International Associate Residency at the Barbican
13–17 March 2013
Supported by the SHM Foundation and the City Bridge Trust
A highly anticipated event in the Barbican’s classical music spring season is the first international associate residency from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. The residency takes place from 13–17 March 2013 and will include three major concerts of 20th and 21th century music, masterclasses, an open rehearsal conducted by Dudamel involving young musicians and teachers from Los Angeles and East London, and an international symposium.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, one of the Barbican’s five international associates, performs three concerts during the residency featuring three European premieres. On 14 March the first two European premieres – Graffiti, a new, Barbican co-commissioned work by Unsuk Chin, and Joseph Pereira ’s Concerto for Percussion and Chamber Orchestra – are performed by the LA Phil New Music Group and Dudamel as part of a Green Umbrella concert. Green Umbrella is the Philharmonic’s innovative new music series, and the concert also includes John Adams’ Son of Chamber Symphony.
On 16 March the residency continues with the orchestra and Dudamel giving the European premiere of John Adams’s new oratorio The Gospel According to the Other Mary to a libretto by Peter Sellars, who also directs the performance. Also a Barbican co-commission, the work is based on the New Testament stories of Lazarus and the Passion of Christ, contextualized with excerpts from the memoir of social activist Dorothy Day and poetry by Hildegard von Bingen and by Latin American writers. The Gospel According to the Other Mary was written as a companion piece to the nativity oratorio El Niño, a previous John Adams/Peter Sellars collaboration that presented Biblical tales through contemporary verse. The final concert of the residency on 17 March sees Dudamel conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Claude Vivier’s Zipangu, Debussy’s La Mer and a complete orchestral performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird.
The education focus of the residency is an international symposium Future Play: music systems in the 21st century presented by the Barbican and the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 13-15 March. Bringing together some of the world’s top music institutions, leading artists and educationalists, the symposium explores the impact and need for ensembles, venues and conservatoires in today’s society, and the crucial role they could play in our future cultural landscape. The symposium, which will be opened by John Adams, also includes a keynote speech from director Peter Sellars and panel discussions chaired by Sir Nicholas Kenyon (Managing Director, Barbican Centre) and Deborah Borda (President and CEO, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association). It takes place in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Take a Stand initiative – a partnership of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Longy School of Music and Bard College.
The three-day symposium culminates on 15 March in Discover Dudamel, an open rehearsal in the Barbican Theatre. Audience members can witness Gustavo Dudamel rehearsing a mixed-ability orchestra of 100 young people from across London and Los Angeles in Tchaikovsky’s fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet. The young instrumentalists come from the LA Phil’s Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA), from the Barbican Young Orchestra, from the Music Hubs of Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham and Hackney in East London, from Junior Guildhall, and from the Centre for Young Musicians.
Between the concerts, members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic will give masterclasses to musicians from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The sessions on 15 March at the School are open to the public (free but ticketed) and feature a trombone class led by Nitzan Haroz, a harp class led by Lou Anne Neill, a French horn class led by Andrew Bain, and a cello class led by Robert deMaine.
To complement the performances, Barbican Cinema will screen the UK premiere of Mark Kidel’s documentary Road Movie, a Portrait of John Adams on 16 March, and on 17 March one of the most ambitious live recordings ever made: Dudamel Live from Caracas, in which Gustavo Dudamel conducts 1,400 performers from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8.