Gustavo Dudamel, left, will pay tribute to Frank Gehry at the 20th anniversary of the Walt Disney … [+]
The upcoming 20th anniversary of the Walt Disney Concert Hall is bound to be a bittersweet celebration.
Gustavo Dudamel, the popular and charismatic music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, announced last February that he is leaving L.A. to become music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. Then in May, Chad Smith, the Phil’s chief executive, who helped build the orchestra and the Disney Hall into the cultural beacon it is today, said he, too, was heading east, to become president of the Boston Symphony. At this rate, you’d think the 20th fête would be set to sad trombone music.
But a celebration it shall be. For the gala on October 5th, the L.A. Phil, with Dudamel at the baton, will pay tribute to the Disney Hall’s iconic architect, Frank Gehry, who turns 95 next year, and plans to attend.
Opening the program is the first piece performed at the then-incomplete concert hall two decades ago—the prelude from Bach’s Partita. That will be followed by Esa-Pekka Salonen’s fantastical interpretation of that work, which takes the form of an orchestral piece, here accompanied by postmodern dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs. That one is called FOG—the initials are Gehry’s—and it was first performed at the architect’s 90th birthday.
The rest of the evening will be devoted to Gehry’s love of the sea, with orchestral music and jazz bringing together Herbie Hancock, the Phil’s Creative Chair for Jazz, and Grammy Award-winning R&B singer H.E.R. Dudamel and the Philharmonic close out the program with Debussy’s La mer.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by architect Frank Gehry, turns 20 next month.
In 1987, Lillian Disney, widow of Walt Disney, donated $50 million to create a venue as a tribute to her husband’s deep love for the arts and the city of Los Angeles. It would be more than a decade before the main concert hall opened in October 2003 on a 3.6-acre complex with multiple theater spaces, public gardens, and cafes that add up to a cherished oasis of creativity in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.
With Gehry’s striking silver exteriors, undulating like sails, and acoustically perfected sound within by Yasuhisa Toyota, the hall went on to earn worldwide recognition as an architectural and cultural marvel. Inside the main auditorium, with its hardwood paneling, 2,265 attendees can be accommodated in a unique vineyard-style configuration that envelops the stage. The hall also houses the Gehry-designed concert organ, a masterpiece on its own, completed in 2004.
Here’s where to find more information on the event, and buy tickets.