Last Friday, the LA Phil launched its autumn concert series SOUND/STAGE which, of course, will be an online event due to COVID restrictions. With concert films (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Herbie Hancock, and Rian Johnson are all billed as contributors), interviews, essay, and artwork planned for through November 20, the project will feature appearances from the likes of Kamasi Washington and Chicano Batman, with Andra Day kicking the performances off next Friday, October 9.
“The world needs music more than ever right now,” shared LA Phil Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel in a press release when the project was first announced. “These new, fully-realized SOUND/STAGE programs have grown out of our recent experiences both as individuals and as members of a larger society: the ways we have stayed connected during the solitude and the reflective time of lockdown and quarantine, the overwhelming power, inspiration and passion of the Black Lives Matter protests, the memories of a lighter time when we could share a danzón at the Salón Los Ángeles in Mexico City… our world is forever changed, but our music—from Beethoven to Márquez to Jessie Montgomery—has never felt more urgent, more timeless and more important.”
For more details—and to view Episode 1 featuring mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges—check LA Phil’s page for SOUND/STAGE.
