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Beethoven & Dessner with Esa-Pekka Salonen

Beethoven’s monumental “Eroica” and a reunion of two of Finland’s finest.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Pekka Kuusisto

Pekka Kuusisto

Bryce Dessner

Bryce Dessner

Join us for a pre-concert talk with an expert on the evening’s music.

Classical performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall

Beethoven & Dessner with Esa-Pekka Salonen

Sat May 3, 2025 8pm Walt Disney Concert Hall

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For well over two hundred years, the “Eroica” Symphony has been celebrated as one Beethoven’s greatest works and one of the most revolutionary masterpieces in classical music. Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the LA Phil in this powerful piece of defiance, contrasting it with Debussy’s dreamy and fluid Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Pekka Kuusisto, a fellow Finn and one of Salonen’s favorite collaborators, joins the orchestra for Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto, which Kuusisto describes as “super energetic, and athletic, active—but it’s the big changes of scenery that really make it magic.”

This performance is generously supported in part by the Kohl Virtuoso Violin Fund.

Classical

Program

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

c. 10 minutes

Violin Concerto

c. 24 minutes

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, “Eroica”

c. 47 minutes

Esa-Pekka Salonen

conductor

Pekka Kuusisto

violin