Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
This year, the organ at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles turns 10 years old.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is celebrating with a concert Friday evening, featuring several pieces for this monumental music-maker, including Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saens:
Leading the performance is a gentleman celebrating his fifth birthday* with the Phil this year, conductor and music director Gustavo Dudamel.
Friday's show also marks the debut of a new series titled "Inside the Music." The orchestra bills the series as a chance to empower audiences to have "connected" concert experiences. There are pre-show and post-show Q&A sessions to learn more about the music, and even an online game that concert-goers can play.
Gustavo Dudamel says the series is part of a larger goal, to make classical music more accessible to a wider audience, and especially to young people.
“I know that the young people feel like maybe this is music for a funeral, this is music that smells very old," Dudamel says. “No, it’s not old music. It’s always alive, you know, it’s always something that’s happening in the present.”
After five successful seasons with the L.A. Phil, Dudamel says he wants “to keep growing up and to keep bringing more people to listen to enjoy their orchestra, because it’s their orchestra...The doors are open to everybody to enjoy music.”
*To clarify, this is Gustavo Dudamel's sixth season with the L.A. Phil.