The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is one of the world’s great symphony orchestras. It is considered one of America’s most forward-looking orchestras.
In 2017, New York Times classical music critic Zachary Woolfe, called the LA Phil, “the most important orchestra in America. Period.”
Los Angeles Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
The LA Phil returns to Carnegie Hall with two excellent programs.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by renowned Venezuelan Conductor Gustavo Dudamel, plays the NY Premiere of Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’ “Altar de cuerda” featuring Spanish violin soloist María Dueñas, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, in Midtown, Manhattan on Tuesday, October 25, 2022 at 8pm. From $42. carnegiehall.org 🇻🇪🇲🇽🇪🇸
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by renowned Venezuelan Conductor Gustavo Dudamel, plays the NY Premiere of Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’ “Kauyumari,” the NY Premiere of Mexican composer Arturo Márquez‘ “Fandango for Violin and Orchestra” featuring violin superstar Anne Akiko Meyers, and Copland’s “Symphony No. 3” at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, in Midtown, Manhattan on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 at 8pm. From $42. carnegiehall.org 🇻🇪🇲🇽
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Classical music has a glorious past, but the LA Phil is about creating the future with a focus on commissions and world premieres.
The orchestra’s conductors are a who’s who of legendary classical conductors. It is also a leader in collaborations with great non-musical artists of the day.
Founded in 1919, the LA Phil now performs on three home stages: the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, and in summer at the Hollywood Bowl and The Ford.
Gustavo Dudamel
Gustavo Dudamel is a renowned multi-Grammy winning conductor, originally from Barquisimeto, Venezuela. He is a very contemporary thinker in the Classical Music context who has become a Pop star himself.
The man works like a New Yorker. He is Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Music Director of the Opéra National de Paris and Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. He became Music Director of the Simón Bolívar orchestra when he was just 18.
Dudamel is known for conducting Mahler, and promoting the music of the Americas. He officially took the helm as LA Phil music director in 2009. He was one of “Time” magazine’s 100 most influential people that year.
Gabriela Ortiz
Gabriela Ortiz, from Mexico City, is one of Mexico’s leading classical composers. Known for her serious, but accessible compositions, Ortiz is commissioned by orchestras around the world.
She is a Guggenheim Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and has been awarded Mexico’s highest cultural honor, the National Prize for Arts and Literature.
Dudamel has called her “one of the most talented composers in the world” (NPR). He described her composition “Téenek,” as “one of the most brilliant I have ever directed. Its color, its texture, the harmony and the rhythm that it contains are all something unique. Gabriela possesses a particular capacity to showcase our Latin identity.”
Ortiz dedicated “Altar de Cuerda” for violin and orchestra to María Dueñas who plays its NY Premiere in this concert series.
María Dueñas
María Dueñas is a Spanish classical violinist who is one of the instrument’s most exceptional rising stars. She came up through the world’s violin competitions, and is busy making classical music cool for young people again. She is young, but is already working with stars like Dudamel and Ortiz.
Arturo Márquez
Arturo Márquez is a classical composer from Álamos, Mexico. One of the most important Mexican composers of his generation, he is known for classical compositions inspired by Mexican folk traditions.
His father was a Mariachi in Mexico and Los Angeles. Márquez is known for his Danzónes which are inspired by the Spanish contradanza ballroom dance. His Danzónes are being used for ballets.
Anne Akiko Meyers
Anne Akiko Myers is an American concert violinist who has been one of America’s top-selling classical artists. She was trained by legendary Juilliard teacher Dorothy DeLay. Myers plays a 1741 Guarneri, which some say is the finest sounding violin in existence.
She is another forward looking classical artist. Myers asked Arturo Márquez to write “Fandango” for her, and premiered it with Dudamel and the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl in 2021.
Fandango
Fandango is a Mexican and old Spanish drum, song, and dance tradition with African roots.
European colonizers claimed everything was theirs, and Spain is only 9 miles from Mother Africa, so it’s hard to know Fandango’s true origins. Some say its earliest roots are Roman.
To our eye, Fandango traditions are similar to African Diaspora traditions in the Americas such as Rumba, Merengue, Bomba, Cumbia, Tambor, Festejo and others.
In the Mexican context, Fandango comes from Colonial Veracruz, Mexico’s Caribbean gateway city. Colonizers feared the drum and didn’t allow it, so the new Mexicans from Africa said they were not drumming, they were just stomping their feet. Singers from Kongo, one of the three African Diaspora cultures that rooted in the Americas, were singing the beloved Mexican folk song, “La Bamba” as a Fandango in Veracruz in the 1600s.
That Veracruz tradition became Zapateado, the Mexican foot dance, which looks a lot like Spanish Flamenco, Argentine Gaucho Malambo, and American Tap Dance.