The Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall

Los Angeles, Sunday, March 7, 2010. One of the great pieces of music in Western Civilization was presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bach’s choral masterwork St. Matthew Passion. Conductor Grant Gershon gave all his energy to the melodic lines of the score, especially in the woodwinds.
I had heard the Los Angeles Master Chorale with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and as here they were always accurate in the tempos.
The Los Angeles Children’s Chorus I had hearted with the Pasadena Symphony but here they were better. The participation of the Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra it was a nice surprise. All soloists were well prepared.
Pablo Cora, as the Evangelist, Steve Pence, baritone-bass as Jesus. Altos Kristen Toedtman, Leslie Inman, especially Adriana Manfredi who I had seen at Tehillim by Steve Reich at Skirball Cultural Center. Deborah Mayhan, soprano had experience by sung the roles of Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust with West Bay Opera, and Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola with Opera Santa Barbara, she did a kind of coloratura melismas.
Abdiel Gonzales, baritone has a flexible voice, his repertoire includes Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Athanaël inThaïs and Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor. Jon Lee Keenan, tenor comletes the casting.

Los Angeles, Saturday, March 13. Edo de Waart Conducted Beethoven and Strauss
The L.A. Philarmonic gave a sheer performance in Richard Strauss tone poem “Ein Heldenleben” (A Hero’s Life) with the elements of its enlarged sonata-rondo symphonic structure. Strauss hero is not a mythological or other one but he wrote himself as the hero and composed a sort of music in the score to depict his critics.
Silver Medalist of the 12th Van Cliburn International Competition, pianist Joyce Yang, played the Piano concerto No3 of Beethoven with gusto, but Bethoven needs dynamics, passion and even tragedy and Mr. Yang has to work again in this concerto in order to delivery what the composer had in mind.

I have to mention the importance of the collaboration of the composer John Adams with the L.A. Philharmonic as a Creative Chair. John Adams is one of America’s most respected composers. In 1985, Adams began a collaboration with the poet Alice Goodman and stage director Peter Sellars that resulted in two groundbreaking operas: Nixon in China (1984-87)
Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, composed for the New York Philharmonic in 2002 to commemorate the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the recording on Nonesuch won a rare “triple crown” of Grammys: “Best Classical Recording,” “Best Orchestral Performance,” and “Best Classical Contemporary Composition.” I met Mr. Adams and had a discussion with him about the opera in America, and I have to say that he a humble and interesting person.
Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel gave a new breath of life as artistic director to the L.A. Philarmonic.