Equally important, the year gave a major lift to three senior Black composers - George Lewis, Anthony Davis and Wadada Leo Smith - who have been among the most profound, progressive, challenging and influential American voices for decades but given far too little due by the establishment.ĮVER-EMERGING FRANK GEHRY. Phil added Kris Bowers as one of the three composers who curated its “Reel Change” festival of film music, and the Metropolitan Opera at long last staged its first opera by a Black composer, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” by Terence Blanchard, the composer, trumpeter and Kenny Burrell Chair in Jazz Studies at UCLA. In 2021, many an American orchestra worth its salt got the message that playing works by lively and provocative young Black composers like Jessie Montgomery and Carlos Simon is essential. San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra music director Anthony Parnther made impressive appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and on the Jacaranda new-music series, as did Berkeley Symphony music director Joseph Young in his debut with the Pasadena Symphony in a concert that also featured the radiant young - and yet another SoCal native - Black violinist Randall Goosby, whose Hollywood Bowl debut was a highlight of the summer. And when the company emerged from the pandemic this fall, it did so with mainstage productions of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” and Rossini’s “Cinderella” - all of which featured Black singers in leading roles.
In January, Los Angeles Opera named Black tenor Russell Thomas its latest artist in residence. This is also the year in which Black conductors and musicians have rightfully been more prominent in classical music lineups. And the emerging African American conductor and Lakewood, Calif., native Ryan Bancroft has been making waves far from home as the first American conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and, as of this month, the music director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.ĮMERGING DIVERSITY. This is also the year that Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, who has been spectacularly rejuvenating the San Diego Symphony, added a prestigious second music directorship, succeeding Nagano at the Montreal Symphony.
His work includes a revelatory “Ring” cycle on period instruments with Concerto Köln (which is archived on the Dutch radio station NPO Radio 4) and the release of Messiaen orchestral works it’s another of the year’s most stunning orchestral recordings. Throughout the pandemic, native Californian Kent Nagano has been an active presence in Europe.
Their SFS recording is one of this year’s great releases. That program included Berg’s Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham. native Michael Tilson Thomas rapidly emerged from successful surgery for a brain tumor and subsequent chemotherapy to conduct the New York Philharmonic in early November. Meanwhile, with remarkable resilience, the beloved former SFS music director and L.A. His Clarinet Concerto got its premiere in Helsinki yesterday, but without Salonen conducting: Though asymptomatic, he has tested positive for COVID-19. Phil laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen gave early indication that he will be bringing some of his trailblazing rethinking of what an orchestra can and should be to the Bay Area as the new music director of the San Francisco Symphony. Phil Ives symphony cycle and, of course, he did. He was the shoo-in to win a Grammy for his L.A. He also began what looks to be a game-changing music directorship of the Paris Opera with Robert Wilson’s production of “Turandot” this month. Gustavo Dudamel rose to new heights as a conductor in the summer as he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic back to public performance at the Hollywood Bowl and then opened the orchestra’s fall season at Walt Disney Concert Hall. It has been an exceptional year of emergence for conductors from, and of, the West Coast. Here is some of what they’ve brought us indoors, outdoors, in our backyard, around the world and in the digital beyond.ĮMERGING CALIFORNIA CONDUCTORS. And in a heartening number of instances, we have done so in glory, thanks to the many extraordinary first-emergers who made it happen.
Gathering remains a series of negotiated risks, ever more so now with the unpredictable rise of the Omicron variant. That fantasy has been replaced by the reality that every step needs to be taken gingerly and that not all steps can move forward. After our 2020 arts annus horribilis, we foresaw celebratory champagne corks popping and fireworks exploding by 2021’s end. We are not butterflies, winged and free, all splendor, released from our pandemic chrysalis.