“The incurably disruptive Los Angeles Philharmonic has … upended the year-end 10-best list,” writes Mark Swed in Friday’s (12/15) Los Angeles Times. “I could come up with two dozen L.A. Phil entries alone for 2017…. Gustavo Dudamel had an exceptional year leading memorable performances of a range of composers, be it Schoenberg, Wagner, Mozart … an unexpectedly relevant cycle of Schubert symphonies as well as a vibrant cycle of Bartók piano concertos with Yuja Wang as soloist…. Laureate conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen provided incandescent Sibelius and took over the orchestra’s … festival … centered on Reykjavík, Iceland. Resident artist and newly anointed MacArthur genius Yuval Sharon … presented a revelatory revival of Lou Harrison’s formerly unappreciated opera, ‘Young Caesar,’ and masterminded the DTLA spectacle of Annie Gosfield’s opera ‘War of the Worlds.’ … The orchestra even walked away with the best opera recording of the year … the world premiere of Louis Andriessen’s ‘Theatre of the World.’ … Women … reached parity with male conductors for the fall’s subscription concerts. Susanna Mälkki, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Emmanuelle Haïm and Xian Zhang each proved terrific in her individual way. There was ‘Noon to Midnight,’ a 12-hour new music marathon that gathered feisty new-music groups from around the city.”
Posted December 19, 2017
