“A complete cycle of Mahler’s finished symphonies conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and performed by two orchestras in Los Angeles and Caracas, Venezuela, plus a semi-staged production of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ conducted by Dudamel and designed by architect Frank Gehry will be among the anticipated high points of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2011-12 season,” writes Reed Johnson in today’s (2/7) Los Angeles Times. Other season highlights include the world premieres of John Adams’s oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” and the prologue to Shostakovich’s long-lost opera “Orango,” led by conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen, orchestrated by Gerard McBurney, and staged by Peter Sellars. The Philharmonic’s “Mahler Project” will merge “several of Dudamel’s and the Phil’s artistic and educational objectives” through performances of the composer’s nine symphonies in Los Angeles and Caracas, Venezuela with musicians from the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, the Philharmonic, and the Youth Orchestra L.A. “During their L.A. stay, the Bolívar musicians will lead rehearsals and master classes with the Youth Orchestra L.A., which is modeled after El Sistema, the Venezuelan national youth music training program in which Dudamel studied. In turn, the L.A. Phil’s musicians will interact with El Sistema students during their Venezuelan tour, which Deborah Borda, the Phil’s president, predicted would be ‘a really life-changing experience for people who haven’t been to see El Sistema.’ ”
Posted February 7, 2011
