Skip to page content
  • WDCH
  • ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS WITH ORCHESTRA DEBUT AT WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL CONDUCTED BY JAMES HOLMES; ARRANGED BY ANTONY AND NICO MUHLY
  • Oct. 14, 2008
  • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2008, AT 8PM

    TICKETS ON SALE SUNDAY, AUGUST 24 at 10AM PST

    Media support provided by 89.9 KCRW

    LA Phil presents Antony and the Johnsons at Walt Disney Concert Hall in a one-night-only, special performance with orchestral accompaniment on Tuesday, October 14, at 8 p.m. This marks the only West Coast appearance of Antony and the Johnsons; they will be performing with a 20-piece orchestra in this rare concert supporting Antony and the Johnsons’ upcoming ep, Another World, due out on Secretly Canadian on October 7. The concert is conducted by James Holmes, with arrangements by Antony and Nico Muhly.

    Antony’s singular voice has been celebrated as powerful and original. Together with the Johnsons – Julia Kent, cello; Parker Kindred, drums; Jeff Langston, bass; Rob Moose, guitar/violin; Maxim Moston, violin; and Doug Weiselman, horns - Antony found significant mainstream success with the release of his second full-length album, I Am a Bird Now, which won Britain’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize for Best Album of 2005. Rolling Stone says, “A voice of singular majesty, an instrument of delicacy and rapture,” while Spin states Antony’s voice is “scarily intimate and irresistibly beautiful.”

    Antony and the Johnsons are scheduled to perform with the Oregon Symphony in September, and have previously performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Milan Symphony and Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, of which Paste magazine said “Antony’s voice trembles emotions so pure, so unstable, it haunts the unwilling ear.”

    In 2007, Antony collaborated on tracks with Björk including her forthcoming single - the ballad Dull Flame of Desire based on verses of the the Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev - scheduled for release on September 29th.

    ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS

    Born in Sussex, England in 1970, Antony spent his childhood in England, Amsterdam, and in the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to NYC at the age of 19. In 1990, he founded the performance collective Blacklips Performance Cult with creative partner Johanna Constantine, and spent the next several years developing his voice and ideas on late night stages around NYC. Antony emerged with a focus on music with his musical ensemble “the Johnsons” in 2000.

    British experimental musician David Tibet of Current 93 released Antony's debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, and a follow-up EP, I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy, in 2000/01.

    Antony and the Johnsons' second album I Am a Bird Now won the UK's Mercury Prize in 2005 and was called Album of the Year by Mojo magazine. Featuring Peter Hujar’s timeless portrait “Candy Darling on her Deathbed” on its sleeve, the album featured guest appearances by Lou Reed, Devendra Banhart, Boy George and Rufus Wainwright. Antony and his musicians played over 150 concerts around the world between 2005-2006, including at Carnegie Hall, La Carre, the Sydney State Theater, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall with guests including Little Jimmy Scott and Marc Almond.

    In 2006 Antony collaborated with Icelandic musician Björk in recording sessions in Jamaica and Iceland. The songs, "The Dull Flame of Desire" and "My Juvenile", feature on her 2007 album Volta, and Antony appeared with Björk at the Hammersmith Apollo (London) and Radio City Music Hall (NYC).

    Antony and the Johnsons collaborated with experimental film maker Charles Atlas and presented "TURNING" in Nov 2005 in Rome, London, Paris, Madrid, and Braga. This multimedia collaboration, which focussed on themes of transformation and metamorphosis, featured live video portraits of some of New York City's most enigmatic women. The Guardian called the Barbican TURNING "fragile, life affirming, and truly wonderful (five stars)", Le Monde in Paris hailed TURNING at the Olympia as "Concert- manifeste transsexuel".

    Antony’s vocals can be found on five of the tracks on the self-titled debut dance album, Hercules and Love Affair, released in March 2008 by DFA/Mute, including on the single “Blind.”

    Antony has also appeared in Hal Willner's “Came So Far For Beauty: a tribute to Leonard Cohen” and appeared in the film documentary of that performance.

    Antony worked extensively with Lou Reed live and in the studio on albums Animal Serenade and The Raven. In 2006-07 Antony sang back up (with Sharon Jones and a children's choir) in Lou Reed's first full performance of his album Berlin. This was performed at St Ann's Warehouse in NYC in December 2006 and at The State Theatre in Sydney, Australia in January 2007.

    Antony has also collaborated on tracks with Rufus Wainwright, CocoRosie, Laurie Anderson, Marc Almond, Michael Cashmore, Current 93, Linda Thompson, Matmos, and Joan as Police Woman.

    Antony appeared as a prison inmate, performing an acoustic version of the song "The Rapture" in Steve Buscemi's movie Animal Factory. He also made an appearance in the Sebastian Lifshitz movie Wild Side performing the song "I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy". In the Wachowski brothers' screen adaptation of V for Vendetta, the main characters dance to Antony's "Bird Gerhl" from I am a Bird Now as it plays on V's illicit Wurlitzer.

    Antony covered Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" on the soundtrack to Todd Haynes film I'm Not There, a biopic of Bob Dylan.

    Antony is currently collaborating with Nico Muhly (conductor, co-arranger) and presenting a series of symphonic concerts with James Holmes conducting in Europe and the US this Autumn in support of Antony and the Johnsons' new release. “Another World” EP will be released in October 2008 and “The Crying Light” will follow in January 2009.

    www.antonyandjohnsons.com

    JAMES HOLMES has enjoyed a full and extremely varied career as conductor, accompanist and arranger. While much of his work has been in the opera house - firstly as principal coach/resident conductor with English National Opera and from 1996-2008 as Head of Music with Opera North - he has also become known for his work in musical theatre, particularly in the music of Kurt Weill - Street Scene (ENO/BBC TV, Berlin and Arte dvd), Seven Deadly Sins, One Touch of Venus and Arms And The Cow (ON) as well as a BBC TV documentary on the composer's American years - and Stephen Sondheim, notably Pacific Overtures (ENO and a US 'Grammy' nominated original London cast recording), Sweeney Todd (ON) and Into The Woods(Royal Opera House). As associate music director, he conducted well over a hundred performances of Nicholas Hytner's award-winning production of Carousel (Royal National Theatre), and as Simon Rattle's musical assistant worked on the much-acclaimed Porgy and Bess both for the original Glyndebourne production and its EMI recording. His large and wide-ranging operatic repertoire includes works from Mozart to Britten and several world premieres, among them Gavin Bryars' Dr. Ox's Experiment for ENO (in collaboration with the director Atom Egoyan) and Paul Frehner's Sirius on Earth for the Almeida Festival.

    Jim's numerous concert appearances include engagements with the BBC, Halle, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and Montreal Symphony. With the London Sinfonietta he conducted both a celebration of Stephen Sondheim featuring artists such as Eartha Kitt and Elaine Stritch, and a Brecht-Weill evening for Patti Smith's 'Meltdown' series at the Royal Festival Hall featuring Antony Hegarty, Marc Almond, Sparks and Martha Wainwright among others. He has arranged Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe for Bryn Terfel (DGG recordings) and Gershwin for Sally Burgess and the National Youth Orchestra (BBC Proms), and with the distinguished British playwright Michael Frayn, devised ENO's reworking of Offenbach, La Belle Vivette for ENO. Other work includes conductor for Lesley Garrett's best-selling album Soprano in Red (EMI). Upcoming plans include a return to Opera North to conduct Shostakovitch's operetta Cheryomushki (Paradise Moscow) in a musical version he co-devised with Gerard McBurney.

    The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, under Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, presents the finest in orchestral and chamber music, recitals, new music, jazz, world music and holiday concerts at two of the most remarkable places anywhere to experience music — Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. In addition to a 30-week winter subscription season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the LA Phil presents a 12-week summer festival at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and home of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the Association’s involvement with Los Angeles extends to educational programs, community concerts and children's programming, ever seeking to provide inspiration and delight to the broadest possible audience.

    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE:

    TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2008, AT 8 PM


    WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, 111 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles



    ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS WITH ORCHESTRA

    James Holmes, conductor

    Arrangements by Antony and Nico Muhly



    Antony, vocals

    Julia Kent, cello

    Rob Moose, guitar/violin

    Maxim Moston, violin

    Thomas Bartlett, piano



    Media support provided by 89.9 KCRW

    Tickets ($30-$58) are on sale Sunday, August 24 at LAPhil.com, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office, open at 12pm, or via credit card phone order at 323.850.2000, beginning at 10am. For more information, please call 323.850.2000.

    # # #

  • Contact:

    Lisa Bellamore, 213.972.3689, lbellamore@laphil.org; Photos: 213.972.3034