol will illuminate the façade of Walt Disney Concert Hall with WDCH Dreams, a dynamic media installation that draws on imagery, video, and audio from the LA Phil’s extensive archive of more than 15,000 concerts presented since 1919. From September through October, Anadol will also present Archives on Display in the Gershwin Gallery, showing the arc of the LA Phil’s past hundred years as a grand visual sweep of art, architecture, and music in dynamic relationship to the people of L.A.
The season kick-off continues on September 30 with a free, day-long Celebrate LA! event for the entire city, staged throughout the streets from Walt Disney Concert Hall to the Hollywood Bowl and culminating in a free Bowl concert featuring Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and a once-in-100-years roster of special guest artists. Additional details for the centennial launch events will be announced this summer.
The 2018/19 Centennial season will celebrate the orchestra’s living history by welcoming towering figures such as Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Michael Tilson Thomas back to the podium, each with his own special focuses; revisiting key moments in the past, such as the orchestra’s work in the 1930s with African-American composer William Grant Still; exploring Los Angeles’s mid-century role in in the wildly unpredictable, international Fluxus movement; and publishing Past/Forward: The LA Phil at 100, a two-volume compilation of photographs, interviews, and essays, including conversations between Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page and Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Gustavo Dudamel.
Beginning in March 2019, the LA Phil will set off an unprecedented year of global touring, performing on three continents, including appearances in Seoul, Tokyo, Edinburgh, London, Mexico City, and New York City.
The celebrations will continue through the 2019 Hollywood Bowl season and come to a close with a once-in-a-lifetime gala featuring Dudamel, Salonen, and Mehta sharing the podium on October 24, 2019, 100 years to the day after the orchestra’s first concert. The LA Phil looks forward to marking the Bowl’s centennial in 2022.
Season subscription tickets are available now at laphil.com, 323.850.2000 or the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office. Single tickets will begin to go on sale Sunday, August 5, 2018. Information about the “100 for the 100” free ticket initiative will be announced later this summer.
Additional details can be found at the LA Phil’s newly launched website: laphil.org.