AROUND TOWN/MUSIC: Hollywood Bowl, Southwest Chamber Music open classical summer seasons

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

This article was first
published today in the above papers.

 

The last two Southern California major summer music
festivals — Hollywood Bowl and Southwest Chamber Music — open this week.

 

Actually, the Bowl has been up and running with its
pops-oriented programming for a few weeks but its 10-week classical music
season begins with Leonard Slatkin returning “home” to lead the Los Angeles
Philharmonic Tuesday and Thursday.

 

Tuesday’s program will conclude with Beethoven’s Symphony
No. 9, an almost perennial Bowl piece, but this year the performance will
feature a twist as the music for the Finale (Ode
to Joy)
section will be accompanied by video imagery created by Herman
Kolgen. The project is a co-commission of the Phil and the Getty Museum and was
created in honor of Gustav Klint’s Beethoven
Frieze.
July 14 is Klint’s 150th birthday and the Getty has an
exhibit of the Austrian painter running through Sept. 3. 

 

The Los Angeles Master Chorale and four soloists will join
the Philharmonic in the finale Tuesday night. The first half of the program
will feature works by three contemporary women composers: Anna Clyne’s Rewind, Anne LeBaron’s American Icons, and Cindy McTee’s Tempus Fugit.

 

On Thursday, violinist Daniel Hope will make his Bowl debut
as soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. The program will conclude with
Saint-Saens’ Symphony No. 3 (Organ).

 

Slatkin, now 67, might be considered a “Bowl baby.” His
father, Felix, played and conducted at the Bowl in the 1950s and his mother,
cellist Eleanor Aller, played with Felix in the Hollywood String Quartet.
Leonard has conducted the Phil for decades. In 2004, he was named principal
guest conductor at the Bowl and served for three years.

 

The Bowl programs on July 15 and 17 are duplicates. Ludovic
Morlot, music director of the Seattle Symphony, will conduct with violinist
Joshua Bell and double bass player Edgar Meyer as soloist. The program will
include the West Coast premiere of Meyer’s Double Concerto for Violin and
Double Bass and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

 

Information:
323/850-2000; www.laphil.com

 

Southwest Chamber
Music
returns to the Huntington Library on Saturday and next Sunday for the
first of four programs that will pay tribute to chef Julia Child, who was born
in Pasadena on Aug. 15, 1912. Concert attendees can buy dinners in The
Huntington Tea Room that are being created by Huntington Executive Chef Jon
Dubrick and inspired by Child.

 

The weekend’s musical selections will have a French flair:
Debussy’s Danse sacre et profane and
String Quartet, Jolivet’s Chant du Linos,
and Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro.

 

Information:
800-726-7147; www.swmusic.org

_______________________

 

(c) Copyright 2012, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved.
Portions may be quoted with attribution.

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