Insight
The LA Phil Insight initiative takes the work on our stages as a starting point for exploration.
Bringing together a diverse range of guest curators, artists, and partner organizations with intellectually curious audiences, our Insight efforts dig into festival and project themes, uncovering their many meanings with a sense of thoughtfulness and play.
Insight activities are typically offered in conjunction with festivals, special projects, and The Ford summer season. They take a variety of forms, including commissioned installations, panel discussions, print publications, live podcast recordings, artist residencies, multidisciplinary performances, film screenings, and participatory activities in historic sites, nightclubs, and even roller rinks.
LA Phil Insight is generously supported by Linda and David Shaheen.
To learn about upcoming Insight events, subscribe to the Insight quarterly newsletter below:
Upcoming Festivals and Projects
LA Phil Insight Presents:
Listening to the Great Wall of Los Angeles Exhibition
An exhibition illuminating the history and mural-making process behind Judy Baca's seminal artwork The Great Wall of Los Angeles and her historic collaboration with the LA Phil.
Featured Previous Events
Good News: A Celebration of Gospel Music
Tyree Boyd-Pates, curator
Walt Disney Concert Hall • 2024/25
In celebration of the premiere of Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass, Insight tapped Tyree Boyd-Pates to curate events that highlighted Los Angeles’ own gospel music history, including performances by the Gospel Workshop of America - LA Chapter and the dance-filled Praise Break: Divine Disco, Soul and House featuring DJ sets by D-Nice, J. Rocc, Greg Belson, and Novena Carmel and a live performance by Jimetta Rose.
To The Fullest
Wild Up, REDCAT, and Insight, co-curators
Walt Disney Concert Hall • 2024/25
A collaboration between Insight, REDCAT, and Wild Up, To the Fullest included an exhibition and series of performances investigating the intertwined legacies of maverick composers Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell and their expansive, quintessentially queer work.
Mahler Grooves
Gustavo Dudamel, curator
Walt Disney Concert Hall • 2024/25
Mahler superfans gathered for the Mahler Grooves listening party at the Paramour Estate featuring director and writer Todd Field, the Dirty Projector’s David Longstreth, and music supervisor Lauren Mikus.
See / Feel / Hear Music
Deaf West Theater, curator
Walt Disney Concert Hall • 2023/24
Building on the work of LA Phil and Deaf West Theatre and the historic collaboration Fidelio, See / Feel / Hear Music invited audiences to engage with Deaf artists whose work explores the creation and reception of music, the innate music of sign language, and the politics of sound. Curated by Deaf West Theatre in collaboration with the LA Phil’s Insight program, the symposium offered a combination of conversations, presentations, film, and lobby activations featuring such acclaimed artists as DJ Kurs, Christine Sun Kim, and Evelyn Glennie.
Christine Sun Kim
Evelyn Glennie
Glass Etudes
Pomegranate Arts, curator
Walt Disney Concert Hall • 2023/24
In celebration of the release of Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Complete Folios 1-20 & Essays from 20 Fellow Artists, LA Phil Insight partnered with Pomegranate Arts to produce an evening-length program of the complete etudes performed by such celebrated soloists as Lara Downes, Timo Andres, and Anton Batagov; a pre-concert conversation; and GlassSkates, a West Coast, roller-skating version of the composer’s historic 85th birthday party at The Rink at Rockefeller Center.
Insight Online
As part of the California Festival, LA Phil Insight has created editorial offerings, ranging from playlists and audio interviews to in-depth articles and graphic scores, from such artists and scholars as Geeta Dayal, Josh Kun, and Nadia Sirota among others.
Through the Sound/Stage series, guest writers like Armando Iannucci, Sarah Ruhl, Ishmael Reed, Pico Iyer, and Rian Johnson offer literary reflections on music. LA Phil Media artist interviews and roundtables—featuring voices like Dianne Reeves and Gabriela Ortiz—explore themes such as gender equity and creative expression.
Animation is one of the many visual forms of expression used by the LA Phil to illuminate aspects of orchestral performance. Contributors have ranged from the folktale-inspired artwork of Ghost Animation to the experimental offerings of Lilli Carré and Jordan Wong.
Step into an immersive, interactive space where music, nature, and creativity bloom. The LA Phil Digital Meadow invites you to explore original audiovisual experiences inspired by Noon to Midnight: Field Recordings.
Insight Publications
Past / Forward: The Phil at 100
Published on the occasion of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s centennial, Past/Forward: The Phil at 100 revisits the history of the LA Phil and contemplates its future. The award-winning publication offers an unconventional approach to institutional storytelling and includes more than 100 firsthand accounts, interviews conducted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim Page, 150 rarely seen archival photos, and artwork from Lucky Dragons, Charles Gaines, and Christine Sun Kim.
The Hollywood Bowl: The First 100 Years
In conjunction with the Hollywood Bowl's centennial celebration in 2022, the LA Phil will publish The Hollywood Bowl: The First 100 Years written by Derek Traub with a foreword by Gustavo Dudamel and designed by the award-winning Content/Object studio. Traub uses many lens, from the musical to the political, to reveal the history of the Bowl, while positioning those who love the venue as a continuation of the story.
The World of Echo
The intertwined creative legacies of Julius Eastman and Arthur Russell—a web of friendship, community, and radical musical vision—is the subject of this unprecedented collaboration between the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), LA Phil, and Wild Up. The exhibition and performance program conceived in unison offers new breadth of insight into these two influential figures in contemporary music.
LA Phil Visual Arts and New Media
In conjunction with its festival programming, multidisciplinary presentations, and print publications, the LA Phil has made investments in the work of visual, sound, and installation artists, including Ragnar Kjartansson, Bill Viola, Shoplifter / Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, Susan Philipsz, Nicole Miller, Christine Sun Kim, Charles Gaines, Lucky Dragons, Elias Simé, and Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller among others. By bringing artists into dialogue with its concert programming, the LA Phil aims to offer audiences varied points of view and points of entry into its work, while also expanding concepts of orchestral presentation, contextualization, and audience experience.
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In Context: Additional Engagement Opportunities
The LA Phil Archives invites scholars into its holdings to discover not only the history of the organization but of Los Angeles itself.
Pre-concert lectures and artist discussions provide audiences with context, insights, and opportunities to engage with artists and thinkers before the evening's main event.
A compendium of artist interviews, insightful articles, podcasts, and other media offerings, Watch & Listen is the LA Phil’s one-stop shop for music lovers and learners.
Audiences can enhance their listening and appreciation of classical music through Music 101 classes led by KUSC's Alan Chapman.