SoCal Sunday Night

Upcoming broadcasts

Tune in Sundays at 7 PM as Brian Lauritzen hosts a new series featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, recorded live in concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

See the broadcast schedule below: Sunday, April 27, 2025

Schubert, Strauss & Saariaho After becoming deeply drawn to “Liebestod” (Love-Death) from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, Strauss composed his own musical exploration of what lies beyond life itself. Through stunning harmonies and masterful orchestration, Death and Transfiguration illustrates a man’s physiological and psychological deterioration. In a similar vein, Kaija Saariaho completed HUSH, her self-proclaimed “journey to silence,” during her final months with terminal brain cancer. Dedicated to jazz trumpeter Veneri Pohjola, Saariaho’s concerto features the trumpet growling from its lowest register and gliding downward like a ghost among the orchestra. Susanna Mälkki takes the lead for the evening, conducting Schubert’s chilling yet charming two-movement symphony, nicknamed the “Unfinished.”

Los Angeles Philharmonic Susanna Mälkki, conductor Verneri Pohjola, trumpet

SCHUBERT Symphony No. 8, “Unfinished” SAARIAHO HUSH (U.S. premiere, LA Phil commission) R. STRAUSS Death and Transfiguration

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Mahler’s Journey Mahler Grooves Festival Mahler has been a specialty and obsession throughout Gustavo Dudamel’s career, and in the opening weekend of the Mahler Grooves Festival, Dudamel curates and conducts a selection of the composer’s music in Mahler’s Journey. He opens with two excerpts from Mahler’s First and Tenth symphonies that frame the composer’s life. Blumine was the second movement from Symphony No. 1, which was removed after a few performances but rediscovered in the 1960s and appreciated for its rapturous trumpet and melancholy oboe. The Adagio from Symphony No. 10 similarly found a new life and was published after Mahler’s death. The unfinished sketches were written during personal crisis and brim with anguish and pain that is expressed through harmonic language that straddles the Romantic era and the 20th century. Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn) is based on a collection of German poetry of the same name that was influential to Mahler and other Romantics. Two dozen of the poems are set to music that with the help of baritone Simon Keenlyside explores stories of love, loss, and the supernatural.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo Dudamel, conductor Ekaterina Gubanova, mezzo-soprano Simon Keenlyside, baritone

MAHLER Blumine MAHLER Symphony No. 10: Adagio MAHLER Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Gustav and Alma Mahler Grooves Festival In the final weekend of the Mahler Grooves Festival, Gustavo Dudamel explores the tumultuous relationship of Gustav and Alma Mahler through their music. Their marriage was, at best, “complex,” marked by affairs, an age gap, diminishment, and the death of a child. Alma was a composer in her own right whose career took a back seat at Gustav’s request. At a particularly rocky moment in their relationship, Gustav finally encouraged her to publish Five Songs that are brought to life here by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke. Next Dudamel leads Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which progresses from mourning to triumph, inspired in no small part by Gustav meeting and becoming enchanted by Alma. Within the grand gesture is the Adagietto that was intended as a love letter.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo Dudamel, conductor Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

A. MAHLER Five Songs G. MAHLER Symphony No. 5

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Tchaikovsky & Schubert Grammy-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich moves fast and furiously through the only violin concerto Tchaikovsky composed, which Hadelich says is the most exhilarating, satisfying, and exhausting piece to perform. “Each one of the suspensions out of which the theme is built feels both pleasant and painful and feels more urgent than the last,” Hadelich writes. Joana Mallwitz revels in the grandness of Schubert’s “Great” Symphony from its opening solo French horn call, through its romping scherzo, to its glorious fanfare finale.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Joana Mallwitz, conductor Augustin Hadelich, violin

Marko NIKODIJEVIC GHB/tanzaggregat TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto SCHUBERT Symphony No. 9, “The Great”

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Mozart & Nielsen Written against the backdrop of the First World War, Carl Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony shifts between turbulent and triumphant as two sets of timpani, winds, and strings wage an internal conflict that ends with the universal truth that the composer described as “music is life, and like life, it is inextinguishable.” Los Angeles-native Ryan Bancroft leads the LA Phil in Nielsen’s primal and spirited symphony as well as Anders Hillborg’s Sound Atlas that channels otherworldly sounds like a glass harmonica to create snowy, crystalline landscapes. South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son brings “elegance and clean, sharply chiseled” sensibility to Mozart that the Vancouver Sun describes as both thoroughly modern but “very much in the spirit of Mozart’s era.” She joins the LA Phil for Mozart’s dramatic and rollicking Concerto No. 24.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Ryan Bancroft, conductor Yeol Eum Son, piano

Anders HILLBORG Sound Atlas (U.S. premiere, LA Phil commission) MOZART Piano Concerto No. 24 NIELSEN Symphony No. 4, “The Inextinguishable”

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Beethoven & Dessner with Esa-Pekka Salonen For well over two hundred years, the “Eroica” Symphony has been celebrated as one Beethoven’s greatest works and one of the most revolutionary masterpieces in classical music. Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the LA Phil in this powerful piece of defiance, contrasting it with Debussy’s dreamy and fluid Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Pekka Kuusisto, a fellow Finn and one of Salonen’s favorite collaborators, joins the orchestra for Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto, which Kuusisto describes as “super energetic, and athletic, active—but it’s the big changes of scenery that really make it magic.”

Los Angeles Philharmonic Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor Pekka Kuusisto, violin

DEBUSSY Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun Bryce DESSNER Violin Concerto BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”

Sunday, June 8, 2025

Ravel & Adolphe Renowned French conductor Ludovic Morlot leads music by Ravel and Granados that captures the spirit of Spanish dances. Seth Parker Woods, the cellist who is “quickly becoming a groundbreaking new-music star in both the avant-garde and pop worlds” (Los Angeles Times), joins the LA Phil for the world premiere of Julia Adolphe’s new concerto.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Ludovic Morlot, conductor Seth Parker Woods, cello

GRANADOS Tres danzas españolas Julia ADOLPHE Cello Concerto (world premiere, LA Phil commission) RAVEL Pavane for a Dead Princess RAVEL Rapsodie espagnole RAVEL Boléro

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Gershwin & Strauss Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s relationship with Gershwin’s Concerto in F started when the pianist was just 14 years old. Over four decades of performances, his love and jazz-infused interpretations have only deepened for a showpiece, which he says exudes “utter joy” that leaves every member of the audience and orchestra with a “smile on their face.” The opening of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra was made famous by Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but beyond the brass and bombast that signal the sunrise lies a marvelous and ambitious symphonic poem that channels nature, science, and questions of the unseen world. Teddy Abrams leads the LA Phil in this orchestral showpiece and Caroline Shaw’s The Observatory inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer's experience looking down at the shape of Los Angeles and up at the night sky from Griffith Observatory.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Teddy Abrams, conductor Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

Caroline SHAW The Observatory (LA Phil commission) (except FRI) GERSHWIN Concerto in F R. STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Tchaikovsky & Pereira Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony embodies a profound journey, rife with dramatic orchestral color, tumultuous emotions, and passionate themes of fate and triumph. Percussionist-turned-conductor Gustavo Gimeno leads the symphony after guiding the orchestra through the suspenseful brass-filled suite of love and obsession from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo before a world premiere spotlighting two of the LA Phil’s own when Principal Percussionist Matthew Howard performs the new concerto by Principal Timpanist and composer Joseph Pereira.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Gustavo Gimeno, conductor Matthew Howard, percussion

HERRMANN Suite from Vertigo Joseph PEREIRA Percussion Concerto (world premiere, LA Phil commission) TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Seoul Festival with the LA Phil: Night 1 South Korea is home to an ever-expanding cohort of inventive composers with fresh ideas and talented performers who have made names for themselves at many of the world’s finest concert halls. In the first of two Seoul Festival programs with the LA Phil, composer Unsuk Chin curates a night showcasing Korean composers and artists who are shaping musical culture and building connections from Seoul to Los Angeles. Composer and UCLA assistant professor Kay Kyurim Rhie was born in South Korea, raised in LA, and she blends influences ranging from film and jazz to European avant-garde to Korean folk melded with the blues. Hankyeol Yoon leads the LA Phil in the world premiere of her new song cycle. Texu Kim’s lullaby-inspired Viola Concerto takes its name “Ko-oh” from the Korean baby-talk word for “sleep,” and he musically explores the idea of sleep as both a nightly occurrence and a mortal and final destination. USC Thornton faculty Yura Lee performs the world premiere of Kim’s revised viola showpiece. In 2006, Sunwook Kim became the first Asian and youngest winner in 40 years when he took top prize in the prestigious Leeds competition with a performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1. The work has remained close to his heart, recording it twice and earning praise by Gramophone for his “beauty of line and sound” and “melodies [that] are molded with great sensitivity,” particularly in the soulful adagio, and Kim joins the LA Phil to cap off the evening with one of his specialties.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Hankyeol Yoon, conductor Sunwook Kim, piano Yura Lee, viola Unsuk Chin, curator

Sunghyun LEE new work for orchestra (world premiere LA Phil commission) Kay Kyurim RHIE new song sycle (world premiere, LA Phil commission) Texu KIM Viola Concerto "Ko-Oh" (world premiere of revised work, LA Phil commission) BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1 This series is made possible through the endowed LA Phil Broadcast Program Fund, generously supported by the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.

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