“Alberto Arvelo is used to hiring composers to set music to his films. The Venezuelan director’s most recent feature, ‘Libertador,’ employed none other than Gustavo Dudamel—in his debut film score—for that task,” writes Tim Greiving in Thursday’s (12/8) Los Angeles Times. This weekend, “The roles were reversed, however, on Arvelo’s new assignment: setting film to Dudamel-led concerts of Joseph Haydn’s epic oratorio, ‘The Creation.’ … Arvelo’s imagery [accompanied] Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, guest vocal soloists and the Los Angeles Master Chorale in Haydn’s 1797 work.… Arvelo’s moving pictures [include] photographs, aerial drone footage from Joshua Tree and Yosemite, animation and textures of actual oil paintings and canvases. Using computers, he mapped the whole interior of Disney Hall in order to project—with four projectors on four surfaces around the room—onto designated parts of the hall. In one sequence, a waterfall cascades around and behind the hall’s famous organ ‘fries,’ bouncing and splashing off the rear seats…. Arvelo, 49 … met [Dudamel] … while making his 2006 documentary on El Sistema, ‘To Play or to Fight.’ Last year Arvelo created visual accompaniment for a Dudamel-led performance of Mendelssohn’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at the Hollywood Bowl.”
Posted December 12, 2016
