Los Angeles Philharmonic
Encyclopedia
The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil, LAP, or LAPO) is an American orchestra
based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall
, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl
from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel
is the current Music Director, and Esa-Pekka Salonen
is Conductor Laureate.
Music critics
have described the orchestra as the most "contemporary minded", "forward thinking", "talked about and innovative", "venturesome and admired" orchestra in America. According to Salonen, "We are interested in the future. We are not trying to re-create the glories of the past, like so many other symphony orchestras."
, a copper baron, arts enthusiast, and part-time violinist. He originally asked Sergei Rachmaninoff
to be the Philharmonic's first music director; however, Rachmaninoff had only recently moved to New York, and he did not wish to move again. Clark then selected Walter Henry Rothwell
, former assistant to Gustav Mahler
, as music director, and hired away several principal musicians from East Coast orchestras and others from the competing and soon-to-be defunct Los Angeles Symphony. The orchestra played its first concert in the same year, eleven days after its first rehearsal. Clark himself would sometimes sit and play with the second violin section.
After Rothwell's death, subsequent Music Directors through the 1920s included Georg Schnéevoigt
and Artur Rodziński
.
became Music Director in 1933, part of the large group of German emigrants fleeing Nazi Germany. He conducted many LA Phil premieres, and introduced Los Angeles audiences to important new works by Igor Stravinsky
and Arnold Schoenberg
. The orchestra responded well to his leadership, but Klemperer had a difficult time adjusting to Southern California, a situation exacerbated by repeated manic-depressive episodes.
Things were further complicated when founder William Andrews Clark died without leaving the orchestra an endowment. The newly formed Southern California Symphony Association was created with the goal to stabilize the orchestra's funding, with the association's president, Harvey Mudd
, stepping up to personally guarantee Klemperer's salary. The Philharmonic's concerts at the Hollywood Bowl
also brought in much needed revenue. With that, the orchestra managed to make it through the worst of the Great Depression
years still intact.
Then, after completing the 1939 summer season at the Hollywood Bowl, Klemperer was visiting Boston and was incorrectly diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the subsequent brain surgery left him partially paralyzed. He went into a depressive state and was institutionalized; when he escaped, The New York Times
ran a cover story declaring him missing, and after being found in New Jersey, a picture of him behind bars was printed in the New York Herald Tribune
. He subsequently lost the post of Music Director, though he would occasionally conduct the Philharmonic after that, even leading some important concerts such as the orchestra's premiere performance of Stravinsky's
Symphony in Three Movements
in 1946.
Sir John Barbirolli
was offered the position of Music Director after his contract with the New York Philharmonic expired in 1942; however, he declined the offer and chose to return to England instead. The following year, Alfred Wallenstein
was chosen by Mudd to lead the orchestra. The former principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic
had been the youngest member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic when it was founded in 1919, and had turned to conducting at the suggestion of Arturo Toscanini
. He had conducted the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl on a number of occasions, and in 1943, took over as Music Director. Among the highlights of Wallenstein's tenure were recordings of concertos with fellow Angelenos, Jascha Heifetz
and Arthur Rubinstein
.
, Dorothy Buffum Chandler
became the de facto leader of the orchestra's board of directors. Besides leading efforts to create a performing arts center for the city that would serve as the Philharmonic's new home, and would eventually lead to the Los Angeles Music Center
, she and others wanted a more prominent conductor to lead the orchestra; after Wallenstein's departure, Chandler led efforts to hire then Concertgebouw Orchestra principal conductor, Eduard van Beinum
as the LAPO music director. The Philharmonic's musicians, management and audience all loved Beinum, but in 1959, he suffered a massive heart attack while on the podium during a rehearsal of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and died.
In 1960, the orchestra, led again by Chandler, signed Georg Solti
to a three-year contract to be music director after he had guest conducted the orchestra in winter concerts downtown, at the Hollywood Bowl
, and in other Southern California locations including CAMA concerts in Santa Barbara. Solti was to officially begin his tenure in 1962, and the Philharmonic had hoped that he would lead the orchestra when it moved into its new home at the then yet-to-be-completed Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
; he even began to appoint musicians to the orchestra. However, Solti abruptly resigned the position in 1961 without officially taking the post after learning that the Philharmonic board of directors failed to consult him before naming then 26 year-old Zubin Mehta
to be assistant conductor of the orchestra. Mehta was subsequently named to replace Solti.
to be Executive Vice President and General Manager. During his tenure, the Philharmonic instituted a number of then-revolutionary ideas, including the creation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and its "Green Umbrella" concerts; both of these adjunct groups were composed of the orchestra's musicians but offered performance series which were separate and distinct from traditional Philharmonic concerts. They were eventually imitated by other orchestras throughout the world. This concept was ahead of its time, and was an outgrowth of Fleischmann's philosophy, most famously laid out in his 16 May 1987 commencement address at the Cleveland Institute of Music
entitled, "The Orchestra is Dead. Long Live the Community of Musicians."
When Zubin Mehta left for the New York Philharmonic
in 1978, Fleischmann convinced Carlo Maria Giulini
to take over as Music Director. Giulini's time with the orchestra was well regarded, however, he resigned the position after his wife became ill, and returned to Italy.
Fleischmann then turned to André Previn
with the hopes that his conducting credentials and time spent at Hollywood Studios would add a local flair and enhance the connection between conductor, orchestra, and city. While Previn's tenure was musically satisfactory, other conductors including Kurt Sanderling
, Simon Rattle
, and Esa-Pekka Salonen
, fared better at the box office. Previn clashed frequently with Fleischmann, most notably when Fleischmann failed to consult him over the decision to name Salonen as "Principal Guest Conductor", a move mirroring the prior Solti/Mehta controversy. Because of Previn's objections, the position and Japan tour offer made to Salonen were withdrawn; however, shortly thereafter in April 1989, Previn resigned, and four months later, Salonen was named Music Director Designate, officially taking the post in October 1992. Salonen's U.S. conducting debut with the orchestra had been in 1984.
Salonen's tenure with the orchestra first began with a residency at the 1992 Salzburg Festival
in concert performances and as the pit orchestra in a production of the opera Saint François d'Assise by Olivier Messiaen
; it was the first time an American orchestra was given that opportunity. Salonen later took the orchestra on many other tours of the United States, Europe, and Asia, and residencies at the Lucerne Festival
in Switzerland, The Proms
in London, in Cologne
for a festival of Salonen's own works, and perhaps most notably, in 1996 at the Théâtre du Châtelet
in Paris for a Stravinsky
festival conducted by Salonen and Pierre Boulez
; it was during this Paris residency that key Philharmonic board members heard the orchestra perform in improved acoustics and were re-invigorated to lead fundraising efforts for the soon-to-be built Walt Disney Concert Hall
.
Under Salonen's leadership, the Philharmonic has become an extremely progressive and well-regarded orchestra. Alex Ross of The New Yorker said this:
serving as the orchestra's first Jazz Chair; in addition, he established a new World Music
series with Tom Schnabel
as programming director Despite some successes, Wijnbergen left the orchestra in 1999 after only one controversy-filled year, and it is unclear whether he resigned or was fired by the Philharmonic's board of directors.
Later that same year, Deborah Borda
, then the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic
, was hired to take over executive management of the orchestra. She began her tenure in January 2000, and was later given the title of President and Chief Executive Officer. After financial problems experienced during Wijnbergen's short tenure, Borda — "a formidable executive who runs the orchestra like a lean company, not like a flabby non-profit" — "put the organization on solid financial footing." She is widely credited (along with Salonen, Frank Gehry
, and Yasuhisa Toyota
) for the orchestra's very successful move to Walt Disney Concert Hall
, and for wholeheartedly supporting and complementing Salonen's artistic vision. One example cited by Alex Ross:
In April 2007, it was announced that Esa-Pekka Salonen
would step down as the LAP's music director at the end of the 2008–2009 season, with Gustavo Dudamel
becoming his successor.On June 9, 2011 Dudamel was presented the Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming by ASCAP.
The orchestra played its first season at Trinity Auditorium at Grand Ave and Ninth Street. In 1920, it moved to Fifth Street and Olive Ave, in a venue that had previously been known as Clune's Auditorium
, but was renamed Philharmonic Auditorium. From 1964 to 2003, the orchestra played its main subscription concerts in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
of the Los Angeles Music Center
. In 2003, a move was made to the new Walt Disney Concert Hall
next door designed by Frank Gehry
. Its current "winter season" runs from October through late May or early June.
Since 1922, the orchestra has played outdoor concerts during the summer at the Hollywood Bowl
, with the official "summer season" running from July through September.
The LA Philharmonic has played at least one concert a year in its sister city, Santa Barbara
, presented by the Community Arts Music Association
(CAMA), along with other regular concerts throughout various Southern California cities such as Costa Mesa as part of the Orange County
Philharmonic Society's series, San Diego, Palm Springs
, among many others. In addition, the orchestra plays a number of free community concerts throughout Los Angeles County.
Georg Solti
accepted the post in 1960, but resigned in 1961 without officially beginning his tenure.
Before Salonen's last concert as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on April 19, 2009, the orchestra announced his appointment as its first ever Conductor Laureate "as acknowledgement of our profound gratitude to him and to signify our continuing connection." In response, Salonen said:
Rattle and Tilson Thomas were named Principal Guest Conductor concurrently under Carlo Maria Giulini
, though Tilson Thomas's tenure ended much earlier. They are the only two conductors to officially hold the title. as such (though as stated above, Esa-Pekka Salonen
was initially offered the position under Previn before having the offer withdrawn).
Beginning in the Summer of 2005, the Philharmonic created the new position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. Leonard Slatkin
was initially given a two-year contract, and in 2007 he was given a one-year extension. In March 2008, Bramwell Tovey
was named to the post for an initial two-year contract beginning Summer of 2008; he subsequently received a one-year extension.
, Bruno Walter
, Leopold Stokowski
, Albert Coates
, Fritz Reiner
, and Erich Leinsdorf
; more recently, others have included Kurt Sanderling
, Pierre Boulez
, Leonard Bernstein
, Charles Dutoit
, Christoph Eschenbach
, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
.
Many composers have conducted the Philharmonic in concerts and/or world premieres of their works, including Igor Stravinsky
, William Kraft
, John Harbison
, Witold Lutosławski, Aaron Copland
, Pierre Boulez
, Steven Stucky
, John Williams
, Jerry Goldsmith
, John Adams, Thomas Adès
, and Esa-Pekka Salonen
.
A number of the Philharmonic's Assistant/Associate Conductors have gone on to have notable careers in their own rights. These include Lawrence Foster
, Calvin E. Simmons
, and William Kraft
under Mehta, Sidney Harth
and Myung-whun Chung
under Giulini, Heiichiro Ohyama
and David Alan Miller
under Previn, and Grant Gershon
, Miguel Harth-Bedoya
, Kristjan Järvi
, and Alexander Mickelthwate
under Salonen.
Kraft and Harbison held the title "Composer-in-Residence" as part of a Meet the Composer
(MTC) sponsorship. Steiger was given the title "Composer-Fellow", serving as an assistant to both Harbison and Stucky.
Stucky was also a MTC "Composer-in-Residence" from 1988–1992, but was kept on as "New Music Advisor" after his official MTC-sponsored tenure ended; in 2000, his title was again changed to "Consulting Composer for New Music." In the end, his 21-year residency with the orchestra was the longest such relationship of any composer with an American orchestra.
Adams has been named the orchestra's "Creative Chair" beginning in Fall 2009.
In 1998, Clayton was given the title "Artistic Director of Jazz" at the Hollywood Bowl
for a three-year term beginning with the 1999 summer season. His band, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
acted as the resident jazz ensemble
Reeves was named the first "Creative Chair for Jazz" in March 2002. Instead of just focusing on summer programming, the new position involved the scheduling of jazz programming and educational workshops year round; as such, she led the development of the subscription jazz series the orchestra offered when it moved into Walt Disney Concert Hall
. In addition, she was the first performer at the 2003 inaugural gala at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Her contract was initially for two years, and was subsequently renewed for an additional two years.
McBride took over the position in 2006 for an initial two-year position that was subsequently renewed for an additional two years through to the start of the 2010 summer season at the Hollywood Bowl. In 2009, the orchestra introduced Hancock as McBride's eventual replacement.
and Leopold Stokowski
for Capitol Records
, and began recording regularly in the 1960s, for London/Decca
, during the tenure of Zubin Mehta as music director. A healthy discography continued to grow with Carlo Maria Giulini
on Deutsche Grammophon and André Previn
on both Philips and Telarc Records. Michael Tilson Thomas
, Leonard Bernstein
, and Sir Simon Rattle
also made several recordings with the orchestra in the 1980s, adding to their rising international profile. In recent years, Esa-Pekka Salonen has led recording sessions for Sony
and Deutsche Grammophon
. A recording of the Concerto for Orchestra
by Béla Bartók
released by Deutsche Grammophon
in 2007 was the first recording by Gustavo Dudamel
conducting the LA Phil.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic performed the music in the pilot film of the television series Battlestar Galactica
, composed by Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson
. The LA Philharmonic also performed the first North American concert for the popular Final Fantasy
franchise game music, Dear Friends: Music From Final Fantasy
by Nobuo Uematsu
. The orchestra has most recently recorded the sound track for the video game: Bioshock 2
as composed by Garry Schyman
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles, California...
is the current Music Director, and Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
is Conductor Laureate.
Music critics
Music journalism
Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism , comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of...
have described the orchestra as the most "contemporary minded", "forward thinking", "talked about and innovative", "venturesome and admired" orchestra in America. According to Salonen, "We are interested in the future. We are not trying to re-create the glories of the past, like so many other symphony orchestras."
1919–1933: Founding the Philharmonic
The orchestra was founded and single-handedly financed in 1919 by William Andrews Clark, Jr.William Andrews Clark, Jr.
William Andrews Clark, Jr. , son of U.S. senator and billionaire William Andrews Clark, was the founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1919. Clark also had a hand in the construction of the Hollywood Bowl. Clark was an avid collector of rare books, especially fine prints...
, a copper baron, arts enthusiast, and part-time violinist. He originally asked Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
to be the Philharmonic's first music director; however, Rachmaninoff had only recently moved to New York, and he did not wish to move again. Clark then selected Walter Henry Rothwell
Walter Henry Rothwell
Walter Henry Rothwell was an English conductor. He was born in London to an English father and an Austrian mother. After initial training from his mother, who had been a piano pupil of Friedrich Wieck, he entered the Royal Academy of Music in Vienna at the age of nine...
, former assistant to Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, as music director, and hired away several principal musicians from East Coast orchestras and others from the competing and soon-to-be defunct Los Angeles Symphony. The orchestra played its first concert in the same year, eleven days after its first rehearsal. Clark himself would sometimes sit and play with the second violin section.
After Rothwell's death, subsequent Music Directors through the 1920s included Georg Schnéevoigt
Georg Schnéevoigt
Georg Schnéevoigt was a Finnish conductor and cellist, born in Vyborg, Grand Duchy of Finland, which is now in Russia....
and Artur Rodziński
Artur Rodzinski
Artur Rodziński was a Polish conductor of opera and symphonic music. He is especially noted for his tenures as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic in the 1930s and 1940s.-Biography:...
.
1933–1950: Harvey Mudd rescues orchestra
Otto KlempererOtto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...
became Music Director in 1933, part of the large group of German emigrants fleeing Nazi Germany. He conducted many LA Phil premieres, and introduced Los Angeles audiences to important new works by Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
. The orchestra responded well to his leadership, but Klemperer had a difficult time adjusting to Southern California, a situation exacerbated by repeated manic-depressive episodes.
Harvey Seeley Mudd
Harvey Seeley Mudd was a mining engineer and founder, investor, and president of Cyprus Mines Corporation, a Los Angeles-based international enterprise that operated copper mines on the island of Cyprus. The science and engineering college Harvey Mudd College was named in memory of him...
, stepping up to personally guarantee Klemperer's salary. The Philharmonic's concerts at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
also brought in much needed revenue. With that, the orchestra managed to make it through the worst of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
years still intact.
Then, after completing the 1939 summer season at the Hollywood Bowl, Klemperer was visiting Boston and was incorrectly diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the subsequent brain surgery left him partially paralyzed. He went into a depressive state and was institutionalized; when he escaped, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
ran a cover story declaring him missing, and after being found in New Jersey, a picture of him behind bars was printed in the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
. He subsequently lost the post of Music Director, though he would occasionally conduct the Philharmonic after that, even leading some important concerts such as the orchestra's premiere performance of Stravinsky's
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
Symphony in Three Movements
Symphony in Three Movements
Symphony in Three Movements is a ballet made by New York City Ballet co-founder and balletmaster George Balanchine for opening night of its Stravinsky Festival to the composers's eponymous symphony from 1942–45, and lighting by Mark Stanley...
in 1946.
Sir John Barbirolli
John Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...
was offered the position of Music Director after his contract with the New York Philharmonic expired in 1942; however, he declined the offer and chose to return to England instead. The following year, Alfred Wallenstein
Alfred Wallenstein
Alfred Wallenstein was an American cellist and conductor, born in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 17, he joined the San Francisco Symphony as a cellist. He subsequently played cello with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra before becoming principal cello of the New...
was chosen by Mudd to lead the orchestra. The former principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
had been the youngest member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic when it was founded in 1919, and had turned to conducting at the suggestion of Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
. He had conducted the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl on a number of occasions, and in 1943, took over as Music Director. Among the highlights of Wallenstein's tenure were recordings of concertos with fellow Angelenos, Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...
and Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers...
.
1951–1968: Dorothy Buffum Chandler's influence
By the mid-1950s, department store heiress and wife of the publisher of the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Dorothy Buffum Chandler
Dorothy Buffum Chandler
Dorothy Buffum Chandler was a Los Angeles cultural leader.-Personal life:Born Dorothy Mae Buffum in 1901 in La Fayette, Illinois, she moved to Long Beach, California in 1904 with her family...
became the de facto leader of the orchestra's board of directors. Besides leading efforts to create a performing arts center for the city that would serve as the Philharmonic's new home, and would eventually lead to the Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall...
, she and others wanted a more prominent conductor to lead the orchestra; after Wallenstein's departure, Chandler led efforts to hire then Concertgebouw Orchestra principal conductor, Eduard van Beinum
Eduard van Beinum
Eduard van Beinum was a Dutch conductor.-Biography:Beinum was born in Arnhem, Netherlands, where he received his first violin and piano lessons at an early age. He joined the Arnhem Orchestra as a violinist in 1918. His grandfather was conductor of a military band...
as the LAPO music director. The Philharmonic's musicians, management and audience all loved Beinum, but in 1959, he suffered a massive heart attack while on the podium during a rehearsal of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and died.
In 1960, the orchestra, led again by Chandler, signed Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
to a three-year contract to be music director after he had guest conducted the orchestra in winter concerts downtown, at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
, and in other Southern California locations including CAMA concerts in Santa Barbara. Solti was to officially begin his tenure in 1962, and the Philharmonic had hoped that he would lead the orchestra when it moved into its new home at the then yet-to-be-completed Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center . The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.The Pavilion has 3,197 seats spread over four tiers, with chandeliers, wide curving stairways and rich décor...
; he even began to appoint musicians to the orchestra. However, Solti abruptly resigned the position in 1961 without officially taking the post after learning that the Philharmonic board of directors failed to consult him before naming then 26 year-old Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...
to be assistant conductor of the orchestra. Mehta was subsequently named to replace Solti.
1969–1997: Ernest Fleischmann's tenure
In 1969, the orchestra hired Ernest FleischmannErnest Fleischmann
Ernest Martin Fleischmann was a German-born American impresario who served for 30 years as executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which he upgraded to become a top-ranked orchestra...
to be Executive Vice President and General Manager. During his tenure, the Philharmonic instituted a number of then-revolutionary ideas, including the creation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Music Society and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and its "Green Umbrella" concerts; both of these adjunct groups were composed of the orchestra's musicians but offered performance series which were separate and distinct from traditional Philharmonic concerts. They were eventually imitated by other orchestras throughout the world. This concept was ahead of its time, and was an outgrowth of Fleischmann's philosophy, most famously laid out in his 16 May 1987 commencement address at the Cleveland Institute of Music
Cleveland Institute of Music
The Cleveland Institute of Music is an independent music conservatory located in the University Circle district of Cleveland, Ohio, United States and is overseen by president Joel Smirnoff and Adrian Daly, dean....
entitled, "The Orchestra is Dead. Long Live the Community of Musicians."
When Zubin Mehta left for the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
in 1978, Fleischmann convinced Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.-Biography:Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy, to a father born in Lombardy and a mother born in Naples; but he was raised in Bolzano, which at the time of his birth was part of Austria...
to take over as Music Director. Giulini's time with the orchestra was well regarded, however, he resigned the position after his wife became ill, and returned to Italy.
Fleischmann then turned to André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
with the hopes that his conducting credentials and time spent at Hollywood Studios would add a local flair and enhance the connection between conductor, orchestra, and city. While Previn's tenure was musically satisfactory, other conductors including Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling, CBE was a German conductor.-Biography:Kurt Sanderling was born in Arys, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire to Jewish parents. After early work at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he left for the Soviet Union in 1936, where he worked with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra...
, Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
, and Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
, fared better at the box office. Previn clashed frequently with Fleischmann, most notably when Fleischmann failed to consult him over the decision to name Salonen as "Principal Guest Conductor", a move mirroring the prior Solti/Mehta controversy. Because of Previn's objections, the position and Japan tour offer made to Salonen were withdrawn; however, shortly thereafter in April 1989, Previn resigned, and four months later, Salonen was named Music Director Designate, officially taking the post in October 1992. Salonen's U.S. conducting debut with the orchestra had been in 1984.
Salonen's tenure with the orchestra first began with a residency at the 1992 Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
in concert performances and as the pit orchestra in a production of the opera Saint François d'Assise by Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
; it was the first time an American orchestra was given that opportunity. Salonen later took the orchestra on many other tours of the United States, Europe, and Asia, and residencies at the Lucerne Festival
Lucerne Festival
- History :The festival was founded in 1938 with a series of concerts in the gardens of Wagner's villa conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists for the concert...
in Switzerland, The Proms
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
in London, in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
for a festival of Salonen's own works, and perhaps most notably, in 1996 at the Théâtre du Châtelet
Théâtre du Châtelet
The Théâtre du Châtelet is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.One of two theatres built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and...
in Paris for a Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
festival conducted by Salonen and Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
; it was during this Paris residency that key Philharmonic board members heard the orchestra perform in improved acoustics and were re-invigorated to lead fundraising efforts for the soon-to-be built Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
.
Under Salonen's leadership, the Philharmonic has become an extremely progressive and well-regarded orchestra. Alex Ross of The New Yorker said this:
The Salonen era in L.A. may mark a turning point in the recent history of classical music in America. It is a story not of an individual magically imprinting his personality on an institution—what Salonen has called the "empty hype" of conductor worship—but of an individual and an institution bringing out unforeseen capabilities in each other, and thereby proving how much life remains in the orchestra itself, at once the most conservative and the most powerful of musical organisms.
... no American orchestra matches the L.A. Philharmonic in its ability to assimilate a huge range of music on a moment's notice. [Thomas] AdèsThomas AdèsThomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
, who first conducted his own music in L.A. [in 2005] and has become an annual visitor, told me, "They always seem to begin by finding exactly the right playing style for each piece of music—the kind of sound, the kind of phrasing, breathing, attacks, colors, the indefinable whole. That shouldn't be unusual, but it is." [John] Adams calls the Philharmonic "the most Amurrican [sic] of orchestras. They don't hold back and they don't put on airs. If you met them in twos or threes, you'd have no idea they were playing in an orchestra, that they were classical-music people."
1998–present
When Fleischmann decided to retire in 1998 after 28-years at the helm, the orchestra named Willem Wijnbergen as its new Executive Director. Wijnbergen, a Dutch pianist and arts administrator, was the managing director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. Initially, his appointment was hailed as a major coup for the orchestra. One of his most important decisions was to modify Hollywood Bowl programing: he increased the number of jazz concerts and appointed John ClaytonJohn Clayton (bassist)
John Travis Clayton Jr. is an American jazz and classical double bassist.-Music:John Travis Clayton Jr. began seriously undertaking the study of double bass at age 16, studying with bass legend Ray Brown...
serving as the orchestra's first Jazz Chair; in addition, he established a new World Music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
series with Tom Schnabel
Tom Schnabel
Thomas Daniel Schnabel is program director of world music at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall and a music consultant and DJ working out of Los Angeles. He was former music director of music station KCRW....
as programming director Despite some successes, Wijnbergen left the orchestra in 1999 after only one controversy-filled year, and it is unclear whether he resigned or was fired by the Philharmonic's board of directors.
Later that same year, Deborah Borda
Deborah Borda
Deborah Borda is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association as Executive Director after serving over eight seasons in the same capacity at the New York Philharmonic....
, then the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, was hired to take over executive management of the orchestra. She began her tenure in January 2000, and was later given the title of President and Chief Executive Officer. After financial problems experienced during Wijnbergen's short tenure, Borda — "a formidable executive who runs the orchestra like a lean company, not like a flabby non-profit" — "put the organization on solid financial footing." She is widely credited (along with Salonen, Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
, and Yasuhisa Toyota
Yasuhisa Toyota
is an acoustician who has been chief acoustician for over 50 projects worldwide, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Bard College Performing Arts Center in New York, and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. He is the company director and U.S...
) for the orchestra's very successful move to Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
, and for wholeheartedly supporting and complementing Salonen's artistic vision. One example cited by Alex Ross:
Perhaps Borda's boldest notion is to give visiting composers such as [John] Adams and Thomas AdèsThomas AdèsThomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
the same royal treatment that is extended to the likes of Yo-Yo MaYo-Yo MaYo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
and Joshua BellJoshua BellJoshua David Bell is an American Grammy Award-winning violinist.-Childhood:Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, United States, the son of a psychologist and a therapist. Bell's father is the late Alan P...
; Borda talks about "hero composers." A recent performance of Adams's monumental California symphony "Naïve and Sentimental Music" in the orchestra's Casual Fridays series ... drew a nearly full house. Borda's big-guns approach has invigorated the orchestra's long-running new-music series, called Green Umbrella, which Fleischmann established in 1982. In the early days, it drew modest audiences, but in recent years attendance has risen to the point where as many as sixteen hundred people show up for a concert that in other cities might draw thirty or forty. The Australian composer Brett DeanBrett DeanBrett Dean is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.-Career:Dean studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he received a Medal of Excellence. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance...
recently walked onstage for a Green Umbrella concert and did a double take, saying that it was the largest new-music audience he'd ever seen.
In April 2007, it was announced that Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
would step down as the LAP's music director at the end of the 2008–2009 season, with Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles, California...
becoming his successor.On June 9, 2011 Dudamel was presented the Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming by ASCAP.
Performance venues
Hazard's Pavilion
Hazard's Pavilion was a large auditorium in Los Angeles, California, located at the intersection of Fifth and Olive Streets. Showman George "Roundhouse" Lehman had planned to construct a large theatre center on the land he purchased at this location, but he went broke and the property was sold to...
, but was renamed Philharmonic Auditorium. From 1964 to 2003, the orchestra played its main subscription concerts in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center . The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.The Pavilion has 3,197 seats spread over four tiers, with chandeliers, wide curving stairways and rich décor...
of the Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall...
. In 2003, a move was made to the new Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
next door designed by Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
. Its current "winter season" runs from October through late May or early June.
Since 1922, the orchestra has played outdoor concerts during the summer at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
, with the official "summer season" running from July through September.
The LA Philharmonic has played at least one concert a year in its sister city, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, presented by the Community Arts Music Association
Community Arts Music Association
Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara is the oldest arts organization in Santa Barbara, California, USA.CAMA began in the fall of 1919 when a group of community-minded Santa Barbarans came together in the years following World War I to create the Civic Music Committee...
(CAMA), along with other regular concerts throughout various Southern California cities such as Costa Mesa as part of the Orange County
Orange County, California
Orange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
Philharmonic Society's series, San Diego, Palm Springs
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs is a desert city in Riverside County, California, within the Coachella Valley. It is located approximately 37 miles east of San Bernardino, 111 miles east of Los Angeles and 136 miles northeast of San Diego...
, among many others. In addition, the orchestra plays a number of free community concerts throughout Los Angeles County.
Music Directors
|
Zubin Mehta Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:... Carlo Maria Giulini Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.-Biography:Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy, to a father born in Lombardy and a mother born in Naples; but he was raised in Bolzano, which at the time of his birth was part of Austria... André Previn André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in... Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:... Gustavo Dudamel Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles, California... |
Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
accepted the post in 1960, but resigned in 1961 without officially beginning his tenure.
Conductor Laureate
- 2009–present Esa-Pekka SalonenEsa-Pekka SalonenEsa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
Before Salonen's last concert as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on April 19, 2009, the orchestra announced his appointment as its first ever Conductor Laureate "as acknowledgement of our profound gratitude to him and to signify our continuing connection." In response, Salonen said:
"When the Board asked me if I would accept the position of Conductor Laureate I was overwhelmed. This organization has been at the very center of my musical life for 17 years. I am very proud and honored that they would even consider me for such a prestigious title and it gives me great pleasure to accept. The Los Angeles Philharmonic will always play an important role in my life and this is a symbol of our continuing relationship."
Principal Guest Conductors
|
Rattle and Tilson Thomas were named Principal Guest Conductor concurrently under Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.-Biography:Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy, to a father born in Lombardy and a mother born in Naples; but he was raised in Bolzano, which at the time of his birth was part of Austria...
, though Tilson Thomas's tenure ended much earlier. They are the only two conductors to officially hold the title. as such (though as stated above, Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
was initially offered the position under Previn before having the offer withdrawn).
Beginning in the Summer of 2005, the Philharmonic created the new position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Slatkin
Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...
was initially given a two-year contract, and in 2007 he was given a one-year extension. In March 2008, Bramwell Tovey
Bramwell Tovey
Bramwell Tovey, OM is an English-born Grammy Award winning conductor and composer. His musical roots are in The Salvation Army. He was educated at Ilford County High School, the Royal Academy of Music and the University of London. His formal music education was as a pianist and composer...
was named to the post for an initial two-year contract beginning Summer of 2008; he subsequently received a one-year extension.
Other notable conductors
Other conductors with whom the orchestra has had close ties include Sir John BarbirolliJohn Barbirolli
Sir John Barbirolli, CH was an English conductor and cellist. Born in London, of Italian and French parentage, he grew up in a family of professional musicians. His father and grandfather were violinists...
, Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
, Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
, Albert Coates
Albert Coates (musician)
Albert Coates was an English conductor and composer. Born in Saint Petersburg where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses...
, Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
, and Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
; more recently, others have included Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling
Kurt Sanderling, CBE was a German conductor.-Biography:Kurt Sanderling was born in Arys, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire to Jewish parents. After early work at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he left for the Soviet Union in 1936, where he worked with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra...
, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, Charles Dutoit
Charles Dutoit
Charles Édouard Dutoit, is a Swiss conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of French and Russian 20th century music...
, Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach
Christoph Eschenbach , born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.-Early...
, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos is a Spanish conductor and composer.Frühbeck studied violin, piano, and composition at the conservatories of Bilbao and Madrid...
.
Many composers have conducted the Philharmonic in concerts and/or world premieres of their works, including Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, William Kraft
William Kraft
William Kraft is a composer, conductor, teacher, and percussionist.-Undergrad and Graduate School Years :...
, John Harbison
John Harbison
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...
, Witold Lutosławski, Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
, Steven Stucky
Steven Stucky
Steven Stucky is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.Stucky was born in Hutchinson, Kansas. At age 9, he moved with his family to Abilene, Texas, where, as a teenager, he studied music in the public schools and, privately, viola with Herbert Preston, conducting with Leo Scheer, and...
, John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
, Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
, John Adams, Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...
, and Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
.
A number of the Philharmonic's Assistant/Associate Conductors have gone on to have notable careers in their own rights. These include Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster is an American conductor.He became the conductor of the San Francisco Ballet at the age of 18, and served as Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta...
, Calvin E. Simmons
Calvin E. Simmons
Calvin Eugene Simmons was an American symphony orchestra conductor. He was the first African-American conductor of a major orchestra.-Biography:...
, and William Kraft
William Kraft
William Kraft is a composer, conductor, teacher, and percussionist.-Undergrad and Graduate School Years :...
under Mehta, Sidney Harth
Sidney Harth
Sidney Harth was an American violinist and conductor.In 1957 Harth became the first American to receive the Laureate Prize in the Wieniawski Violin Competition held in Poland...
and Myung-whun Chung
Myung-Whun Chung
Myung-whun Chung is a South Korean pianist and conductor.His sisters, violinist Kyung-wha Chung, and cellist Myung-wha Chung, and he at one time performed together as the Chung Trio. He was a joined second-prize winner in the 1974 International Tchaikovsky Competition. Chung studied conducting at...
under Giulini, Heiichiro Ohyama
Heiichiro Ohyama
is a Japanese conductor and violist.He has a long-established reputation as a remarkable conductor and one of the nation’s most renowned violists. In addition to his post as Music Director and Conductor of the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, he is also the Principal Chief Conductor of Kyushu...
and David Alan Miller
David Alan Miller
David Alan Miller is a prominent American classical music symphony orchestra conductor, and for the past several years, the conductor of the Albany Symphony Orchestra.-Early career and education:...
under Previn, and Grant Gershon
Grant Gershon
Grant Gershon is an American conductor and pianist. He is Music Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Associate Conductor/Chorus Master of the Los Angeles Opera, member of the Board of Councillors for the USC Thornton School of Music and a member of the Chorus America Board of...
, Miguel Harth-Bedoya
Miguel Harth-Bedoya
Miguel Harth-Bedoya is a Peruvian conductor, currently Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra , a position he has held since 2000.He was born in Lima, Peru...
, Kristjan Järvi
Kristjan Järvi
Kristjan Järvi is an Estonian-American conductor. Järvi is the younger son of Neeme Järvi, and the brother of conductor Paavo Järvi and flutist Maarika Järvi....
, and Alexander Mickelthwate
Alexander Mickelthwate
Alexander Mickelthwate is a German-born conductor. He is one of three sons in his family, and studied piano and cello as a youth. He studied piano performance and conducting in Karlsruhe, Germany, and participated in international conducting courses in Austria and France...
under Salonen.
Composers
- 1981–1985: William KraftWilliam KraftWilliam Kraft is a composer, conductor, teacher, and percussionist.-Undergrad and Graduate School Years :...
- 1985–1988: John HarbisonJohn HarbisonJohn Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...
- 1987–1989: Rand SteigerRand SteigerRand Steiger is an American composer, conductor, and pedagogue.Steiger became a faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts in 1982, remaining there until 1987...
- 1988–2009: Steven StuckySteven StuckySteven Stucky is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.Stucky was born in Hutchinson, Kansas. At age 9, he moved with his family to Abilene, Texas, where, as a teenager, he studied music in the public schools and, privately, viola with Herbert Preston, conducting with Leo Scheer, and...
- 2009–present: John Adams
Kraft and Harbison held the title "Composer-in-Residence" as part of a Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer is an American organization founded in 1974 by the composer John Duffy as a project of the New York State Council on the Arts. It seeks to assist composers in making a living through writing music by sponsoring commissioning, residency, education, and audience interaction...
(MTC) sponsorship. Steiger was given the title "Composer-Fellow", serving as an assistant to both Harbison and Stucky.
Stucky was also a MTC "Composer-in-Residence" from 1988–1992, but was kept on as "New Music Advisor" after his official MTC-sponsored tenure ended; in 2000, his title was again changed to "Consulting Composer for New Music." In the end, his 21-year residency with the orchestra was the longest such relationship of any composer with an American orchestra.
Adams has been named the orchestra's "Creative Chair" beginning in Fall 2009.
Jazz chairs
- 1998–2001: John ClaytonJohn Clayton (bassist)John Travis Clayton Jr. is an American jazz and classical double bassist.-Music:John Travis Clayton Jr. began seriously undertaking the study of double bass at age 16, studying with bass legend Ray Brown...
- 2002–2006: Dianne ReevesDianne ReevesDianne Reeves is an American jazz singer. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado.-Early life:Reeves was born in Detroit, Michigan to a very musical family. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was also a singer. Her mother, Vada Swanson, played trumpet. A cousin, George Duke, is a...
- 2006–2010: Christian McBrideChristian McBrideChristian McBride is an American jazz bassist. His father, Lee Smith, and his great uncle, Howard Cooper, are well known Philadelphia bassists who served as McBride's early mentors...
- 2010– : Herbie HancockHerbie HancockHerbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
In 1998, Clayton was given the title "Artistic Director of Jazz" at the Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
for a three-year term beginning with the 1999 summer season. His band, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra
John Clayton, Jeff Hamilton, and Jeff Clayton brought together a group of Los Angeles-based musicians in 1985 and formed the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra . Reviewers and fans loved the big band, and the orchestra's first recording, Groove Shop , earned a Grammy Award nomination. CD Review named...
acted as the resident jazz ensemble
Reeves was named the first "Creative Chair for Jazz" in March 2002. Instead of just focusing on summer programming, the new position involved the scheduling of jazz programming and educational workshops year round; as such, she led the development of the subscription jazz series the orchestra offered when it moved into Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
. In addition, she was the first performer at the 2003 inaugural gala at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Her contract was initially for two years, and was subsequently renewed for an additional two years.
McBride took over the position in 2006 for an initial two-year position that was subsequently renewed for an additional two years through to the start of the 2010 summer season at the Hollywood Bowl. In 2009, the orchestra introduced Hancock as McBride's eventual replacement.
Recordings
The orchestra occasionally made 78-rpm recordings and LPs in the early years with Alfred WallensteinAlfred Wallenstein
Alfred Wallenstein was an American cellist and conductor, born in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 17, he joined the San Francisco Symphony as a cellist. He subsequently played cello with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra before becoming principal cello of the New...
and Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...
for Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, and began recording regularly in the 1960s, for London/Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, during the tenure of Zubin Mehta as music director. A healthy discography continued to grow with Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.-Biography:Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy, to a father born in Lombardy and a mother born in Naples; but he was raised in Bolzano, which at the time of his birth was part of Austria...
on Deutsche Grammophon and André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
on both Philips and Telarc Records. Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, and Sir Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....
also made several recordings with the orchestra in the 1980s, adding to their rising international profile. In recent years, Esa-Pekka Salonen has led recording sessions for Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
and Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
. A recording of the Concerto for Orchestra
Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók)
Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 123, is a five-movement musical work for orchestra composed by Béla Bartók in 1943. It is one of his best-known, most popular and most accessible works. The score is inscribed "15 August – 8 October 1943", and it premiered on December 1, 1944 in Boston Symphony...
by Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
released by Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
in 2007 was the first recording by Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles, California...
conducting the LA Phil.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic performed the music in the pilot film of the television series Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
, composed by Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson
Glen A. Larson
Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...
. The LA Philharmonic also performed the first North American concert for the popular Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy
is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...
franchise game music, Dear Friends: Music From Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy concerts
Final Fantasy is a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and owned by Square Enix that includes video games, motion pictures, and other merchandise. The series began in 1987 as an eponymous console role-playing game developed by Square, spawning a video game series that became the central...
by Nobuo Uematsu
Nobuo Uematsu
is a Japanese video game composer, best known for scoring the majority of titles in the Final Fantasy series. He is considered as one of the most famous and respected composers in the video game community...
. The orchestra has most recently recorded the sound track for the video game: Bioshock 2
BioShock 2
BioShock 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Marin for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The sequel to the 2007 video game BioShock, it was released worldwide on February 9, 2010....
as composed by Garry Schyman
Garry Schyman
Garry Schyman is an American film, television, and video game music composer. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in music composition in 1978, and began work in the television industry, writing music for such television series as Magnum, P.I. and The A-Team. By...
See also
- Gustavo DudamelGustavo DudamelGustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles, California...
- Esa-Pekka SalonenEsa-Pekka SalonenEsa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...
- Walt Disney Concert HallWalt Disney Concert HallThe Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...
- Los Angeles Philharmonic InstituteLos Angeles Philharmonic InstituteThe Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute was a summer training program held in Los Angeles, California for conservatory aged orchestral instrumentalists and conductors...
- Los Angeles Philharmonic discographyLos Angeles Philharmonic discographyThis is a complete list of recordings by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, shown alphabetically by conductor, and then by recording label.-DG Concerts — recorded live at Walt Disney Concert Hall:...
- Hollywood BowlHollywood BowlThe Hollywood Bowl is a modern amphitheater in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, United States that is used primarily for music performances...
- Hollywood Bowl OrchestraHollywood Bowl OrchestraThe Hollywood Bowl Orchestra is a symphony orchestra which is managed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and plays the vast majority of its performances at the Hollywood Bowl....