Sunday, November 22, 2009, 7 p.m., at Walt Disney Concert Hall

Concert Helps Launch LA Philharmonic’s “West Coast, Left Coast” Festival;
Lauridsen, O and Whitacre to Attend Concert and Participate in Pre-Concert Talk

The Los Angeles Master Chorale helps to launch “West Coast, Left Coast,” an LA Phil Festival celebrating West Coast composers, by showcasing notable choral works by LA-based composers David O, Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen, and former San Franciscan Ingram Marshall on Sunday, November 22, 2009, 7:00 p.m., at Disney Hall. Music Director Grant Gershon conducts the Los Angeles premiere of Marshall’s compelling Savage Altars, considered among his most prominent works, and the piano version of 2007 National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen’s Mid-Winter Songs, recorded by the Chorale in 1998. In addition, the choir performs Whitacre’s Cloudburst, considered his most popular choral work, and reprises O’s acclaimed A Map of Los Angeles – featuring Mexican folk harp virtuoso Sergio “Checo” Alonso – which it commissioned and premiered in 2008 as part of its LA is the World initiative. Lauridsen, O, and Whitacre are slated to attend the concert and will join Gershon and KUSC’s Alan Chapman for “Listen Up!,” a pre-concert discussion at 6 p.m.

Marshall, among the first generation of minimalists, along with Steve Reich and Philip Glass, wrote Savage Altars, for chamber choir, electronic tape and violin and viola obbligato, juxtaposing unusual text. It derives its title from the Roman historian Tacitus' Annals Book I, which chronicles the Roman campaigns against the German tribes. Marshall notes, “They suffered a devastating defeat by the Cheruscan soldiers in the Teutobugian forest. Six years later, the remains, bleached out bones, splintered spears and debris, of three Roman Legions, were found, the whole of which was named ‘barbarae arae’ – savage altars. Elements of the hymn Magnificat, and the canon ‘Sumer is i cumen in’ are interwoven in melodic and textual contributions. This was written on the eve of the first Gulf War under Bush the elder.”

The Chorale first performed Lauridsen’s Mid-Winter Songs in 1985 under the baton of founding Music Director Roger Wagner, and has continued to enjoy a long and fruitful relationship with the composer, who served as the choir’s composer in residence from 1994 to 2001. In 1980, the USC Chamber Singers premiered the piece with Gershon, then a student, in the chorus. One of the composer’s seven vocal cycles, it uses winter as its unifying motif and is based on poems by Robert Graves. The Los Angeles Times calls it “accessible in the best sense.”

Whitacre, who has been praised by the Los Angeles Times for his "works of unearthly beauty and imagination, (with) electric, chilling harmonies," wrote Cloudburst, in 1992, at age 22, while an undergraduate student at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he studied music composition with Ukrainian composer Virko Baley. Written for eight-part choir, it is based on Octavio Paz's poem El Cántaro Roto (The Broken Water-Jug). The work, which was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance, opens with long sustained notes sung a cappella. Handbells, claps and snaps by the singers, a percussive thunder sheet, bass drum, cymbal and wind chimes gradually build into a sonic storm, which then fades to mirror the beginning of the piece. Whitacre has received composition awards from the Barlow International Composition Competition, the American Choral Directors Association and the American Composers Forum. In 2001, he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the coveted Raymond C. Brock commission by the American Choral Directors Association.

O’s A Map of Los Angeles has been described as “sassy,” and “touching” and hailed for “tapping into a feeling of community.” The 25-minute, six-movement piece, a shifting soundscape of LA that is ripe with emotion and whimsy, features mixed choir, Mexican folk harp, piano, acoustic bass and two percussionists. Set to a primarily non-verbal text, O created a meditation on the dead. He explains, “They’re bits of text you might see when driving around LA that also merge Spanish and English in sometimes nonsensical sometimes macabre and sometimes poignant ways.” O drew inspiration and material for the piece from three quintessential LA landmarks. He began writing the piece in front of the baseball stadium of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, whose most recent name change has been much maligned. A bus trip to the La Brea Tar Pits supplied vital visual and audio impressions of the city, and an unplanned stop at Evergreen Cemetery, the city’s oldest cemetery, provided a unique historical and personal perspective on the region.

Tickets to the concert range from $19 to $124. Student Rush seats are $10 and are available at the box office two hours before the performance. For tickets and information, please call (213) 972-7282, or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.

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EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Calendar Listing

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The Grammy-nominated LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE, currently celebrating its 46th Season, has been cited as a national leader for its innovative and dynamic programming. Los Angeles Times states the Chorale “has become the most exciting chorus in the country under Grant Gershon.” Since its founding in 1964, LAMC has presented more than 450 concerts, including choral music from the earliest writings to the most recent contemporary compositions. In 2003 the Chorale became one of two resident companies in Walt Disney Concert Hall, launching a period of incredible artistic and organizational growth. The Chorale has commissioned 21 and premiered 51 new works, and has recorded 6 CD's. The Chorale’s most recent recording with Gershon, Daniel Variations, was released on Nonesuch in spring 2008. LAMC performs a season of seven concerts at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, plus two performances of the Messiah Sing-Along; and the family-friendly Holiday Wonders concert in December; and also performs regularly with the L.A. Philharmonic. The Los Angeles Master Chorale has more than 1,000 subscribers, serves over 40,000 audience members of all ages, and provides education outreach to approximately 13,000 children each year. In 2008, one of the Chorale’s highly successful outreach programs, “Voices Within,” earned the coveted Chorus America Education Outreach Award.

Los Angeles Master Chorale Music Director GRANT GERSHON is equally at home with symphonic and choral music, opera, and musical theater. He was named Music Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 2001, and also serves as LA Opera Associate Conductor/Chorus Master. During his tenure with the Chorale, he has led over 60 programs at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Gershon has also expanded the choir’s repertoire considerably, conducting dozens of world, U.S., West Coast and Los Angeles premieres. His Nonesuch recording with the Chorale of Steve Reich’s You Are (Variations) was honored with the WQXR Gramophone America Award in 2006. The New York Times, Washington Post and Newsday, among others, selected it as one of the top ten classical recordings of 2005. In 2002 he made his first CD with the Master Chorale, featuring the world premiere recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s first choral work as well as Philip Glass’s Itaipú (RCM 12004). Gershon has also served as chorus master on two Grammy Award-nominated CD’s, Sweeney Todd (New York Philharmonic Special Editions) and Ligeti’s Grand Macabre (Sony Classical). He has appeared on the Great Performers series at Lincoln Center leading the LA Master Chorale, and on the Making Music Series at Zankel Hall. Gershon conducted the Minnesota Opera’s world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s acclaimed opera The Grapes of Wrath, led subsequent performances of the work with the Utah Symphony and also conducted the cast recording released in 2008 on P.S. Classics. Last season he made his highly acclaimed Los Angeles Opera debut leading eight performances of Verdi’s La Traviata. Gershon received his bachelor of music degree cum laude in piano performance from USC, and currently serves on the USC Thornton School of Music Board of Councilors.

SERGIO “CHECO” ALONSO SERGIO is a master of the Mexican folk harp traditions from the southern coast of Veracruz and the western states of Jalisco and Michoacan, the jarocho and mariachi traditions, respectively. Alonso began studying and researching Mexican folk music in 1993 in the ethnomusicology department at UCLA, studying with Jesus Guzman of Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano and other Mexican and Latin American master harpists, including Alberto de la Rosa, Delfino Guerrero, Ivan Velasco and others. A teacher at San Fernando High School and instructor for the Mariachi Master Apprentice Program, Alonso also performs regularly with Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, with whom he has received a Grammy, Mariachi Nuevo Cuicatlan, and Grupo Aves. He received a 2006/2007 Master Musician Fellowship from the Durfee Foundation.

Artists, program and ticket prices subject to change.

08/17/09