Upbeat Live

Reel Change Advisory Board member Kris Bowers and Reel Change grantee Sultana Isham talk about their approaches to the art form of film scoring, experiences in the industry, and the unconventional pathways that led them to film composition.

This talk was given at the performance of Reel Change: Kris Bowers at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

KUSC’s Brian Lauritzen explores a Mozart concerto and three Ravel favorites.

This talk was given at the first performance of Mozart and Ravel at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pieces discussed:

RAVEL Menuet antique

MOZART Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467

RAVEL Le tombeau de Couperin

RAVEL Bolero

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Performance department at Azusa Pacific University, Christopher Russell discusses Rachmaninoff and minimalist music with composer John Adams.

This talk was given at the first performance of Reich, Adams, and Rachmaninoff at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pieces discussed:

Steve REICH Runner

John ADAMS Violin Concerto

RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

Musician and conductor, Rachel Iba discusses the 1920 silent film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and it’s organ accompaniment.

This talk was given at the first performance of Halloween Organ, Film & Music: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

Composer Veronika Krausas explores Tchaikovsky’s beloved concerto and new music by Saariaho.

This talk was given at the first performance of Tchaikovsky and Saariaho with Mälkki at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pieces discussed:

Kaija SAARIAHO Vista (U.S. premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from Carol Grigor and the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund)

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

Composer Russell Steinberg discusses Mahler’s heavenly Fourth Symphony and the world premiere of Steven Mackey’s trumpet concerto.

This talk was given at the first performance of Dudamel Conducts Mahler at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pieces discussed:

Jessie MONTGOMERY Strum

Steven MACKEY Shivaree: Fantasy for Trumpet and Orchestra (world premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from Ellen and Arnold Zetcher)

MAHLER Symphony No. 4

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

Musician and conductor, Rachel Iba discusses organ pieces by Bach.

This talk was given at the first performance of Cameron Carpenter at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pieces discussed:

BACH Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537

BACH Prelude and Fugue I in C Major from Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 870

BACH Prelude and Fugue XII in F Major from Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 880

BACH Fantasia on “Komm, Heiliger Geist,” BWV 651

BACH Chorale Prelude “O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde groß,” BWV 622

BACH Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, “St. Anne,” BWV 552

BACH Goldberg Variations, BWV 988

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Performance department at Azusa Pacific University, Christopher Russell discusses three pieces on life, death, and love, all inspired by Romantic poetry.

This talk was given at the first performance of Dudamel Conducts Strauss at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Pieces discussed:

SCHOENBERG Transfigured Night

STRAUSS Four Last Songs

STRAUSS Death and Transfiguration

See this year’s Upbeat Live schedule at: laphil.com/ubl. Join us in person for our 2021/22 season! Get tickets: laphil.com/calendar.

About This Performance

Underneath the sense of hope and expansiveness in the New World is a shadow that has been there from its first colonization to the present moment. Dvořák set out to find and compose “American music.” What he created is a collage, suggestions of the hope of immigrants in the boundless space; the presence of slavery; the treatment of Native Americans; and the pristine beauty of the natural resources. Even more poignant today, we hear this music with all its shadows fully in the light.

Join Deborah O’Grady and Melinda Haas for this unique exploration of Dvořák's signature work, Symphony No. 9, “New World,” through the lens of myth as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Dvořák & Ives festival.

Artists

Melinda Haas
Deborah O’Grady

About This Performance

The culmination of Dudamel’s unique look at Ives and Dvořák shows the individualistic American expanding his harmonic and rhythmic language even further in the stunningly complex Fourth Symphony. Dvořák’s final symphony was composed from Native-American and African-American source materials, from which he drew unforgettable melodies and dramatic harmonies that gelled into his most popular creation.

Program

IVES - The Unanswered Question
IVES - Symphony No. 4
Intermission
DVOŘÁK - Symphony No. 9, “New World”

Artists

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Los Angeles Master Chorale
Grant Gershon, artistic director