“Not only had Los Angeles built the nation’s second major modern performing arts center, after New York’s Lincoln Center, we built it our way. And the world noticed. … Fifty years later we can look back and see the extent to which the Music Center shaped Southern California’s cultural identity. It got not only the world to take us more seriously but we began to take ourselves more seriously.”
Tag: 11.16.14
How Dorothy Chandler Got The L.A. Music Center Built
“The campaign she led resulted in about $19 million in private donations – equivalent to about $146 million today – and a permanent home for the L.A. Phil. It was a feat that Time magazine called … ‘perhaps the most impressive display of virtuoso money-raising and civic citizenship in the history of U.S. womanhood.'”
We’ve Been Using The L.A. Music Center Backwards For 50 Years
“What most of us consider the front of the Music Center, along Grand Avenue, architect Welton Becket actually imagined as a secondary, less glamorous entrance. And what Becket designed as the public gateway to its plaza, along Hope Street, we think of as the back-of-house: as the spot for valet drop-offs and little more.” Christopher Hawthorne explains why – and how all this may change before too long.
Looking At L.A.’s Center Theater Group – And How To Wake It Up
“For Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty, Michael Ritchie’s 2005 takeover as artistic director of the Center Theatre Group was the beginning of a roller coaster ride. McNulty reflects on the ups and downs, and offers a plan to revitalize the Mark Taper Forum.”
How L.A. Music Center Is Trying To Broaden Its Audiences
“The staircase and the Pavilion’s other markers of classical European opulence still dazzle. But 50 years later, the Music Center has a very different awareness of the need to reflect its audience, and it can’t be done just with mirrors.” Mike Boehm looks at the Center’s changing offerings, from a hip-hop festival to an ambitious dance program to a huge ukulele jam session.
L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Needs Work – $350 Million Worth
From acoustical improvements to replacing 50-year-old heating and air-conditioning equipment to addingmore bathrooms to a big backstage wall “that appears to serve no purpose except getting in the way, … the needs are not cosmetic but fundamental to how efficiently and cost-effectively the Pavilion can operate.”
50 Great Moments From L.A. Music Center’s 50 Years
From Zubin Mehta sipping champagne onstage during the Philharmonic’s first concert there, through the birth of opera and theater companies (and one of the great works of American drama), to a celebrated concert hall and a new ballet troupe – with plenty of Oscar lore and offstage drama along the way.
Former Boy Wonder Michael Tilson Thomas Turns 70
“His mission – of boldly presenting diverse repertory; of not being hemmed in by perceived boundaries between styles and eras; of championing living composers, especially Americans, and especially younger ones – [has] had enormous impact on the scene.”
Going Deep On The Art Of Richard Serra And Martin Puryear
“The experience can be exhilarating, threatening, vertiginous, lonely, isolating, apocalyptic and pleasurable. I remember once thinking this might have been what it felt like to be a lowly Greek foot soldier commanded to approach the impregnable walls of Troy.”
Can A City Have Too Much Theatre?
“Overall, theatergoers seem to be increasingly reluctant to commit to season tickets. They prefer flexibility, and most companies sell some version of a flex pass that allows theatergoers to choose an a la carte menu from the season.”