LA Phil Kicks Off 10th Anniversary Celebration of Walt Disney Concert Hall's Famous Pipe Organ This Weekend

LA Phil Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall to lead the orchestra in the first program celebrating the 10th anniversary of the venue's famous pipe organ, tonight and Saturday, October 24 and 25, at 8 pm, and Sunday, October 26, at 2 pm. The dramatic concert includes a performance from world-renowned French organist Olivier Latry (pictured, left) in the U.S. premiere of Kajia Saariaho's Maan varjot (Earth's Shadow).

The evening opens with the stirring fanfares of Janá?ek's Sinfonietta before showcasing Latry's prowess on the organ and celebrating the organ's past as he performs Saariaho's Maan varjot (Earth's Shadow). The concert concludes with the mythic soundscapes of Sibelius' Lemminkäinen Suite.

This program is the first in a series honoring the 10th birthday of the spectacular Walt Disney Concert Hall organ, lovingly referred to as the "French fries," or "Hurricane Mama" - so named by musical visionary Terry Riley after a night of improvising. The organ's striking visual design was a collaboration between Frank Gehry and organ builder Manuel Rosales, and has drawn leading organists from around the world.

Additionally, the Friday performance is the first of the LA Phil's Get Your Phil concerts this season. The organization has partnered with Chaya and Spear restaurants to offer concert attendees an exclusive multi-course prix fixe dinner for just $25 when concert tickets are purchased. Additional menus and package purchase options are available at the LA Phil website.

A lauded composer and world-renowned conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen has a restless innovation that marks him as one of the most important artists in classical music. Salonen is currently the Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Conductor Laureate for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009. The 2014/15 season will find him as the first-ever Creative Chair at the Tonhalle Zurich Orchestra, which has commissioned a new piece for orchestra and chorus from him and will perform nine other Salonen pieces throughout the season. Salonen opened the 2014/15 season with a performance of Berlioz's Requiem with the Philharmonia Orchestra, will tour extensively throughout Europe and Japan with the Philharmonia, and will lead the "City of Light: Paris 1900-1950" festival as the thematic focus of the season. Throughout their relationship, Salonen and the Philharmonia have curated landmark multi-disciplinary projects, such as the award-winning RE-RITE and UNIVERSE OF SOUND installations, which allow members of the public to conduct, play, and step inside the Philharmonia Orchestra with Salonen through audio and video projections of musicians in performance. Salonen also drove the development of a much hailed app for iPad, The Orchestra, which allows the user unprecedented access to the internal workings of eight symphonic works. Salonen's extensive recording career includes a new album of one of Henri Dutilleux's most important works, recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in the presence of the composer, released in 2013 on Deutsche Grammophon on the composer's 97th birthday, with the composer present at the launch. In 2012, Salonen's releases included the first-ever recording of Shostakovich's previously undiscovered opera prologue, Orango, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as Out of Nowhere, featuring Leila Josefowicz and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, a collection of Nyx and Salonen's Violin Concerto, which won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award.

French organist Olivier Latry is one of the most distinguished concert organists in the world today. One of three titular organists at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, he is also Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatory of Music, Organist Emeritus with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in Canada, and maintains a full schedule of concert performances appearing regularly as a soloist at prestigious venues and festivals, and with leading orchestras around the world. Having performed in more than 50 countries on five continents, Latry does not want to specialize in any specific repertoire, but rather wishes to explore all styles of organ music, as well as the art of improvisation. Latry has inaugurated many significant concert hall organs around the world, including Verizon Hall (Philadelphia USA), the Palace of the Arts (Budapest, Hungary), and the Musikverein (Vienna, Austria). In 2014, he performs the inaugural concerts at La Maison Symphonique (Montréal, Canada) and a concert as part of the inaugural concert series at the Royal Festival Hall in London (UK). In addition to concerts and teaching, Latry has made his mark through many recordings on the BNL label featuring music of Bach, Widor's Symphonies 5 and 6, Vierne's Symphonies 2 and 3 and the complete works of Duruflé. With Deutsche Grammophon he has recorded a transcription disc entitled Midnight at Notre-Dame, a disc featuring the organ works of César Franck, and the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen. His most recent recording on the Naïve label is entitled "Trois Siècles d'Orgue Notre-Dame de Paris" which features music composed by past and current organists of Notre-Dame Cathedral.

Complete Program:

JANÁCEK Sinfonietta
Kaija SAARIAHO Maan varjot (Earth's Shadow) (U.S. premiere)
SIBELIUS Lemminkäinen Suite

Upbeat Live pre-concert events take place in Walt Disney Concert Hall's BP Hall one hour before each concert, and are free to all ticket holders. Program annotator Eric Bromberger hosts.

Performances will take place: Friday, October 24, 2014, at 8 PM; Saturday, October 25, 2014, at 8 PM; and Sunday, October 26, 2014 at 2 PM at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles. Subscriptions and single tickets for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's 2014/15 season at Walt Disney Concert Hall are currently available. To purchase, visit LAPhil.com, the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office or any Ticketmaster outlet. To order by phone with credit card, call the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office at 323.850.2000, or Ticketmaster at 800.745.3000. For more information, call 323.850.2000.