Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Celebrates John Adams 70th Birthday With THE WOUND-DRESSER, 2/25-26

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) takes part in the world-wide celebration honoring Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams on the occasion of his 70th birthday when guest conductor Carlos Kalmar leads a performance of Adams' The Wound-Dresser on Saturday, February 25, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, February 26, 2017, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. The moving work, a tribute to the tolls of war based on war poems penned by Walt Whitman during the Civil War, features Brian Mulligan, applauded for his "commanding and clear-voiced" baritone (San Francisco Examiner). Kalmar, Music Director of the Oregon Symphony, Chief Conductor/Artistic Director of the Spanish Radio/Television Orchestra and Choir in Madrid, and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, also conducts Lutos?awski's Musique funèbre, Haydn's Symphony No. 98, and Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers Overture.

Adams, a creative thinker and one of America's most admired composers, occupies a unique position in the world of classical music. His works, both operatic and symphonic, stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. Over the past 25 years, his music has played a decisive role in turning the tide of contemporary musical aesthetics away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language, entirely characteristic of his New World surroundings. Hallelujah Junction, John Adams' autobiography, was named by the New York Times as one of the "most notable books of 2008." The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer is a 400-page summary of writings about Adams and his music, and the first in-depth anthology of texts dealing with more than 30 years of the composer's creative life. Adams has received countless awards and honorary degrees, including the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors Award and an induction into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.

Kalmar previously served as music director for the Hamburg Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Vienna's Tonnkunsterorchester and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau, Germany. In 2011, he made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, earning praise from critics in The New York Times, The New Yorker and Musical America. A recording of the concert was nominated for a Grammy. Recently, Kalmar has appeared with the Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, Vancouver, Lahti, Minnesota and City of Birmingham symphony orchestras; the Berlin, Frankfurt and Vienna radio symphony orchestras; the National Arts Centre; the Rotterdam and Helsinki philharmonic orchestras; the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg; and the Czech Philharmonic. His Grammy-nominated album Music for a Time of War with the Oregon Symphony was followed by This England, a recording of Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony, Elgar's Cockaigne Overture and Britten's Four Sea Interludes. Kalmar was born in Uruguay to Austrian parents but moved back to Austria at the age of 15 to study conducting with Karl Osterreicher at the Vienna Academy of Music.

Mulligan, hailed by The New York Times for "a voice that is rich, secure, and really, really big" and by Opera News for having "a wonderful, rich voice and a fine stage presence," frequently appears with the world's leading orchestras and opera companies. In the 2016-17 season, he makes his debut at the Vienna Staatsoper as Captain Balstrode in Peter Grimes, with returns to Opernhaus Zürich for a signature role of Valentin in Faust and Oper Frankfurt for his role debut of Golaud in Pelléas and Mélisande. On the symphonic front, Mulligan returns to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony, conducted by Robert Spano.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), proclaimed "America's finest chamber orchestra" by Public Radio International, has established itself among the world's top musical ensembles. Since 1997, LACO has performed under the baton of acclaimed conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane, hailed by critics as "visionary" and a conductor with "effortless musicality and extraordinary communicative gifts." Under Kahane's leadership, the Orchestra maintains its status as a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and a champion of contemporary composers. Steinway is the official piano of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Tickets, starting at $27, are on sale now and may be purchased online at laco.org or by calling LACO at 213 622 7001 x 1. Discounted tickets are also available by phone for seniors 65 years of age and older and groups of 12 or more. College students may purchase student rush tickets ($8), based on availability, at the box office the day of the concert. Also available for college students is the $30 "Campus to Concert Hall All Access Pass" - good for all eight of LACO's Orchestral concerts, five Baroque Conversations and three Westside Connections series concerts.

Need more Los Angeles Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Spring season, discounts & more...