Los Angeles Philharmonic Has Announced Their 020/21 Walt Disney Concert Hall Season

Los Angeles Philharmonic Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and David C. Bohnett Chief Executive Officer Chair Chad Smith today announced the 2020/21 Walt Disney Concert Hall season featuring three trailblazing new projects: Pan-American Music Initiative and America: The Stories We Tell led by Gustavo Dudamel and Seoul Festival curated by Unsuk Chin; the premieres of 27 LA Phil commissions; the revival of LA Phil productions including the landmark Tristan Project collaboration of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Sellars and Bill Viola; and performances by world-renowned guest artists including Yuja Wang, Hélène Grimaud, Lang Lang, Itzhak Perlman, Yefim Bronfman, Leila Josefowicz, Katia and Marielle Labèque and Barbara Hannigan.

Under the leadership of Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, the LA Phil launches the Pan-American Music Initiative, a five-year celebration of the vision and creativity of artists from across the Americas. Over the life of the project, Dudamel and the LA Phil will invest in 30 commissions, recording projects, residencies and partnerships with Pan-American cultural institutions, and original collaborations with Pan-American artists across all of the LA Phil's venues: Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hollywood Bowl and The Ford. Each season will be shaped by an artist-curator, and the first year will be guided by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. In the 2020/21 season, programs feature iconic works by Revueltas and Ginastera, including the latter's Estancia ballet with choreography by Brazilian dance troupe Grupo Corpo in their first collaboration with orchestra, as well as new music by Erika Vega, Alejandro Cardona and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez in a Green Umbrella concert conducted by Lina Gonzalez-Granados.

America: The Stories We Tell is a year-long exploration of the ways in which narrative shapes our nation - from well-worn myths to the lesser-known tales. Gustavo Dudamel opens the focus with a program featuring a LA Phil-commissioned world premiere from Puerto Rican-born multi-instrumentalist and composer Angélica Negrón. The focus ends with a performance of Julia Bullock's History's Persistent Voice, which highlights the words, work, and experiences of Black American artists. The voices of those enslaved through the 1860s are placed alongside those who lived through years of sharecropping and Jim Crow, as well as currently incarcerated individuals. This mixed-media concert features all-new commissioned music by an esteemed roster of American women of color, including Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Loggins-Hull, Tania León, Jessie Montgomery, Camille Norment, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Pamela Z. Other performances include John Adams' Girls of the Golden West, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess paired with works by Florence Price and William Grant Still, Sousa marches and responses to them by contemporary composers and a season-long exploration of the music of Pauline Oliveros curated by Claire Chase.

Seoul Festival, curated by acclaimed composer Unsuk Chin, is an in-depth look at the South Korean capital's flourishing contemporary scene that brings Korean musicians, conductors and composers to Los Angeles, which has the largest Korean population in the United States. This week-long festival features multiple world and U.S. premieres, showcases leading Korean performers, and includes lectures and panel discussions offering additional insight into the concert programs and the cultural context from which they emerged.

Gustavo Dudamel said, "In these divided times, it has never been more important for us to remember all that unites us. This season, we look at America in its sprawling, wondrous complexity. We explore the very nature of American identity and how these countless musical stories and ideas can all come together in this magical city of ours. We seek to build musical bridges, exploring how these bridges connect us across different communities, cultures and genres. Through our special focus on Korea, a rich culture embedded deeply into our local community, we pay tribute and enrich our understanding of who we are as a people. I look forward to sharing this wonderful adventure with you, as these extraordinary artists come together to remind us of all that unifies us and all that is best in us."

Chad Smith added, "Gustavo has been with us for more than a decade now, and in that time, he has widened our embrace of our Los Angeles community and of the world. In the 20/21 season, we welcome new voices and new perspectives from Latin America, East Asia, and our own backyard, while inviting new audiences to experience the wonder of Mahler, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff. Gustavo's artistic vision and immense talent combined with our orchestra's incredible openness and skill create a space in the concert hall where, for two to three hours at a time, borders dissolve, and everyone is invited."

Throughout the 2020/21 season, Gustavo Dudamel conducts 16 wide-ranging programs, including Mahler's Symphonies 5 and 6, Schoenberg's Transfigured Night, and John Adams' Nixon in China. He also performs a complete cycle of the Rachmaninoff piano concertos with Yuja Wang and a new LA Phil-commissioned piano concerto by Daníel Bjarnason, with Víkingur Ólafsson, and the world premiere of Andrew Norman's Violin Concerto with soloist Leila Josefowicz. As part of his new Pan-American Music Initiative, he leads the complete score of Ginastera's Estancia, accompanying a new full-length ballet by Brazil's Grupo Corpo. Surrounding Holy Week, Dudamel leads the orchestra in programs of sacred music by Pergolesi and Verdi and the U.S. premiere of Thomas Adès' LA Phil-commissioned visions of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise, inspired by Dante.

Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the orchestra in the LA Phil-commissioned U.S. premiere of Anders Hillborg's Sound Atlas and the Tristan Project. Principal Guest Conductor Susanna Mälkki returns with concerts that include Enno Poppe's Fett (the U.S. premiere of an LA Phil commission), Olga Neuwirth's Remnants of Songs...an Amphigory (U.S. premiere) with Principal Violist Teng Li, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, and Sibelius' Violin Concerto in its original version, with soloist Isabelle Faust. Associate Conductor Paolo Bortolameolli returns with performances of works by Brahms and Bartók, plus Beethoven with piano soloist Yefim Bronfman.

During the 2020/21 season, the LA Phil tours, opening New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall season in October, the orchestra's first appearances there in 30 years. The orchestra will present four concerts, including the Hall's gala opening of its new season with soloist Lang Lang. The LA Phil continues as the International Orchestral Partner for London's Barbican Centre, performing exclusively at the Barbican in London and making it the orchestra's London home in a partnership that began in 2010. There will be four performances in May as part of the orchestra's annual residency, which will also combine creative learning programs, collaborations and partnerships.

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