Los Angeles Music Center
Encyclopedia
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center . The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.The Pavilion has 3,197 seats spread over four tiers, with chandeliers, wide curving stairways and rich décor...

, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum
Mark Taper Forum
The Mark Taper Forum is a 739 seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles...

 and Walt Disney Concert Hall
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...

. (REDCAT
REDCAT
Opened November 2003, REDCAT is a contemporary arts center that is an extension of CalArts campus, and serves as the professional presenting arm of the Institute...

, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, is located below Walt Disney Concert Hall but is only loosely associated with 'The Music Center.') Each year, the Music Center welcomes more than 1.3 million people to performances by its four internationally renowned performing arts companies: Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...

, Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group
Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theatre...

 (CTG), L.A. Opera
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...

 and Los Angeles Master Chorale
Los Angeles Master Chorale
The Los Angeles Master Chorale is a professional chorus in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1964 by Roger Wagner to be one of the three original resident companies of the Music Center of Los Angeles County...

.

Origin

In March 1955, Dorothy Chandler
Dorothy Buffum Chandler
Dorothy Buffum Chandler was a Los Angeles cultural leader.-Personal life:Born Dorothy Mae Buffum in 1901 in La Fayette, Illinois, she moved to Long Beach, California in 1904 with her family...

, wife of Los Angeles Times publisher Norman Chandler, began fundraising toward a permanent home for the Philharmonic. Ultimately Mrs. Chandler raised almost $20 million in private donations; the County provided the site and raised the remaining $14 million using mortgage revenue bonds.

The rest of the complex was completed in April 1967. The additional venues, the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre, were dedicated on April 19 and 12, 1967, respectively.

When the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opened its doors on December 6, 1964, the twenty-eight year old Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...

 led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program that included violinist Jascha Heifetz and performances of Strauss' Fan Fare and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's Violin Concerto in D Major. The Mark Taper Forum, "scandalizing the power structure of Los Angeles," according to its artistic director Gordon Davidson, with its provocative opening production of John Whiting
John Whiting
John Robert Whiting was an English dramatist and critic.Born in Salisbury, England, he was educated at Taunton School. His works include:* A Penny for a Song. A play * Marching Song. A play...

's The Devils. The Ahmanson Theatre opened with a performance of the Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha is a musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, lyrics by Joe Darion and music by Mitch Leigh. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay I, Don Quixote, which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's seventeenth century masterpiece Don Quixote...

 by the Civic Light Opera. The first dramatic season at the Ahmanson featured Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...

 in O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

's More Stately Mansions
More Stately Mansions
More Stately Mansions is a play by Eugene O'Neill.Originally intended to be part of a nine-play cycle entitled A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed, Mansions was an incomplete rough draft written between 1936 and 1939 that O'Neill did not want posthumously finished or produced...

, signaling its intent to marry big-name playwrights with big-name stars.

Over the last thirty-eight years the Music Center has seen the American debuts of Simon Rattle
Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle, CBE is an English conductor. He rose to international prominence as conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and since 2002 has been principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic ....

 and Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...

, the world premieres of The Shadow Box
The Shadow Box
The Shadow Box is a play written by actor Michael Cristofer. The play made its Broadway debut on March 31, 1977. The original cast included Simon Oakland as Joe, Laurence Luckinbill as Brian, Mandy Patinkin as Mark, Geraldine Fitzgerald as Felicity, and Vincent Spano as Steve.-Plot synopsis:The...

, Zoot Suit
Zoot Suit (play)
Zoot Suit is a play written by Luis Valdez, featuring incidental music by Daniel Valdez and Lalo Guerrero, the "father of Chicano music." Zoot Suit is a fictionalized version of the real-life Sleepy Lagoon murder trial – when a group of Chicano youths were charged with a murder that they did...

, Children of a Lesser God
Children of a Lesser God (play)
Children of a Lesser God is a play by Mark Medoff, published in 1980 focusing on the conflicted professional and romantic relationship between deaf former student, Sarah Norman, and her teacher, James Leeds. The play was specially written for the Deaf actress Phyllis Frelich, based to some extent...

, and Angels in America
Angels in America
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is the 1993 Pulitzer Prize winning play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. It has been made into both a television miniseries and an opera by Peter Eötvös.-Characters:...

 at the Taper, and performances by Jessica Tandy
Jessica Tandy
Jessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy was an English-American stage and film actress.She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films...

, Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...

, Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

, and Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...

 at the Ahmanson. The Philharmonic and L.A. Master Chorale joined forces to provide the accompaniment to Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...

's restored silent film classic Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky (film)
Alexander Nevsky is a 1938 historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein, in association with Dmitri Vasilyev and a script co-written with Pyotr Pavlenko, who were assigned to ensure Eisenstein did not stray into "formalism" and to facilitate shooting on a reasonable timetable...

. While the Civic Light Opera's last season at the Music Center was in 1987, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera was formed in 1986. Its productions have included Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Tristan and Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

 directed by Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE is a British theatre and opera director, author, physician, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and...

 and designed by David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....

.

Peace on Earth

On Sunday afternoon, May 4, 1969, "Peace on Earth" by Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...

 was dedicated. His sculpture portrays a dove descending to earth with the spirit of peace, symbolized by the Madonna standing inside a tear shaped canopy, supported by a base of reclining lambs. Lawrence E. Deutsch and Lloyd Rigler
Lloyd Rigler
Lloyd Rigler , along with his business partner, the late Lawrence E. Deutsch , helped introduce Adolph's Meat Tenderizer to the world. In 1948, they bought the recipe and name from Adolph Rempp, a chef and restaurant owner in Santa Barbara, California...

 donated $250,000 to commission a work for the fountain.

The architects of the Music Center, Welton Becket
Welton Becket
Welton Becket was an architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California.Becket was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from the University of Washington program in Architecture in 1927 with a Bachelor of Architecture degree .He settled in Los Angeles in 1933 and formed a...

 and Associates, opposed placing sculpture in the plaza between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Mark Taper Forum. However after a two year search, the Art Committee of the Music Center commissioned Lipchitz. Today, no work of public art in Los Angeles is more photographed.

The Dance Door

The Dance Door, a bronze sculpture, was created in 1978 by Robert Graham and donated to the Music Center in 1982 by Frederick and Marcia Weisman. Dance Door consists of an ornamented life-size bronze door, hinged on a bronze frame and locked in an open position. The door itself is hollow centered and composed of approximately 7 welded case panels on each side. Abstracted figures of dancers are cast in low relief on the door panels.

Construction of Walt Disney Concert Hall

On October 23, 2003 the Music Center opened the Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...

-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, expanding the campus to 11 acres (44,515.5 m²). The 2,265-seat Concert Hall is home to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Walt Disney Concert Hall includes the 266-seat Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT
REDCAT
Opened November 2003, REDCAT is a contemporary arts center that is an extension of CalArts campus, and serves as the professional presenting arm of the Institute...

) and outdoor program areas including the W. M. Keck
William Myron Keck
William Myron Keck was an American oil entrepreneur and philanthropist who is now best known for giving his name to the W. M. Keck Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. In 1921, Keck founded the Superior Oil Company in Coalinga, California. In 1954, he...

 Foundation Children’s Amphitheatre, seating 250-300 and the Nadine and Ed Carson amphitheatre seating 120.

Current Governance and Administration

The Music Center is governed by a Board of Directors chaired by John Emerson (2003). Center President and Chief Operating Officer is Stephen D. Rountree (2002). The County of Los Angeles owns the Music Center and provides funding for its maintenance, operations, grounds-keeping, security and ushers. Revenue from the operation of the Center garage offsets these expenses. The Music Center and the four performing arts companies are responsible for the productions presented in the theatres. The Music Center maintains and operates the buildings and the grounds and oversees occupancy of the theatres, restaurant facilities and the Music Center Archives.

Performing Arts Venues

The four main venues of the complex (which also includes some smaller theaters and outdoor amphitheaters) are:
  • Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
    Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
    The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center . The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.The Pavilion has 3,197 seats spread over four tiers, with chandeliers, wide curving stairways and rich décor...

    : 3,197 seats
  • Mark Taper Forum
    Mark Taper Forum
    The Mark Taper Forum is a 739 seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles...

    : 745 seats
  • Ahmanson Theatre
    Ahmanson Theatre
    The Ahmanson Theatre is one of the four main venues that comprise the Los Angeles Music Center.Through the generosity of philanthropist Robert H. Ahmanson, construction began on March 9, 1962. The theatre opened on April 12, 1967 with a production of More Stately Mansions starring Ingrid Bergman,...

    : 1,600 to 2,007 seats, depending on configuration
  • Walt Disney Concert Hall
    Walt Disney Concert Hall
    The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the...

    : 2,265 seats

Resident companies

The complex has four resident companies:
  • Center Theatre Group
    Center Theatre Group
    Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theatre...

  • Los Angeles Master Chorale
    Los Angeles Master Chorale
    The Los Angeles Master Chorale is a professional chorus in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1964 by Roger Wagner to be one of the three original resident companies of the Music Center of Los Angeles County...

  • Los Angeles Opera
    Los Angeles Opera
    The Los Angeles Opera is an opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center.-Current leadership:...

  • Los Angeles Philharmonic
    Los Angeles Philharmonic
    The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...


Education

Since its inception in 1979, Music Center and Family Programs has served more than 16 million and currently serves nearly 1 million students and teachers each year. The Music Center believes the arts enhance the lives of all people and are crucial to the development of every child. The Music Center-designed curriculum materials are included in art textbooks published by McGraw Hill in use across the country.

Education and Family Programs events include World City, Pillow Theatre, Performing Books, the Chandler Children’s Festival, the Family Festival, the Very Special Arts Festival, the Spotlight Awards, and the Bravo Awards.

Active Arts

Launched in July 2004 and designed to expand the public’s experience associated with the performing arts, Active Arts at the Music Center extends beyond the more formal experience associated with performing arts centers. Active Arts programs engage people from diverse backgrounds and experiences and establishes an ongoing series of admission-free or low-cost recreational art-making events that encourage people to sing, dance, play music and tell stories together just for the sheer enjoyment and love of it.

Active Arts programs cut across cross-cultural boundaries and encourage people to participate for the sole purpose of art-making and include Dance Downtown, Drum Downtown, A Taste of Dance, Get Your Chops Back, Friday Night Sing-Along and Jingle Bell Sing.

Dance at the Music Center

Over the past five years, the Music Center has developed an ambitious dance presentation program, which has established a distinguished reputation – locally, nationally, and internationally. The endeavor began in 2000 with the Music Center’s sold-out presentation of the Bolshoi Ballet
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and most renowned ballet and opera companies in the world...

 in its historic production of Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

’s Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

 as well as new interpretation of Don Quixote.

Since then, the Music Center has presented a broad array of ensembles, including New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...

, San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
The San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. SFB is the first professional ballet company in the United States...

, American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre
American Ballet Theatre , based in New York City, was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century. It continues as a leading dance company in the world today...

, Dance Theatre of Harlem
Dance Theatre of Harlem
Dance Theatre of Harlem is a ballet company and school of the allied arts founded in Harlem, New York City, USA in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook...

, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is a modern dance company based in New York, New York. It was founded in 1958 by choreographer and dancer Alvin Ailey...

, Ballet Nacional de Cuba
Ballet Nacional de Cuba
The Cuban National Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Great Theatre of Havana in Havana, Cuba. Founded by the Cuban prima ballerina assoluta, Alicia Alonso in 1948, it has become recognised as one of the world's leading ballet companies...

, Beijing Modern Dance Company, Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham
Mercier "Merce" Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of the American avant-garde for more than 50 years. Throughout much of his life, Cunningham was considered one of the greatest creative forces in American dance...

 Dance Company, Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre
Mariinsky Ballet
The Mariinsky Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in the 18th century and originally known as the Imperial Russian Ballet, the Mariinsky Ballet is one of the world's leading ballet companies...

, Nuevo Ballet Español, Miami City Ballet
Miami City Ballet
Miami City Ballet is an American ballet company based in Miami Beach, Florida. It was created in 1986 by former New York City Ballet principal dancer Edward Villella and flourishes today as one of America's most respected ballet companies...

and Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg.

Membership groups

The Music Center has a number of organized membership groups:
  • The Blue Ribbon, founded by Mrs. Chandler in 1968, has a membership of more than 625 women who champion the performing arts and make substantial financial contributions to the Center's community programs and its resident companies annually.
  • Club 100, founded in 1976, is a group of dynamic professional and civic-minded women who promote the Center's goals through education, advocacy and fundraising. Club 100 sponsors the annual BRAVO Awards which recognize exemplary arts educators.
  • The Fraternity of Friends, founded in 1978, consists of businessmen and entertainment industry leaders who share an interest in the performing arts and the well-being of the Music Center.
  • Center Dance Association (CDA) is dedicated to promoting educational programming related to dance, expanding dance audiences in Los Angeles and creating special events related to dance for the enjoyment and further education of its membership.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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