• 2019-02-14

Our 2019-20 Season Announced!

Find out more about our exciting 2019-20 concert season featuring an array of contemporary composers, and a very special Lagrime tour date at the Salzburg Festival!

Los Angeles Master Chorale to Open Salzburg Festival in July 2019 with Performance of Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro Directed by Peter Sellars 

Salzburg Engagement Precedes Master Chorale’s 2019-20 season in Walt Disney Concert Hall Featuring Three World Premieres and Vast Range of Contemporary Composers

Nico Muhly, Nilo Alcala, Gabriel Kahane, and Caroline Shaw who have works featured in the 2019-20 season.


2019-20 SEASON HIGHLIGHTS:
 
World premiere of a new score for F.W. Murnau’s 1927 Academy Award-winning film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans by Emmy Award-winning composer Jeff Beal, with the film screened in Walt Disney Concert Hall
 
Celebration of American choral legend Alice Parker featuring world premieres of Master Chorale-commissioned works by Gabriel Kahane and Derrick Spiva Jr. alongside works by Nilo Alcala, Shawn Kirchner, Caroline Shaw, Diana Syrse, and Parker classics
 
25^th anniversary performance of Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium on concert program featuring West Coast premiere of The Faire Starre by Nico Muhly and works by Matthew Brown and Dale Trumbore
 
Master Chorale’s first-ever performances of Bruckner’s “Great Mass” & Los Angeles premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Oceana
 
The Fauré Requiem paired with Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir and Roxanna Panufnik’s Zen Love Song conducted by Associate Conductor Jenny Wong
 
Swan Family Artist-in-Residence Eric Whitacre to conduct Festival of Carols concerts
 
Season to conclude with epic vocal showcase, Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil
 
President & CEO Jean Davidson’s contract extended through 2023-24

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The Los Angeles Master Chorale and Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director, will begin their 2019-20 season with a high profile engagement at the prestigious Salzburg Festival in Austria on July 20 and 21 opening the Festival with performances of its critically-acclaimed production of Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro directed by Peter Sellars. The honor of opening the Festival is a huge international profile boost for the Master Chorale, the country’s preeminent professional choir that is choir-in-residence at Walt Disney Concert Hall and a founding resident company of The Music Center for the Performing Arts.  
 
“To say we will be starting our 2019-20 season with a bang is an understatement!” says Gershon. “To be asked to open the world famous Salzburg Festival with our beloved production of Lagrime is an exceptional honor. We hoped that this touring production would introduce the Los Angeles Master Chorale to the world, and this engagement is such a tremendous testament to our singers, our inspiring director Peter Sellars, and the commitment of this organization to create new and exciting ways to present and perform choral music.”

The Salzburg performances, which will be held in the Kollegienkirche, precede the Master Chorale’s 56^th concert season announced today by Gershon and Jean Davidson, President & CEO. The 2019-20 season will begin in October 2019 and conclude in June 2020 and features a diverse range of contemporary composers and three world premieres. The season will be Gershon’s 19^th at the artistic helm of the Master Chorale and the fifth season under Jean Davidson, President & CEO, whose contract has been renewed by the Board of Directors through the 2023-24 season.


Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director
  Gershon says the 2019-20 season aims to showcase the ensemble’s versatility, blending a cappella works with challenging masterworks performed with the Los Angeles Master Chorale Orchestra. He says the season taps into the joy found in the shared experience of singing and listening to choral music.

“Although we don’t set out with a specific theme for a season, there emerged a strong and deep sense of humanity within these programs. From Bruckner’s ‘Great Mass,’ Fauré’s masterful Requiem, and Rachmaninoff’s epic All-Night Vigil, to the works programmed and commissioned from contemporary composers, there is a strong sense of choral music bringing people together and providing solace and understanding. I truly believe that our extraordinary singers are the best in the world for illuminating and expressing the richness of this repertoire, and it remains my dream job to work with these remarkable voices and composers to create unforgettable experiences for our audiences.”
 
Immersive Concert Experiences


  A special film presentation of F.W. Murnau’s 1927 Academy Award-winning silent film Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans on January 26, 2020 will continue the Master Chorale’s ongoing Immersive Concert Experiences initiative that aims to enhance audience engagement with choral music through collaborations with composers, artists, directors, and choreographers. Widely considered by many film critics and historians to be one of the greatest films ever made, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans starring George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingstone won the Unique and Artistic Picture award at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. It also won the award for Best Cinematography for Charles Rosher and Karl Struss and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Janet Gaynor. For many of the film’s admirers, the only flaw has been its soundtrack. Although one of the first-ever films with a synchronized musical score and sound effects, the music was drawn from various sources and not created for the picture. For this world premiere presentation, Emmy Award–winning composer Jeff Beal (House of Cards) has created a new score for choir and chamber orchestra, bringing a human touch to the monochrome melodrama and reaffirming the Master Chorale’s long association with the film industry so prominent in its home city.
 
Honoring Legacies & Fostering the Future

Two concerts in the season honor the rich history of choral music in America by championing composers of the present:


  On December 15, 2019 the Los Angeles Master Chorale celebrates the 25^th Anniversary of Morten Lauridsen’s landmark composition O Magnum Mysterium with a concert featuring this work that was commissioned by Master Chorale co-founder Marshall Rutter and premiered by the Master Chorale and Paul Salumunovich in 1994 when Lauridsen was the inaugural composer-in-residence. The concert features the West Coast premiere of The Faire Starre by Nico Muhly (a Master Chorale co-commission with VocalEssence and Trinity Church Wall Street) and works by Los Angeles composers Matthew Brown (Sweet Was the Song) and Dale Trumbore (Glorious, Glorious and Threads of Joy). Both Brown and Trumbore studied with Lauridsen at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.


  On May 17, 2020 the Master Chorale and Grant Gershon celebrate the remarkable and continuing legacy of Alice Parker with Come Away to the Skies. As a composer, arranger, educator, pianist, and singer, Parker’s influence and impact over more than seven decades—including collaborations with Robert Shaw that put her on the cover of Time magazine in 1947—are immeasurable. The concert will include the world premieres of new works commissioned by the Master Chorale from Gabriel Kahane, and Derrick Spiva Jr. alongside I Will Arise and Go by Shawn Kirchner, and the swallow by Caroline Shaw, Mar de Sueños by Mexican composer Diana Syrse and Mangá Pakalagián by Filipino composer Nilo Alcala, a piece commissioned and premiered by the Master Chorale in 2015. The jubilant a cappella concert will also feature some of Parker’s most celebrated and beloved arrangements and compositions, including Come Away to the Skies.
 
The 2019-20 season opens October 19 and 20, 2019 with the first-ever Los Angeles Master Chorale performances of Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 in F minor, known as his “Great Mass,” conducted by Grant Gershon in a concert also featuring the Los Angeles premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Oceana.
 
Expanding Horizons

The Salzburg Festival performances of Lagrime di San Pietro in July will follow a May 2019 tour taking Gershon and the company to Cal Performances in Berkeley (May 17), the Barbican Centre in London (May 23), Sage Gateshead in Newcastle (May 25), Cité de la Musique in Paris (May 27), and the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico (May 31). Last year the Master Chorale’s multimedia production of Handel’s Israel in Egypt with artist Kevork Mourad had its East Coast premiere at Carnegie Hall performed by New York ensemble MasterVoices, and its co-commission of Ellen Reid’s dreams of the new world was given its East Coast premiere at Trinity Church Wall Street in January following the world premiere performance by the Master Chorale in May 2018.
 
“There is a new normal for the Los Angeles Master Chorale as we expand beyond L.A. introducing audiences worldwide to our artistry through touring,” says Jean Davidson. “I am pleased to renew my commitment to this intrepid and inspiring organization as we continue to deliver choral music of the highest quality through our performances, our creative partnerships, and the ever-essential commissioning of new works and programming of living composers—including historically underrepresented composers—illustrated by the 2019-20 season.”


Jean Davidson, President & CEO
  In addition to presenting its own concert season, the Los Angeles Master Chorale performs regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale production of Lagrime di San Pietro is made possible with generous underwriting from the Lovelace Family Trust and is dedicated to the memory of Jon Lovelace in honor of the special friendship he shared with director Peter Sellars. The touring production is supported by Kiki Ramos Gindler and David Gindler, Philip A. Swan, Laney and Tom Techentin, Abbott Brown and Jerrie Paula Ortega-Brown, Cindy and Gary Frischling, Marian H. and John Niles, Frederick J. Ruopp, and Eva and Marc Stern.
 
Immersive Concert Experiences and commissioned works are made possible by donors to the Artistic Innovation Fund: Philip A. Swan, and Priscilla and Curtis Tamkin.
 
2019-20 SEASON IN WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL
 
Bruckner’s Great Mass
Saturday, October 19, 2019 – 2 pm
Sunday, October 20, 2019 – 7 pm
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  Festival of Carols with Eric Whitacre
Saturday, December 7 – 8 pm
Saturday, December 14 – 2 pm
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  O Magnum Mysterium
Sunday, December 15, 7 pm
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39th Annual Messiah Sing-Along
Wednesday, December 18, 2019 – 7:30 pm
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  Handel’s Messiah
Saturday, December 21, 2019 – 8 pm
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  Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Sunday, January 26, 2020 – 7 pm 
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  The Fauré Requiem
Saturday, March 28, 2020 –  2 pm
Sunday, March; 7 pm
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  29, 2020 &ndash Come Away to the Skies: A Celebration of Alice Parker
Sunday, May 17, 2020 – 7 pm
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  Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil
Saturday, June 13, 2020 –  2 pm
Sunday, June 14, 2020 – 7 pm
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