111 S. Grand Avenue
Downtown Los Angeles, California 90012

Los Angeles Master Chorale, Conducted by Music Director
Grant Gershon, Spotlights West Coast Composers
Morten Lauridsen, Ingram Marshall, David O and Eric Whitacre
Sunday, November 22, 2009, 7 p.m., at Walt Disney Concert Hall
Concert Helps Launch LA Philharmonic’s “West Coast, Left Coast” Festival;
Lauridsen, O and Whitacre to Attend Concert and Participate in Pre-Concert Talk
The Los Angeles Master Chorale helps to launch “West Coast, Left Coast,” an LA Phil Festival celebrating West Coast composers, by showcasing notable choral works by LA-based composers David O, Eric Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen, and former San Franciscan Ingram Marshall on Sunday, November 22, 2009, 7:00 p.m., at Disney Hall. Music Director Grant Gershon conducts the Los Angeles premiere of Marshall’s compelling Savage Altars, considered among his most prominent works, and the piano version of 2007 National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen’s Mid-Winter Songs, recorded by the Chorale in 1998. In addition, the choir performs Whitacre’s Cloudburst, considered his most popular choral work, and reprises O’s acclaimed A Map of Los Angeles – featuring Mexican folk harp virtuoso Sergio “Checo” Alonso – which it commissioned and premiered in 2008 as part of its LA is the World initiative. Lauridsen, O, and Whitacre are slated to attend the concert and will join Gershon and KUSC’s Alan Chapman for “Listen Up!,” a pre-concert discussion at 6 p.m.

Marshall, among the first generation of minimalists, along with Steve Reich and Philip Glass, wrote Savage Altars, for chamber choir, electronic tape and violin and viola obbligato, juxtaposing unusual text. It derives its title from the Roman historian Tacitus' Annals Book I, which chronicles the Roman campaigns against the German tribes. Marshall notes, “They suffered a devastating defeat by the Cheruscan soldiers in the Teutobugian forest. Six years later, the remains, bleached out bones, splintered spears and debris, of three Roman Legions, were found, the whole of which was named ‘barbarae arae’ – savage altars. Elements of the hymn Magnificat, and the canon ‘Sumer is i cumen in’ are interwoven in melodic and textual contributions. This was written on the eve of the first Gulf War under Bush the elder.”

The Chorale first performed Lauridsen’s Mid-Winter Songs in 1985 under the baton of founding Music Director Roger Wagner, and has continued to enjoy a long and fruitful relationship with the composer, who served as the choir’s composer in residence from 1994 to 2001. In 1980, the USC Chamber Singers premiered the piece with
Gershon, then a student, in the chorus. One of the composer’s seven vocal cycles, it uses winter as its unifying motif and is based on poems by Robert Graves. The Los Angeles Times calls it “accessible in the best sense.”

Tickets to the concert range from $19 to $124. Student Rush seats are $10 and are available at the box office two hours before the performance. For tickets and information, please call (213) 972-7282, or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Event: Los Angeles Master Chorale – Composers from the Left Coast
Grant Gershon, Conductor
Sergio “Checo” Alonso, Mexican Folk Harp
Performance Date: Sunday, November 22, 2009, 7:00 p.m.
(Listen Up! pre-concert talk with Grant Gershon; composers Morten Lauridsen, David O and Eric Whitacre;
and KUSC’s Alan Chapman, 6 p.m.)
Program: MORTEN LAURIDSEN Mid-Winter Songs
INGRAM MARSHALL Savage Altars – Los Angeles Premiere
DAVID O A Map of Los Angeles
Sergio “Checo” Alonso, Folk Harp
ERIC WHITACRE Cloudburst
Venue: Walt Disney Concert Hall 111 S. Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012
Ticket Prices: Concert Tickets: $19 - $124; Student Rush seats available at box office two hours before the performance
Ticket Information: 213-972-7282 www.lamc.org
(Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except
on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.)

Artists, program and ticket prices subject to change.

Official Website: http://www.lamc.org

Added by libbyhuebner on November 4, 2009

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