LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC OPENS ITS 2023-24 SEASON 

CELEBRATING 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

WITH ANNUAL GALA HONORING FRANK GEHRY ON OCTOBER 5

 Special Exhibitions and Programming Spotlight the Design History of the Hall

Season Features California Festival: A Celebration of New Music, 12 World Premieres and LA Phil commissions, and Multiple U.S. Premieres

LOS ANGELES (Wednesday, September 20, 2023) — On Thursday, October 5, 2023, The Los Angeles Philharmonic and LA Phil Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel return to Walt Disney Concert Hall to kick off the 2023-24 season and celebrate the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Concert Hall at its annual gala concert honoring visionary architect Frank Gehry.

Opening Night Gala: Celebrating Architect Frank Gehry

The LA Phil Gala: Celebrating Frank Gehry marks Gustavo Dudamel’s first performance of the 2023-24 season at WDCH and showcases performances by the LA Phil, LA Phil Creative Chair for Jazz Herbie Hancock, dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs, and award-winning American R&B singer H.E.R. The performance pays homage to iconic architect Frank Gehry through a variety of works inspired by the sea and fish, honoring the iconic motifs that have informed Gehry’s seven-decade career. Dudamel will also conduct the LA Phil in a performance of Bach’s Partita in E: Preludio and Fog by Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen which Salonen composed in 2019 for Frank Gehry on the occasion of his 90th birthday. 

Special Exhibitions and Program Spotlight WDCH Design

Special exhibitions and a live conversation have been planned to spotlight Frank Gehry’s decades of artistic collaboration with the LA Phil. The architect’s contributions —which include Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center at Inglewood and numerous other artistic collaborations—have created unparalleled experiences between artists and audiences for more than 20 years. Opening October 5, the two exhibitions – the in-person Modeling Sound exhibition and the digital Sculpting Harmony exhibition – explore the design history of Walt Disney Concert Hall through drawings, sketches, photographs and models drawn from the extensive Frank O. Gehry Papers at The Getty.

Modeling Sounds, on view in Walt Disney Concert Hall’s BP Hall from October 5 – 29, 2023, showcases six architectural models of WDCH at various stages of its design to explore the realization of this important Los Angeles institution and explore the critical role of modeling in Gehry’s architectural practice. Modeling Sound is free and open to ticket holders prior to LA Phil concerts, and open to the general public when the building is open for tours. 

Sculpting Harmony, a digital exhibition on view at gehry.getty.edu, features more than 150 models, sketches, and archival photographs documenting the concert hall’s development. 

On October 24, a live program at Walt Disney Concert Hall will feature LA Phil Conductor Laureate and current San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, who led the orchestra during the design and opening of the WDCH, in a special conversation and performance event with Frank Gehry. The program, Modeling Sound: An Evening of Music and Conversation with Frank Gehry and Esa-Pekka Salonen will bring together the two friends and collaborators to explore the ways in which music informed the design of the Hall and how architecture has, in turn, impacted the musical performances heard in the venue. The conversation will be punctuated by musical performances and moderated by the Getty Research Institute’s Senior Curator and Head of Architectural Collections Maristella Casciato.

2023-24 season highlights

The celebratory season features several major initiatives envisioned by Dudamel, including the California Festival: A Celebration of New Music, a two-week, statewide festival of music written within the past five years from around the world; the launch of a two-year retrospective on the music of the movies curated by composer John Williams; the return of the acclaimed collaboration of the LA Phil, Tony Award®-winning Deaf West Theatre, the Dudamel Foundation and El Sistema's Coro de Manos Blancas (White Hands Choir) in Beethoven's Fidelio, created for both Deaf and hearing audiences; and the continuation of the Pan-American Music Initiative curated by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz. The 2023/24 season welcomes an all-star lineup of guest conductors and soloists, with Dudamel leading 12 programs.

12 world premieres of LA Phil commissions are performed during the 2023-24 season: two works by Gabriela Ortiz, a symphony by Jonathan Bailey Holland, limo Andres' piano concerto for Aaron Diehl, and works by Sam Adams, Alejandro Cardona, Francisco Cortes-Alvarez, Zosha Di Castri, Miguel Farfas, Veronika Krausas, Saad Haddad and Andreia Pinto-Correia. U.S. premieres include Thomas Ades' Tower for Frank Gehry, Oliver Leith's Last Days, a 90-minute opera inspired by Gus Van Sant's film of the same name and co-directed by Matt Copson and Anna Morrissey, Enno Poppe's work Fett, Esa-Pekka Salonen's Fanfare and Ileana Perez Velazquez's work Columnas de Luz.

For more details about LA Phil’s opening night gala and the 2023-24 season, visit laphil.com.

A full chronological listing of events is available here.

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About the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Under the leadership of Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, the LA Phil offers live performances, media initiatives and learning programs that inspire and strengthen communities in Los Angeles and beyond. The Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra is the foundation of the LA Phil’s offerings, which also include a multigenre, multidisciplinary presenting program and such youth development programs as YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles). Performances are offered on three historic stages—Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and The Ford—as well as through a variety of media platforms. In all its endeavors, the LA Phil seeks to enrich the lives of individuals and communities through musical, artistic and learning experiences that resonate in our world today.