In Tuesday’s (2/24) Los Angeles Times, Mike Boehm outlines the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2015-16 season, which will open with an “Immortal Beethoven” festival of all nine Beethoven symphonies, with Gustavo Dudamel leading “a combined force of about 300 musicians” for the Ninth Symphony, with the LA Phil and the Simon Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. “A program of 20th and 21st century music … includes John Williams’ Soundings (an aural portrait of Disney Hall)…. Conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen will lead … a mini-festival of French music dubbed ‘City of Light’ … [including] semi-staged performances of Debussy’s opera Pelleas and Melisande…. The dozen world premieres … include pieces it has commissioned from veteran composers Louis Andriessen and Arvo Pärt. The debut of Andriessen’s Theater of the World will be embellished by visuals from avant-garde animators the Quay Brothers…. Ars Electronica Futurelab, an Austrian group that does video installations, will goose Ravel’s Mother Goose with visual embellishments.… ‘We’re not trying to create a revolution’ in which multimedia will become the norm rather than the exception for classical concerts, [President and CEO Deborah] Borda said. ‘It’s an evolutionary step. No matter what, we just want to train the young audience to come here, period.’ ”
Posted February 24, 2015
