Los Angeles Philharmonic

About

Official Site: http://wdch.laphil.com/

Today, under the dynamic leadership of Esa-Pekka Salonen, who became the orchestra’s tenth music director in 1992, the Philharmonic is recognized as one of the world’s outstanding orchestras. Both at home and abroad it has, as the Berliner Zeitung stated, “proved that it belongs among the best in the United States.”

On Sony Classical, the orchestra records with Esa-Pekka Salonen. With violinist Joshua Bell, Salonen and the orchestra have also recorded the violin concertos by Sibelius and Goldmark (SK 65949). For the Bach bicentennial in 2000, Salonen and the orchestra recorded a critically acclaimed disc of orchestral transcriptions of works by J.S. Bach (SK 89012). Their next recording, already available in some countries, presents violin concertos by Sibelius and Goldmark (SK 65949) performed with Joshua Bell. Earlier in 2000, Plácido Domingo and Bo Skovhus joined them in a recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, in the version for tenor and baritone (SK 60646).

Although the orchestra has recorded late Romantic repertoire for Sony Classical -- Bruckner’s Fourth Symhony and Mahler’s Third Symphony (S2K 60250) -- most of its Sony Classical recordings feature twentieth-century works. Most recently, they include piano concertos by Shostakovich, with Yefim Bronfman (SK 60677), and music by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas (SK 60676), all with Salonen. The orchestra’s recording of the Bartók piano concertos, with Salonen and pianist Yefim Bronfman, won a 1996 Grammy Award, and their disc of Bernard Herrmann’s film music for Alfred Hitchcock, led by Salonen, was a Grammy nominee the following year.

In the last decade, Salonen’s tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been highlighted by a strong commitment to new music. His activities with the orchestra have included world premieres of new works by composers John Adams, Bernard Rands, Rodion Shchedrin, Steven Stucky and Salonen himself, critically acclaimed festivals of music by Ligeti and Stravinsky, and appearances at the Ojai Festival.

During the 2001-2002 concert season, Salonen will conduct 12 weeks of subscription concerts with the Philharmonic, followed by a two-week tour of Japan in May 2002. In August and September 2002 they return to Europe for a three-week tour of summer festivals. In January 2001, Salonen returned to his Philharmonic post following a one-year composing sabbatical.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic was established in 1919 by a wealthy amateur musician named William Andrews Clark Jr. The 94 musicians of the new ensemble met their first rehearsal on October 13 of that year, under the direction of Walter Henry Rothwell, whom Clark had recruited from the St.

Paul (Minnesota) Symphony Orchestra. Eleven days later, Rothwell conducted the orchestra’s premiere performance before a capacity crowd of 2,400 in Trinity Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. He continued as music director until his death in 1927. Since then, nine renowned conductors have served in that capacity – Georg Schéevoigt (1927-29); Artur Rodzinski (1929-33); Otto Klemperer (1933-39); Alfred Wallenstein (1943-56); Eduard van Beinum (1956-59); Zubin Mehta (1961-1978); Carlo Maria Giulini (1978-84); André Previn (1985-89) and, since the beginning of the 1992-93 season, Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Since its first season, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has made downtown Los Angeles its winter home. It was in December 1964 that it began its residency at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center of Los Angeles County. Today, the orchestra looks forward to another move, to what will the fourth performing venue in the Music Center complex – the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Since 1922, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra’s summer home has been the world-famous Hollywood Bowl.

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