In 1807, a 37-year-old scholar living in West Africa was captured and forced aboard a slave ship bound for Charleston, South Carolina. Omar Ibn Said's life and Muslim faith are remembered and retold in this inspirational West Coast premiere inspired by his remarkable 1831 autobiography (the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic).
Set in the shifting darkness of memory and imagination, Omar follows his compelling journey from a peaceful life in his homeland to enslavement in a violent, foreign world. Lost in the wilderness of his thoughts and his stolen life, he's haunted by memories of his family and the people he encounters along the way. Through it all, he somehow remains true to himself and his faith, against all odds. The luminous score—composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels—incorporates distinctive West African traditions with traditional opera instrumentation.
Tenor Jamez McCorkle makes his company debut in the title role, with bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch in a double role as two very different slave masters. Norman Garrett makes his company debut as Omar's brother, with Barry Banks as the auctioneer and Jacqueline Echols as Julie, an enslaved woman who gives Omar the key to a better life.

EPSG:4326

Omar

Los Angeles Music Center

The world premiere of an original, ensemble-devised work from L.A.’s Latino Theater Company. Employing its trademark blend of comedy, drama, music, dance and theatrical magic, the company takes us to Los Angeles, 2042. Years of fires, torrential rain, anarchy and bloodshed have led to a totalitarian city-state where the elderly disappear, their stories forgotten. On the eve of her 75th birthday, faded Chicana starlet Veronica Del Rio enlists the help of her loud-mouth nurse, a kind-hearted police-man fan and a down-on-his-luck poet. Will Veronica find love before it’s too late?

Whittier Boulevard

Latino Theater Co.

Our 2022/23 Chamber music opener spotlights LACO’s stellar solo winds and acclaimed guest pianist Fabio Bidini, the Carol Colburn Grigor Piano Chair at Colburn School. Celebrating the 100thanniversary of Ligeti’s birth in 1923, the program includes two wind quintets considered among the wind repertoire’s most important 20th century additions – Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles, arranged for wind quintet from his noted piano cycle Musica ricercata, and Barber’s Summer Music, evocative of the sounds and feel of summer. Also featured are Schubert’s early piano quartet Adagio and Rondo in F major, D. 487, and Brahms’ exquisite and powerful Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34.

Echoes of Austria: Ligeti At 100

Colburn School

Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as, “one of the best family musicals ever penned!”

Annie - The Sun Will Come

Dolby Theatre

Podcast link: https://youtu.be/4hagYvrYbuM

The Artelize Podcast and Kasper Holten - Pedefining Opera for the modern world

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d36M5Hi6O80

The Artelize Podcast - A legacy of innovation in Opera: Celebrating Marc A. Scorca

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59E40S_EQSY

The Artelize Podcast: A love letter that was never sent

Podcast link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THv6htilWtI

The Artelize Podcast and Adolfo Corrado: Mediterranean flavors, opera and social media

As two Black women composers working in the 1930s, unrecognized and unsupported by their field and the country in which they lived, Florence Price and Margaret Bonds forged a lasting relationship as mentor and student, as musical collaborators, as champions of one another’s art, and as friends. Both Bonds and Price would set numerous “firsts” as milestones in their careers, writing with distinct musical vocabularies that blended their Western classical training with African American styles and forms, and championing messages of Black acceptance and pride in the United States. From art songs to solo showpieces and symphonic excerpts, Julia Bullock curates an evening showcasing the enduring musical voices of Price and Bonds.

A Musical Portrait: Price and Bonds

Walt Disney Concert Hall

“There is no shortage of organists who make their instruments roar...Demers made the instrument sing.”

Isabelle Demers

Julia Bullock curates a program of music by today’s most galvanizing female composers.

Green Umbrella

This mixed-media concert experience explores how oppressed voices across generations use various forms of human expression to realize liberation and freedom. Highlighting the words, work, and experiences of Black American artists, the voices of those enslaved through the 1860s are placed alongside those who lived through years of sharecropping and Jim Crow as well as currently incarcerated individuals. Curated and performed by Julia Bullock with Christian Reif conducting the LA Phil, this concert features all-new commissioned music by an esteemed roster of American women of color, including Jessie Montgomery, Rhiannon Giddens, Elizabeth A. Baker, and others.

History’s Persistent Voice

Both with The Carolina Chocolate Drops and in her own solo work, Rhiannon Giddens has used her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present. Smithsonian Magazine calls her “an electrifying artist who brings alive the memories of forgotten predecessors [of American musical history], white and black.” An exceptional singer, fiddler, and banjo player, she joins forces with the LA Phil to bring centuries’ worth of American music to the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage, performing jazz, blues, country, gospel, and more.

Rhiannon Giddens

ELECTRIC FIELDS is an immersive multimedia staged concert with music by Hildegard von Bingen, Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Bryce Dessner, and David Chalmin. A meditation on the individual and the universal, ELECTRIC FIELDS reflects on aspects of the mystic, cosmic, temporal, and mortal in music that reaches through centuries and collapses time. Three virtuoso performers and five extraordinary composers from the 12th century to the 21st create a mesmeric exploration of music that defies definition, classification, and genre in a stunning 360-degree installation with interactive projections, costume, and light.

ELECTRIC FIELDS

Qigang Chen manipulates traditional Chinese musical materials with Western musical techniques in his virtuoso piece for string orchestra. The brilliant Behzod Abduraimov performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, one of the most technically formidable piano concertos in the standard repertoire. The remarkable Xian Zhang returns to LA to conduct this program, which ends with three of the six tone poems Smetana wrote to describe his fatherland, including the wildly popular The Moldau.

Prokofiev and Smetana

This concert is recommended for children ages 5 to 11.

Rock My Soul

Of the talented pianist, the Sunday Times wrote, “[His] demeanor and technique… radiate calm, yet the precision and speed of his fingerwork can be quite shattering. Seldom, if ever, have I encountered such a combination of evident modesty and utter brilliance.” The Spaniard virtuoso plays Saint-Saëns’ sparkling “Egyptian” Concerto with its runs of flashing pearls. Gustavo Gimeno concludes with Shostakovich’s most popular and power-packed symphony with flashes of both Beethoven and Mahler that was greeted with a 30-minute ovation at its premiere. Gustavo Gimeno—who was called a “wonderfully cogent, adventurous interpreter” by the San Francisco Chronicle—leads the LA Phil in Shostakovich’s triumphant Fifth Symphony.

Shostakovich and Saint-Saëns

Get even closer to expert music making with small LA Phil ensembles.

Chamber Music – November

All rise for Academy Award® winner Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork. The New York Times Critic’s Pick TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is “the most successful American play in Broadway history.”

To Kill a Mockingbird

Broadway in Hollywood

In contemporary Manhattan, Eric and Toby are 30-somethings who seem to be very much in love and thriving. 

The Inheritance: Part 1 & Part 2

Geffen Playhouse

Mindplay is a love letter to the imperfect mind. Drama Desk Award–nominated theater-maker and mentalist Vinny DePonto leads us on a raucous romp through the back channels of our innermost thoughts, exploring the fragmented and flawed nature of our memories, and asks us to question whether we can trust the voice inside our heads. In the spirit of the Geffen’s long tradition of magic comes an entirely new theatrical event in which your thoughts play a leading role.

Mindplay

O‘Halloran – How Sweet the Thought of You as InfiniteShaw – Gustave Le GrayRachmaninoff – Corelli VariationsSchwantner – VelocitiesChopin – Mazurka in A Minor, Op. 17, Nº 4Cerrone – Double Happiness

November concerts - Season 33

The Huntington

Music Academy of the West

Museum of Ventura County

Passion of Dracula

West Valley Playhouse

Floria Tosca, the famous opera singer, seems to have it all. Audiences cherish her artistry—and adore hearing about her tempestuous offstage romances. But as storms of repression and rebellion rage throughout Italy, the diva is forced to play a real-life role she never imagined.  Torn between devotion to her lover and the machinations of a treacherous sociopath who will do anything in his power to break her down, she’s trapped in an utterly impossible predicament, with fatal consequences for them all. But this prima donna isn’t going down without a fight.  The cast is led by four of the greatest artists of their generations. Soprano Angel Blue takes on the iconic role of Puccini’s glamorous but tough-as-nails heroine, with tenors Michael Fabiano and Gregory Kunde sharing the role of Mario Cavaradossi, the rebel who becomes the target of the most dangerous man in Rome. Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny is the evil Scarpia, who likes nothing more than seeing his victims suffer. In her company debut, trailblazing Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv leads a heart-pounding production staged by the legendary director John Caird.

Events in Los Angeles, CA

Omar

LA Opera

Whittier Boulevard

Latino Theater Company

Echoes of Austria: Ligeti...

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Annie - The Sun Will Come...

Hollywood Pantages Theater

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast - A ...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast: A l...

Artelize

The Artelize Podcast and ...

Artelize

A Musical Portrait: Price...

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Isabelle Demers

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Green Umbrella

Los Angeles Philharmonic

History’s Persistent Voic...

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Rhiannon Giddens

Los Angeles Philharmonic

ELECTRIC FIELDS

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Prokofiev and Smetana

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Rock My Soul

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Shostakovich and Saint-Sa...

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Chamber Music – November

Los Angeles Philharmonic

To Kill a Mockingbird

Hollywood Pantages Theater

The Inheritance: Part 1 &...

Geffen Playhouse

Mindplay

Geffen Playhouse

November concerts - Seaso...

Camerata Pacifica

Passion of Dracula

West Valley Playhouse

Tosca

LA Opera