The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s departing music director Gustavo Dudamel will return to the Hollywood Bowl next week.
Dudamel, the face of the classical music world in L.A. since his 2009 debut as music director, is in his penultimate season here before departing to lead the New York Philharmonic. Given recent federal travel bans on Venezuelans, he was forced to cancel local dates with his Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra in August, and he only had one week planned for conducting during the Bowl’s summer season this year.
The season’s opening night at the Bowl was “a relatively somber occasion, which, despite the lovely atmosphere, fit the mood of the times,” as Times critic Mark Swed said.
So this one-week return with an exceptionally diverse bill will be a welcome occasion to see him in the twilight of his tenure in L.A.
On Aug. 5, Dudamel (with pianist Seong-Jin Cho) will lead a program pulled from jazz giant Duke Ellington and French composer Maurice Ravel, including Ellington’s “Harlem” and “Black, Brown and Beige” and Ravel’s Piano Concert for the Left Hand and Piano Concert in G. The pairing will show how American jazz and the Harlem renaissance influenced and expanded possibilities for Ravel and European music of the era.
He’ll follow that up on Aug. 7 with Mahler’s bombastic Symphony No. 1 “Titan,” with Vilde Frang playing Erich Korngold’s violin concerto (a fitting spotlight on a golden-era Hollywood score legend). On Aug. 8-9, Dudamel will conduct John Williams’ crowd-favorite “Jurassic Park” score over a live screening of the summer blockbuster.
Dudamel recently debuted with the L.A. Phil at Coachella, a long-awaited crossover event where the orchestra collaborated with pop stars including Dave Grohl, Zedd, Laufey and LL Cool J. For Los Angeles music fans who want to see Dudamel in the Bowl before he departs after next year’s season, these are some of the best chances to do so in 2025.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
