Fresh on the heels of their In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl series, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is launching Sound/Stage. The main difference between these two series is that the former utilized archived performances from the Hollywood Bowl. Sound/Stage has newly filmed performances from the stages at the Hollywood Bowl and the Ford Theatre.
There are nine episodes of Sound/Stage and the programming begins on Friday, September 25th. These performances will be available on the LA Phil’s website, so anyone, anywhere in the world, can watch. All performances were filmed with full social distancing guidelines.
Update: All episodes will remain available for one year from the original streaming date.
No matter how much we felt the distinct absence of not having Hollywood Bowl concerts to enliven our summers, the players of the Los Angeles Philharmonic certainly felt that even more profoundly. For these concerts the Bowl itself was empty, but at least it was filled with the sound of this wonderful music.
Programs will remain available as new episodes go online. There’s a diverse and exciting line-up. Here it is:
September 25th: Love in the Time of Covid
Performers: Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; María Valverde, narrator; J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Program: Peter Lieberson: Neruda Songs: “Amor mio, si muero y tú no mueras”; George Walker: Lyric for Strings and Gustav Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
This episode will also include an interview with J’Nai Bridges and an exclusive performance from The Ford.
Note: Peter Lieberson wrote the five-song cycle Neruda Songs based on the poetry of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The work was composed for his wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. She passed away in 2006 – only a year after the work was given its world premiere in a concert by the LA Phil conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Neruda Songs was a co-commission between the LA Phil and the Boston Symphony. The composer passed away in 2011.
October 2nd: Salón Los Ángeles
Performers: Los Angeles Philharomonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
Program: Arturo Márquez: Danzón; George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
This episode includes an interview with Arturo Márquez, a performance by Grandeza Mexican Folk Ballet Company, Mexican boleros and an online photo exhibit by Alicia Ruiz.
Note: Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet is a regular performer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He appears at both Walt Disney Concert and is a regular part of the Hollywood Bowl season. He had been scheduled to appear at the Bowl with the LA Phil on July 28th in a performance of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Last October I spoke with Thibaudet about his then 44-year relationship with Gershwin’s music. You can read that interview here.
October 9th: Power to the People!
Performers: Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; Andra Day, vocalist
Program: Jessie Montgomery: Banner; William Grant Still: Sorrow from Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American”; Andra Day: Rise Up from her 2015 album Cheers to the Fall
This episode includes an interview with Jessie Montgomery, J’Nai Bridges performing Florence Price songs and a performance from the La Reina digital festival at The Ford.
Note: Power to the People! was planned as a major part of the spring programming at the LA Phil earlier this year. That festival was truncated by the pandemic.
William Grant Still was an American composer. His best known work is the symphony being performed in this episode. In 1936 he conducted his own works at the Hollywood Bowl. His opera, Troubled Island, was the first American opera performed at the Metropolitan Opera. Those performances also marked the first time an opera by an African-American composer was performed by a major company.
October 16th: Andra Day
Performer: Andra Day
Day is front and center in this program that features both performances and an interview with the Grammy Award-nominated singer/songwriter. Amongst the songs on this program are her hit Gold (also from Cheers to the Fall) and the classic Nina Simone song, Mississippi Goddamn.
Note: Andra Day is starring as legendary singer Billie Holiday in the upcoming film The United States vs. Billie Holiday. Directed by Lee Daniels (Precious, The Paperboy, Lee Daniels’ The Butler), the film is scheduled for release in early 2021.
October 23rd: Beethoven
Performers: Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Program: Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Note: Beethoven’s 7th symphony had its world premiere in 1813 in Vienna. The work doesn’t require a very large orchestra (making it perfect for this series). It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings. The first Los Angeles Philharmonic performance of this symphony was on April 1, 1921.
October 30th: Kamasi Washington: Becoming
Performer: Kamasi Washington
Program: Saxophonist Kamasi Washington performs music from the documentary Becoming and also appears in interviews
Note: On May 6th of this year Netflix began streaming Nadia Hallgren’s documentary Becoming. The film follows former first lady Michelle Obama on the book tour for her memoir of the same name.
The recording of Washington’s score features 15 tracks running approximately 30 minutes.
November 6th: Solitude
Performers: Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Program: Thomas Adés: Dawn (US Premiere); Duke Ellington: Solitude
This episode will also include a performance by Jean-Yves Thibaudet of Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 plus an interview with jazz legend Herbie Hancock and more.
Note: Adés’s Dawn was given its world premiere by the London Symphony Orchestra with Simon Rattle conducting in August. The composer is quoted on Faber Music’s website as saying about the work, “In this piece the sunrise is imagined as a constant event that moves continuously around the world. This eternal dawn is presented as a ‘chacony’ – in the word that Purcell used some 330 years ago, a mile or two away.”
Faber Music also states that this seven-minute work was designed to be performed by varying sizes of orchestras positioned any desired way around the performance space. Making it perfect for 2020.
November 13th: Chicano Batman
Performers: Chicano Batman
Note: Los Angeles-based band Chicano Batman released their self-titled first album in 2010. They followed that up with 2014’s Cycle of Existential Rhyme, 2017’s Freedom Is Free and this year’s Invisible People. The members of the band are Eduardo Arenas, Carlos Arévalo, Bardo Martinez and Gabriel Villa.
Bardo Martinez, in an interview with Lanre Bakare of The Guardian, said of their music, “We’re trying to bring something that’s from our heritage. Everyone knows that black people have the funk and soul, but we’ve got that too. In the 70s in Latin America people were getting funky and getting down. We’re showing people that that exists.”
November 20th: Finales
Performers: Los Angeles Philahrmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Program: Ludwig van Beethoven: Finale from Symphony No. 7; Gabriela Ortiz: Corpórea: “Ritual Mind – Corporeous Pulse”; Maurice Ravel: The Fairy Garden from Mother Goose
This episode will include an interview with Gabriela Ortiz, a conversation with filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñarritu (The Revenant; Birdman) and more.
Note: This is not the first time Gabriela Ortiz’s music has been paired by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with a work by Beethoven. In October 2019 the orchestra gave the world premiere of Yanga with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. I spoke with her about that work and sharing the stage with not just one of the most-beloved composers in the world, but with his masterpiece. You can read that interview here.
It goes without saying that nothing takes the place of us all being in the same place with the musicians hearing this music live. With Sound/Stage at least we get to see the musicians together in the same venue creating new performances for us to watch safely at home.
Photo by Natalie Suarez for the Los Angeles Philharmonic/Courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic