The Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall

Composers paint with the colors of the orchestra. With a wide range of musical examples and vibrant visuals, Alan Chapman gives you a fascinating look at their compositional techniques and spotlights some of the greatest masters of orchestration.

After becoming deeply drawn to "Liebestod" (Love-Death) from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde", Strauss composed his own musical exploration of what lies beyond life itself. Through stunning harmonies and masterful orchestration, "Death and Transfiguration" illustrates a man’s physiological and psychological deterioration. In a similar vein, Kaija Saariaho completed "HUSH", her self-proclaimed "journey to silence," during her final months with terminal brain cancer. Dedicated to jazz trumpeter Veneri Pohjola, the concerto features the trumpet growling from its lowest register and gliding downward like a ghost amongst the orchestra. Susanna Mälkki takes the lead for the evening, conducting Schubert’s chilling yet charming two-movement symphony, nicknamed the "Unfinished."

Michael Tilson Thomas has been part of the LA Phil family for more than five decades, and the orchestra celebrates MTT's 80th birthday with a not-to-be-missed special night of music. 

For four decades, the Japanese group KODO has shown off the extraordinary emotional and artistic range of the traditional taiko drum on stages around the world. Their new program Warabe looks to the group’s classic repertoire and aesthetics from their earliest days, blending simple forms of taiko expression that celebrate the unique sound, resonance, and physicality synonymous with KODO.

Xian Zhang brings a special treat to LA Phil audiences, conducting Zemlinsky’s seldom performed symphonic fairytale inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. The 40-minute fantasy follows a sea creature’s dilemma of longing and heartbreak, building upon winding, heartrending strings, and rich yet mysterious harmonies. George Li, a Silver medalist in the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, tugs even further on listeners’ heartstrings with the composer’s lyrical First Piano Concerto.

Twenty-four-year-old Bronx native Samara Joy sings with a young person’s passion and a more-experienced artist’s wisdom. “It’s spooky,” the great bassist Christian McBride has said of the 24-year-old musician. “She sounds and tells stories like an elder.” Joy’s refined, distinctive style has been compared to Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald—all legendary singers who also recorded for Verve Records—but the perspective she shares on her Grammy-winning album Linger Awhile is all her own. She puts her spin on well-known standards like “Misty” and “Round Midnight,” but her deep curiosity takes her deeper into jazz history on “Sweet Pumpkin” and the Vaughan gem “Can’t Get Out of This Mood.”

In 2024, she won a third Grammy Award, for her take on the Betty Carter classic “Tight,” and is currently preparing new music for a full-length follow-up. The New York Times praised the “silky-voiced rising star” for “helping jazz take a youthful turn” while NPR's All Things Considered named her a “classic jazz singer from a new generation.” This is her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut—and she’s only going up from here.

Seong-Jin Cho, a pianist beloved by audiences worldwide, returns for a highly anticipated recital of music by Maurice Ravel, showcasing his tender yet assertive technique.

The Wall Street Journal describes South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho as poised to take his place among the greats of the past “not only for his bulletproof technique, but also for his artistic voice [and] his sense of drama.” Cho joins the LA Phil for Ravel’s Concerto in G, one of the pianist’s favorite works, which he describes as a continuous dialog between piano and orchestra.

Grammy Award-winning conductor Paavo Järvi leads the LA Phil first in Bacewicz’ Concerto for String Orchestra, which combines approachable classical melodies with more modern harmonic ideas. Järvi closes the program with Brahms’ Piano Quartet arranged for orchestra. Schoenberg adored Brahms’ original but felt it was rarely performed well as chamber music, leading him to transform the piece into an orchestral version—given its world premiere by the LA Phil—that brings out Brahms’ shifting variations and colors.

John and Samantha Williams Creative Chair John Adams returns for the second installment of the LA Phil Etudes. The project invites a wide range of leading composers to create new solo etudes, each performed by an LA Phil musician, which showcases their distinct voices and the possibility of their chosen instrument. The theme of soloist spotlight continues with Donnacha Dennehy’s threshold-pushing piano concerto Limina and Missy Mazzoli’s bass concerto, Dark with Excessive Bright, which borrows its name from Milton’s Paradise Lost and slips between centuries with Mazzoli’s blend of new ideas and influences.

Discover the vibrant world of IndieCade in Residence on Jerry Moss Plaza! Explore award-winning indie games, engage with captivating interactive experiences and immerse yourself in the creativity of independent developers.

Who else is a bona fide star on Broadway, at the Metropolitan Opera and on television? Kelli O'Hara can seemingly do it all. From her Tony-winning performance in 'The King and I', to starring in 'The Hours' at the Met and 'The Gilded Age' on HBO, she dazzles at every turn. Her eagerly anticipated company debut, in concert with the LA Opera Orchestra, promises a heart-filling evening of beloved show tunes and more.

A bold world premiere comedy from Los Angeles-based playwright, Larissa FastHorse, about being whoever you want to be, even when it’s not who you are. FastHorse is a critically acclaimed writer who focuses her keen sense of satire to examine Native American perspectives on contemporary life and will be the first Native American writer to have a mainstage production on the Mark Taper Forum stage. A member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, and author of the Broadway comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, FastHorse’s new work shines a hilarious light on ‘shifters’ who exist in a world of self-determined identity. This thought-provoking comic play asks what happens when you don’t believe you are the race you want to be? Change it! Fake It Until You Make It takes an absurd look at what defines who we are, and the lengths some people will go through to change it.

After becoming deeply drawn to "Liebestod" (Love-Death) from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde", Strauss composed his own musical exploration of what lies beyond life itself. Through stunning harmonies and masterful orchestration, "Death and Transfiguration" illustrates a man’s physiological and psychological deterioration. In a similar vein, Kaija Saariaho completed "HUSH", her self-proclaimed "journey to silence," during her final months with terminal brain cancer. Dedicated to jazz trumpeter Veneri Pohjola, the concerto features the trumpet growling from its lowest register and gliding downward like a ghost amongst the orchestra. Susanna Mälkki takes the lead for the evening, conducting Schubert’s chilling yet charming two-movement symphony, nicknamed the "Unfinished."

A bold world premiere comedy from Los Angeles-based playwright, Larissa FastHorse, about being whoever you want to be, even when it’s not who you are. FastHorse is a critically acclaimed writer who focuses her keen sense of satire to examine Native American perspectives on contemporary life and will be the first Native American writer to have a mainstage production on the Mark Taper Forum stage. A member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, and author of the Broadway comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, FastHorse’s new work shines a hilarious light on ‘shifters’ who exist in a world of self-determined identity. This thought-provoking comic play asks what happens when you don’t believe you are the race you want to be? Change it! Fake It Until You Make It takes an absurd look at what defines who we are, and the lengths some people will go through to change it.

Michael Tilson Thomas has been part of the LA Phil family for more than five decades, and the orchestra celebrates MTT's 80th birthday with a not-to-be-missed special night of music. 

Discover the vibrant world of IndieCade in Residence on Jerry Moss Plaza! Explore award-winning indie games, engage with captivating interactive experiences and immerse yourself in the creativity of independent developers.

A bold world premiere comedy from Los Angeles-based playwright, Larissa FastHorse, about being whoever you want to be, even when it’s not who you are. FastHorse is a critically acclaimed writer who focuses her keen sense of satire to examine Native American perspectives on contemporary life and will be the first Native American writer to have a mainstage production on the Mark Taper Forum stage. A member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, and author of the Broadway comedy, The Thanksgiving Play, FastHorse’s new work shines a hilarious light on ‘shifters’ who exist in a world of self-determined identity. This thought-provoking comic play asks what happens when you don’t believe you are the race you want to be? Change it! Fake It Until You Make It takes an absurd look at what defines who we are, and the lengths some people will go through to change it.