Residents of Los Angeles are popularly maligned as shallow and obsessed with the next big thing. But since its first concert in 1919 – when the city was more wild west than Hollywood – the LA Philharmonic has brought live, high culture to what is now the second-largest city in the US.
For the opening concert of its centennial season last week, the bold and eclectic LA Phil brought in Coldplay’s Chris Martin and other pop stars. The performance was emblematic of the orchestra, recognized as among the very best in country and which has not been afraid to take risks. That has only increased during the tenure of its star conductor, Gustavo Dudamel.
As the orchestra begins its landmark season with an unprecedented 50 commissions and an approximately $125m budget – the biggest of any orchestra in the US – the Phil’s place in the cultural scene is only set to increase.
One hundred years on, the defining factor of this orchestra is its ability to blend genres and styles to create totally new takes on classical works.
The LA Phil’s new CEO, Simon Woods, a British transplant, said it employed an “expansive approach” towards programming, thinking “really, really hard about the kinds of experiences it provides for people from every different background you can imagine”. That results in shows and events based in classical, pop, jazz and world music.
The orchestra is, “I think, the most innovative orchestra anywhere with their programming”, said Dr Robert Cutietta, the dean of the USC Thornton school of music, referencing the Phil’s focus on contemporary music and diverse festivals.
Beyond programming, however, Woods sees a deeper mission, given the weight of the Phil as an arts organization in LA. “You have a kind of big moral responsibility to think about how you make the greatest impact in communities beyond paying audiences,” he said.
And it is here where the Phil’s reach may well turn out to be greatest. Beyond world music-themed events like last year’s CDMX (Mexico) and Reykjavik festivals, and free events like this year’s Celebrate LA!, the Phil runs Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, a music education program for low-income communities.
“I see literally thousands of children on a different and more promising path than they or their families ever imagined,” said Dudamel, who was a beneficiary of Venezuela’s El Sistema program and holds a belief in music’s “magic power to transform”, he said.
The Phil’s reach also extends to the art community at large. For Refik Anadol, a Turkish artist who moved the United States six years ago, the institution supported him out of university to manifest “life-transforming” projects that allowed him to open his studio.
For the centennial, he created a visual projection derived from the Phil’s archive – 45 terabytes of data – which is displayed on the exterior of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in patterns determined by machine learning algorithms.
“The LA Phil is like a dream machine,” he said.
Cutietta said the orchestra “permeates everything” and is responsible for the “whole atmosphere” of things going on in the music community.
“There is this whole ‘can do’ attitude here with the arts. The people who are doing classical music are excited about it; it’s not [only] a job,” he said, mentioning several pop-up orchestras and experimental work being done here.
Despite starting more than 75 years after the New York Philharmonic, the LA Phil quickly caught up, thanks to a rich founder, and has always had a knack for luring top talent from the east coast and around the world, including a list of guest conductors that includes Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Leonard Slatkin and Arnold Schoenberg.
The Phil has also developed its own legends, bringing in promising young men in their 20s and early 30s including Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the exuberant Dudamel.
The Phil has not had a gilded ride throughout its history, however.
William Andrews Clark Jr, son of one of the wealthiest Americans during that time and a US senator, underwrote the Phil to the tune of $200,000 annually for the first several years.
But the Phil would soon hit tough times, along with the rest of the country in the late 1920s – exacerbated by Clark suddenly deciding to cut his funding. The Phil rebounded after successful fundraising campaigns, though its fortunes would continue to yo-yo in the ensuing decades.
Reflecting the boom and bust nature of the town when it comes to artistic endeavors, mid-century years would see the Hollywood Bowl close and reopen, the creation of a landmark venue, the Music Center, and later experiments featuring contemporary music, notably with Frank Zappa in 1970.
The Phil’s current financial fortunes can be traced back to initiatives enacted by the executive directors Ernest Fleischmann and then Deborah Borda, which led the way to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Phil’s current, Frank Gehry-designed home.
Ticket sales at the 17,500 seat Hollywood Bowl, a novel outdoor venue where the orchestra spends its summers, have also been a major source of revenue – one most other orchestras do not have.
Throughout its years, from having a female conductor as early as 1925 to being the first symphony to issue a commercial recording of itself outdoors, the LA Phil has always stood as a representation of Los Angeles beyond Hollywood glitz, with its willingness to take bold risks, skepticism of accepted practices, and ability to inspire people well beyond its city limits, and within.
“LA is different than other places, and the LA Phil has captured this. They’re not trying to be the Philadelphia orchestra; they know who they are,” said Cutietta.
Dudamel put it another way: “What they are sensing is our spirit.”
