“With 21 commissioned pieces and 14 world premieres, the L.A. Phil season being announced Tuesday promises to embrace new and cutting-edge music while also paying tribute to familiar names and faces,” writes David Ng in Tuesday’s (2/23) Los Angeles Times. The orchestra’s Reykjavik Festival in April, curated by conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, “will explore the interplay of new music, folk and pop music by up-and-coming composers from the Reykjavik music scene, and also will feature works by more established talents. In 2016-17, the L.A. Phil also will introduce a cinematic series, Celluloid L.A., that will feature screenings of classic and popular films with live orchestra accompaniment…. The season also will include a cycle that pairs the symphonies of Franz Schubert with songs by Gustav Mahler, led by music director Gustavo Dudamel.” The orchestra will premiere Gerald Barry’s opera Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, and “Yuval Sharon, recently named the orchestra’s artist-collaborator, will stage a production of Schubert songs that will alternate with short plays by Samuel Beckett.… Youth Orchestra L.A. … will celebrate 10 years with concerts throughout California.” The season will include a tribute to composer John Adams, who serves as the Philharmonic’s creative chair.
Posted February 23, 2016
Pictured: Gustavo Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic, May 14, 2015. Photo by Lawrence K. Ho/ Los Angeles Times
