“My guess is that before long she will be known simply as ‘Mirga,’ ” writes Mark Swed in Saturday’s (8/9) Los Angeles Times. “But to call 28-year-old Lithuanian conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla by her first name after her Hollywood Bowl debut Thursday night is more out of awe—as we do Napoleon or Joan (of Arc)—than familiarity or convenience. Winner of Salzburg’s young conductor competition in 2012 and appointed Los Angeles Philharmonic assistant conductor last week, she is a natural leader and a musical force of nature.… [Grazinyte-Tyla’s] conducting style is striking. Standing erectly with her legs apart and stationary, she operates from her upper body, vivaciously waving her arms as though corralling the musicians.… But her ear for odd sounds and indifference to Romanticism in a program that began with Brahms’s Double Concerto (featuring L.A. Phil principal cellist Robert deMaine and guest violinist Alina Pogostkina) and ended with Mahler’s effusive First Symphony, gives the impression of a surprising, if aggressive, modernity.… The orchestra gave her everything she wanted, brightly and brilliantly.”
Posted August 12, 2014
