LA Phil 100 Press Kit

N O V 9 , 2 0 1 7

LA Phil 100 Press Release

THE LA PHIL LOOKS TO THE FUTURE AS IT CELEBRATES ITS CENTENNIAL YEAR

Major Initiatives Planned for 2018-19 Season Will:

Advance the Art Form with 50 Commissions
Reach Out Across the Globe with the LA Phil’s Largest Roster Ever of Artistic Collaborations, and Welcome Home Former Music Directors
Change the Face of the Future of Music by Creating a Permanent YOLA Center Designed by Frank Gehry, and Establishing the LA Phil Resident Fellows Program
Invite Thousands of New Listeners into Walt Disney Concert Hall through the “100 for the 100” Free Ticket Initiative
Bring L.A. Together in Celebration with a Free Day-Long, Open-Air Festival and Concert, Extending from Walt Disney Concert Hall to the Hollywood Bowl
Fund the Future, as the Board of Directors Announces $500 Million Centennial Campaign

LA Phil Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel today joined Board Chair Jay Rasulo and Acting President and CEO Gail Samuel in announcing the orchestra’s plans for its centennial season: a forward-looking roster of globe-spanning artistic programs, educational and social-impact initiatives and public celebrations for all of L.A., rolling out from September 2018 through October 2019. The LA Phil revealed the hundred-year sweep of its centennial initiatives in a special event held at its winter home in Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Gustavo Dudamel said, “This celebration reinforces my core beliefs that music unites people, speaks to everyone, needs to be accessible to all, and is transformative. When I am lucky enough to listen to the kids of YOLA play beautiful, life-changing music, I can actually see and hear the second century of the LA Phil. It is a true honor to lead this organization and help define its artistic vision at this auspicious time.”

“The LA Phil is famous for being forward-thinking,” Jay Rasulo said, “and so our centennial is going to be about the next hundred years—in Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, throughout our Los Angeles communities and around the world. The 2018/19 season is a platform for launching ourselves into the future we want, for this organization and the public we serve.”

Artistic Innovation, Collaboration, Inspiration, Exploration

Underscoring the LA Phil’s commitment to orchestral music as a living tradition, Gustavo Dudamel announced that the orchestra is undertaking a new-music investment of unprecedented scale in the 2018-19 season, when it will present 50 commissioned works. “This is what leadership in our world demands – challenging ourselves, being unique, seeking innovation and continuing to be a reference for other orchestras,” said Gustavo Dudamel.

Among the distinguished composers who have been commissioned to write works for the centennial are John Adams, Julia Adolphe, Billy Childs, Unsuk Chin, Natacha Diels, Ashley Fure, Philip Glass, Adolphus Hailstork, Vijay Iyer, Andrew Norman and Steve Reich. The Green Umbrella series will be entirely comprised of world premiere commissions in 2018/19.

The LA Phil is also greatly expanding its program of collaborations and partnerships for the 2018-19 season. Los Angeles Philharmonic audiences can look forward to innovative experiences, including a collaborative project with Benjamin Millepied for American Ballet Theater and the LA Dance Project; presented in partnership with The Music Center, a program of music and dance by Thomas Adès and Wayne McGregor, with a world premiere of a new work with score by Adès jointly commissioned by the LA Phil and The Royal Ballet, featuring original choreography by McGregor and performed alongside existing Adès/McGregor works, danced by The Royal Ballet and Company Wayne McGregor; a programmatic partnership with the California African American Museum in a celebration of composer/conductor William Grant Still; and a collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing during the 2019 Oscars ceremony.

In celebration of the centennial year, all of the LA Phil’s living Music Directors will contribute to the artistic season, instilling excitement and inspiration into programs of the historic repertoire and special festivals and projects. Gustavo Dudamel will conduct 14 weeks of programming. Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen will curate a two-week Stravinsky series, including a program staged by Peter Sellars. Former Music Director Zubin Mehta will traverse a two-week Brahms cycle, with soloists Yefim Bronfman and Pinchas Zukerman, and former Music Director André Previn will write a new piece for orchestra for performance in the Fall of 2019. In a two-week residency, Los Angeles native and former Principal Guest Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas will pair classics from the repertoire with works by composers with whom he has had close artistic partnerships. Principal Guest Conductor Susanna Mälkki will partner with The Old Globe’s Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein on a new production of The Tempest, and Artist Collaborator Yuval Sharon will take over a soundstage for a multi-night realization of John Cage’s Europeras 1 and 2.

Creative Chair for Jazz Herbie Hancock will curate his first ever Green Umbrella program for the LA Phil’s New Music Group with a program of world premieres from his favorite composers, from Vijay Iyer to Billy Childs, and Creative Chair John Adams will lead the season’s final Green Umbrella concert, which will be a part of the LA Phil’s recurring day-long new music festival, Noon to Midnight, featuring exciting new music ensembles from across the United States. There will also be an exploration of Fluxus masterworks and the intersection of conceptual art and classical music during a year-long focus created by Christopher Rountree.

As part of an extraordinary global tour spanning three continents, the LA Phil has been named the Barbican’s International Orchestral Partner for three seasons, beginning in 2019/20. This unique relationship will see annual extended residencies in London, including concerts, creative learning programs, collaborations and partnerships.

Full details of these and many other programs will be revealed in a season announcement scheduled for February 2018.

Education and Social Action

Testifying to the LA Phil’s commitment to education and engagement during 2018/19, Gustavo Dudamel announced that Frank Gehry, the visionary architect of the world-renowned Walt Disney Concert Hall, will design a permanent YOLA Center in Inglewood, made possible by a leadership gift from Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen. A long-time advocate for aspiring young artists, Gehry will transform a 17,000-square-foot facility in Inglewood to create a central resource for an expanded Youth Orchestra Los Angeles program, to help meet the LA Phil’s goal of doubling the number of students served by 2022. The Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood underscores the enduring importance of this program to the LA Phil’s mission.

“The Beckmen Center will take the core beliefs that I have expressed and turn them into something tangible for the children of LA and help ensure a brighter future for them and for all of us,” Dudamel said. “We commit ourselves as an organization to a better life for our inheritors - this amazing facility will ensure that.”

Frank Gehry said, “The LA Phil is the first orchestra anywhere to take such an enormous step for the future of its community. Thanks to the time I’ve spent with Gustavo, I’ve seen the difference that YOLA makes in young people’s lives. I’m proud to play my part by making spaces where the kids can feel inspired, and YOLA can open up the whole world of music to them.”

YOLA currently serves nearly 1,000 students in the following neighborhoods: South LA, the Rampart District, Westlake/MacArthur Park, and East LA. YOLA community partners include EXPO Center (a City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks facility), Harmony Project, Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), and Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. The new Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood will serve 500 students annually from the surrounding community while providing a facility that can also bring together students from the existing and future YOLA venues.

The Beckmen YOLA Center @ Inglewood will also be integral to an ambitious mission to create a pathway to orchestra, fulfilling a more inclusive future for orchestral music. At the beginning of the pathway, young people in YOLA who aspire to careers in music will audition into the YOLA Institute, the program through which they will receive pre-conservatory training as well as college counseling and mentoring. Farther along the pathway, early career professional musicians of the highest caliber representing or serving historically underrepresented populations will find new opportunities through the LA Phil Resident Fellows Program. Musicians selected to become Fellows will be appointed as musicians playing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for up to three years, performing in subscription, chamber music, Green Umbrella and education concerts in Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, with the goal of preparing them to successfully compete for, and win positions with the LA Phil and major professional symphonic orchestras.

John Lofton, the LA Phil’s bass trombonist and LA Phil Resident Fellows Orchestra Chair, said, “This initiative is going to help usher extraordinarily talented musicians through doors that used to be closed to them, not just here but ultimately in major orchestras around the country and the world. Everyone recognizes that a lack of diversity on stage is a serious challenge to the future of our music, and many organizations have adopted resolutions and programs to address the issue. But I don’t know of any other orchestral organization that is taking direct action on this level. It makes me tremendously proud to be a member of the LA Phil.”

Celebrating LA

“During our centennial year, we don’t want people to celebrate just the LA Phil,” Gustavo Dudamel said. “We feel this is a time for the entire city to take a bow, for a hundred years of nurturing and supporting the orchestra and infusing everything we do with the wonderful spirit of Los Angeles. Whoever you are, from whichever neighborhood you come, you are a part of our history and our future, and our music belongs to you. That’s what we want to show the people of Los Angeles from the very first day that our centennial begins.”

On Sunday, September 30, 2018, all of Los Angeles will be invited to join in a free, day-long festival called LA Phil 100: Celebrate LA! The day will have a CicLAvia, an open streets event that will feature performances by professionals and amateurs from Grand Avenue, in front of Walt Disney Concert Hall, all the way to the Hollywood Bowl. Toward evening, the street festival will flow into a free, massive kick-off concert at the Hollywood Bowl, in which Gustavo Dudamel will conduct the LA Phil and guest artists in a celebration of all the artistic communities that make Los Angeles vital.

Adding color and movement to the celebration, the LA Phil will also light up Walt Disney Concert Hall with a dynamic media installation, WDCH Dreams, created by the award-winning artist Refik Anadol. Launched at the end of September 2018 in conjunction with the 2018 Gala California Soul, featuring the works of California artists from John Adams to Frank Zappa, the installation will animate the night-time façade of Walt Disney Concert Hall, announcing to the entire city that the centennial year has begun.

Other celebrations will be announced over the next months, with the culmination to come on October 24, 2019: the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first concert.

In a new free-ticket initiative called “100 for the 100,” the LA Phil will expand access to Walt Disney Concert Hall performances across its centennial season. This initiative will foster new partnerships throughout L.A. County, distribute 10,000 free tickets across 100 concerts, and reach audiences with limited access to Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Centennial Campaign

To meet the LA Phil’s current needs and support the organization’s endeavors for the next hundred years, the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association has established a Centennial Campaign with a goal of $500 million. Centennial Campaign Chair David Bohnett and Board Chair Jay Rasulo announced the campaign at the November 9 event and revealed that it has already succeeded in raising $300 million, or 60% of its goal.

“People around the world recognize the LA Phil for three things above all: artistic excellence, innovation and community engagement,” Jay Rasulo said. “These aren’t separate strands of our organization. They’re braided together in our DNA. The Centennial Campaign that carries us into our future is integrated in just the same way. We are raising funds for annual operations, capital projects and endowment, so this organization can go on doing its vital work through the century to come.”

Lead support for the Centennial Campaign has been provided through the extraordinary generosity of Cecilia and Dudley Rauch, David C. Bohnett, Chair of the Centennial Campaign, and the David Bohnett Foundation. Additional early leadership gifts have been made by honorary chair and composer John Williams, with his wife Samantha, and co-chairs Carol Colburn Grigor, Jerry M. Kohl, with his wife Terri, and Diane Paul, with her husband M. David and the M. David and Diane Paul Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Dunard Fund USA, Los Angeles Philharmonic Affiliates, The Annenberg Foundation, Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, The Colburn Foundation, Lawrence N. Field, the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund, The Norman and Sadie Lee Foundation, the Lloyd E. Rigler-Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation, and Ann Ronus.

About the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association
The LA Phil, under the vibrant leadership of Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, presents an inspiring array of music from all genres - orchestral, chamber and Baroque music, organ and celebrity recitals, new music, jazz, world music and pop - at two of L.A.'s iconic venues, Walt Disney Concert Hall (www.laphil.com) and the Hollywood Bowl (www.hollywoodbowl.com). The LA Phil's season at Walt Disney Concert Hall extends from September through May, and throughout the summer at the Hollywood Bowl. With the preeminent Los Angeles Philharmonic at the foundation of its offerings, the LA Phil aims to enrich and transform lives through music, with a robust mix of artistic, education and community programs.

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