Festival Director John Adams Oversees First Major Examination of the Minimalist Movement by an American Orchestra

March 18 – April 2, 2006

The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Minimalist Jukebox festival – the first major exploration of this ground-breaking movement by an American orchestra - explores orchestral, chamber, and world music manifestations in the repertoire, from March 18 – April 2, 2006. Composer John Adams serves as the director of the festival, which is enhanced further by another collaboration with the Getty Research Institute. Partnerships with other local arts institutions, including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Piano Spheres, CalArts, and USC, round out the festival’s offerings. Three festival performances offer $10 pricing for all seats.

Minimalism, the cutting-edge style of composition that broke barriers and redefined the musical and compositional landscape of the classical genre when it was introduced in the mid-1960s, was a rebellion against Modernism and the strict rules of Serialism. John Adams comments, “The Minimalist revolution was a defining moment in Western music history. By re-inventing new uses of common musical principles – pulse, repetition, tonality and modality – the Minimalists upended the prevailing modernist aesthetic established by Schoenberg and his followers. Minimalism was also a peculiarly American idea - a rediscovery of the ‘pleasure principle’ in art music, something that was so often lacking in the grim, theory-bound orthodoxy of the avant-garde.”

Adams continues, “The works of the Minimalists have given a jump start to concert music and have brought composers and their audiences together again in a way not experienced since the 19th century. It’s only fitting that the Los Angeles Philharmonic should be the first American orchestra to realize this and to celebrate it.”

The Philharmonic performs three separate programs (see schedule at end), under the direction of Adams, Stefan Asbury, and Reinbert de Leeuw, with repertoire including Andriessen’s Racconto dall’inferno (U.S. premiere) and De Staat; Pärt’s Tabula Rasa; Reich’s Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards; Three Movements; and Tehillim; Adams’ Harmonielehre, and scenes from Glass’ opera Akhnaten. The Philharmonic also presents performances by Les Ballets Africains and Gamelan Burat Wangi, the USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble, the CalArts New Century Players, Piano Spheres, a special performance of Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13, “Hallucination City,” for 100 electric guitars, and an all-night performance by The Orb, Dntel, John Tehada and Boom Bip on Sunday, March 19, from Midnight to 6 a.m.

As part of Minimalist Jukebox, the Getty Research Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic embark on their second major collaboration, following the success of the Building Music project during Walt Disney Concert Hall's inaugural season. On March 31 and April 1, a series of panel discussions, lectures, conversations, and musical events explore the relationship between Minimalist music and other art forms, including visual art, theater, literature, and dance. In addition, the partnership explores the rich artistic collaborations that Minimalism spawned throughout the art world of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. At the Getty Center, Terry Riley and the Calder Quartet perform a program of Riley’s own Keyboard Studies (1963), String Quartet (1960), and String Trio (1961).

Thomas Crow, Director of the Getty Research Institute, comments, "One of the most remarkable features of contemporary culture has been the convergence of ideas among its major art forms. But they haven't been often enough looked at together, so that their vivid correspondences can be fully understood. That's our goal in this partnership with our colleagues at the Los Angeles Philharmonic."

One of America's most admired and frequently performed composers, JOHN ADAMS was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1947. After graduating from Harvard University in 1971 he moved to California, where he taught and conducted at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for ten years. His innovative concerts led to his appointment firstly as contemporary music adviser to the San Francisco Symphony and then as the orchestra's composer-in-residence between 1979 and 1985, the period in which his reputation became established with the success of such works as Harmonium and Harmonielehre. Recordings on the New Albion and ECM labels were followed in 1986 by an exclusive contract with Nonesuch Records, an association that continues today. Adams' works have received numerous awards, among them the 1994 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for his Chamber Symphony, and the 1995 Grawemeyer Award for his Violin Concerto. In 2002 Adams composed On the Transmigration of Souls for the New York Philharmonic, a work written in commemoration of the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. This work received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music. In 2004, Adams was the inaugural winner of the Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, resulting in Adams undertaking a residency at Northwestern University. Recent projects have included The Dharma at Big Sur (composed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall); a new opera, Doctor Atomic, based on the life of Robert Oppenheimer, commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, and a new orchestral work for Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, due in autumn 2006. Adams continues to conduct regularly, appearing with the world's greatest orchestras, and with programs combining his own works with composers ranging from Debussy, Stravinsky and Ravel to Zappa, Ives, Reich, Glass and Ellington. In recent seasons he has conducted the Chicago and San Francisco Symphonies, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cleveland, Montreal and Philadelphia Orchestras, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. European engagements have included performances with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Ensemble Modern, Oslo Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Concertgebouw, Santa Cecilia and London Symphony Orchestra. He is also a regular guest at the BBC Proms.

THOMAS CROW is the Director of the Getty Research Institute, Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California, and a contributing editor of Artforum. The former Robert Lehman Professor of Art History at Yale University, he has authored two influential studies of 18th century French painting: Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (1985) and Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France (1995). Subsequent publications, including The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent and the essay collection Modern Art in the Common Culture (both 1996), examine the later 20th century, while The Intelligence of Art (1999) analyses specific moments in the history of art. Crow’s most recent texts focus on single artists, including Gordon Matta-Clark (2003), Robert Smithson (2004), and Robert Rauschenberg (2005).

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

MINIMALIST JUKEBOX

All performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall unless otherwise noted.

Sunday, March 19, 2006, Midnight to 6 AM

The Orb

Dntel

John Tejada

Boom Bip

Monday, March 20, 2006, 8 PM

CalArts New Century Players

David Rosenboom, Stuart Dempster, Jon Hassell, and Katrina Krimsky, special guests

JENNINGS String Quartet

RILEY In C

All seats $10.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 8 PM

World Music

Gamelan Burat Wangi

Les Ballets Africains

The exceptional Guinean ensemble Les Ballets Africains brings dance and acrobatics filled with dazzling, high-speed footwork, electrifying drumming and boundless energy. The acclaimed Los Angeles-based Gamelan Burat Wangi, with their beautifully ethereal Indonesian music and dance, makes a perfect foil!

Friday, March 24, 2006, 8 PM

Saturday, March 25, 2006, 2 PM

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Reinbert de Leeuw, conductor

Cristina Zavalloni, mezzo-soprano

Geoff Nuttall and Barry Shiffman, violins

Synergy Vocals

Saturday, March 25, 2006, 8 PM

Sunday, March 26, 2006, 2 PM

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Stefan Asbury, conductor

Synergy Vocals

All-REICH program

Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards

Three Movements

Tehillim

March 26, 2006, 7 PM

Los Angeles Master Chorale

Grant Gershon, conductor

Cedric Berry, baritone

Theo Bleckmann, vocalist

Katie Geissinger, vocalist

Meredith Monk, vocalist

Jessica Rivera, soprano

Monday, March 27, 2006, 8 PM

California EAR Unit

Bing Theater, LACMA

Program to include:

For tickets, call (323) 857-6010, visit www.lacma.org, visit the LACMA ticket office, or order by mail (send SASE to Ticket Office, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., LA, CA 90036)

Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 8 PM

Green Umbrella

USC Thornton Contemporary Music Ensemble

Donald Crockett, conductor

Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 8 PM

Glenn Branca

John Myers, conductor

All seats $10.

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 8 PM

Piano Spheres

Gloria Cheng, Vicki Ray, Mark Robson, and Susan Svrcek, pianos

Thomas Raney, percussion

All seats $10.

Friday, March 31, 2006, 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM

The Getty Center

Symposium: “From Intonation to Collaboration”

Speakers include Robert Fink, Keith Potter, Peggy Phelan, Liz Coates, Jane McFadden, and Janice Ross

Friday, March 31, 2006, 4:30 PM

The Getty Center

Panel discussion on the history and legacy of Minimalism

Speakers include: Terry Riley, John Rockwell, Anna Halprin and James Tenney

Friday, March 31, 2006, 8 PM

Los Angeles Philharmonic

John Adams, conductor

Holland Taylor, narrator (Scribe)

Daniel Bubeck, countertenor (Akhnaten)

Michael Slattery, tenor (Amon the Priest)

Hugh Russell, baritone (Horemhab)

Jeremy Galyon, bass (Aye)

Los Angeles Master Chorale

Friday, March 31, 2006, 8 PM

The Getty Center, Williams Auditorium

Terry Riley, piano

The Calder Quartet

Program to include:

Saturday, April 1, 2006, 2 PM
Walt Disney Concert Hall
Symposium:
“Minimalist Composers and Their Collaborators”
Panel discussion to include John Adams and Philip Glass

Saturday, April 1, 2006, 8 PM

Sunday, April 2, 2006, 2 PM

Los Angeles Philharmonic

John Adams, conductor

Holland Taylor, narrator (Scribe)

Daniel Bubeck, countertenor (Akhnaten)

Michael Slattery, tenor (Amon the Priest)

Hugh Russell, baritone (Horemhab)

Jeremy Galyon, bass (Aye)

Los Angeles Master Chorale

WDCH Lobby Spaces – throughout festival

ENO Music for Airports

Tickets ($10-$129) are on sale now at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office, online at LAPhil.com, or via credit card phone order at 323.850.2000. A limited number of $10 rush tickets for seniors and full time students may be available at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office two hours prior to the performance. Valid identification is required; one ticket per person; cash only. Groups of 12 or more may be eligible for special discounts for selected concerts and seating areas. For all information, please call 323.850.2000.

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