L.A. Phil first new season without Dudamel big and bold as ever

On Sunday, Aug. 23, Gustavo Dudamel will say his final goodbye to the Los Angeles Philharmonic as music director in a gala Hollywood Bowl late August weekend celebrating his musical legacy of the past 17 Bowl summers. And then what?

For the first time in 64 years, the L.A. Phil will be without a music director, and with no one in waiting in the wings. But you may barely notice. In little more than three months, Dudamel, although newly installed as music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic, will be saying hello once again to his old band at Walt Disney Concert Hall for two weeks of Beethoven.

Then, in January, Esa-Pekka Salonen, named music conductor laureate in 2009 after his transformative 17 years as music director, begins his first concerts in his new role of creative director, assuring the L.A. Phil remains the venturesome leader of the international orchestra pack.

The L.A. Phil 2026-27 season, announced Tuesday, appears as intrepid as ever. The daunting 11-page press release is packed with names, events, series, festivals, jazz series, song series, new music series, new music everything (22 commissions), recitals, rituals, opera, YOLA — within Walt Disney Concert Hall and without. The without even features a pilgrimage to Topanga Tower, the mysterious cold-war relic in the Santa Monica mountains.

Esa-Pekka Salonen, pictured in May 2025, will begin his first concerts in January in his new role as creative director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

(David Swanson / For The Times)

The centerpiece of the season will be a far-reaching “Rituals Festival,” curated by Salonen. In it, the conductor and composer examines how rituals run our lives, from the tiniest ones we barely notice to those that define our existence. The ritual could be which foot you put your shoe on first every morning or assisting the person you love the most in this world take a final breath in leaving it.

The mundane will be explored in a multimedia collaboration with Salonen and director/disrupter Yuval Sharon, a former L.A. Phil artist collaborator and currently director of the Metropolitan’s new hit production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” The existential will be embodied (and disembodied) with the U.S. premiere of “One Morning Turns Into an Eternity,” the profoundly original operatic study — utilizing monodramas by Schoenberg and Mahler — of dying and transcending that Salonen and director Peter Sellars created for the Salzburg Festival last summer.

Other rituals will include Salonen conducting Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” (a Salonen specialty, which has also become a Disney Hall rite in its own right) and a program of requiems by Mozart and György Ligeti (another Salonen specialty).

Beyond the rituals, Salonen will also perform Ravel’s Piano Concerto with Mitsuko Uchida as soloist in a program that begins with the premiere of his revision of “Tiu,” his big-boned score that was written to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Walt Disney Concert Hall. He will also premiere a new violin concerto, “How to be a Bird” by Gabriella Smith.

Dudamel, who has just finished four Beethoven-centric weeks with the L.A. Phil and who will conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Bowl this summer, is making Beethoven a refrain of his first season in New York, as well. He then brings that current obsession back to L.A., surveying Beethoven’s first four piano concertos with Rudolf Buchbinder as soloist, along with Beethoven’s Third (“Eroica”) and Fifth Symphonies.

A ritual Dudamel created in L.A. was opening each season with the premiere of newly commissioned work. He has taken that New York and chosen Canadian composer Zosha di Castri, who came to early attention when John Adams championed her at the L.A. Phil in 2011. The new work happens to be a co-commission with the L.A. Phil, and Dudamel will perform it at Disney in May.

In connection with the emphasis on rituals, the orchestra will host a “Minimalist Spotlight,” throughout a season that will see the 90th birthdays of Philip Glass and Steve Reich, along with the 80th of Adams, who continues as the orchestra’s creative chair. This will include both Glass’ latest score — Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln” — and the premiere of Reich’s “All Your Ways.” “Lincoln,” which celebrates America’s semiquincentennial, is the symphony that Glass pulled from the Kennedy Center. The Boston Symphony will host the world premiere of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln,” on July 5.

Other major minimalism attractions are a program of selections to four ground-breaking Adams music theater pieces created in collaboration with Sellars — “Nixon in China,” “The Death of Klinghoffer” and “Doctor Atomic” — conducted by the composer and featuring his current muse, Julia Bullock. A program of Eastern European Minimalists, highlighted by Henryk Gorecki’s famed Third Symphony, will be conducted by Iceland Symphony music director Eva Ollikainen. The L.A. new music band Wild Up teams up with Meredith Monk’s vocal ensemble for her latest major work, “Indra’s Net.”

The orchestra has never been much for anniversaries or holiday music, but it clearly is this season. The animated French early music specialist Emmanuelle Haïm, the orchestra’s artistic collaborator, isn’t letting Christmas get away this year. She will lead performances of Handel’s “Messiah,” featuring the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and Christmas-themed program of works by Corelli for her lively period instrument ensemble, “Le Concert d’Astrée.”

Yuja Wang and Vikingur Olafsson perform at Walt Disney Concert Hall in February 2025. Both are part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2026-27 season.

(Timothy Norris / Los Angeles Philharmonic)

The list of regulars, guest conductors and soloists is long and the repertory widely varied. The conductors include former principal guest conductor Susan Mälkki, Elim Chan, Gustavo Gimeno, Anna Handler, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Louis Langrée and Xian Zhang. Joana Mallwitz, whose debut with the orchestra last year was a thrill a minute, has been invited back. Two conductors getting a good deal of attention lately make their debuts. Czech conductor Petr Popelka is rumored to be a strong candidate in the Cleveland Orchestra’s music director search. Russian conductor and pianist Maxim Emelyanychev brings improvisational flair to Baroque and classical period music. Los Angeles Opera’s new music director Domingo Hindoyan will lead a program with his wife, soprano Sonya Yoncheva, as soloist.

Guest artists as soloists or giving solo recitals include Emanuel Ax, Seong-Jin Cho, Helene Grimaud, Lang Lang, Vikingur Ólafsson and many others on the classical side; Herbie Hancock, Pat Benatar, Andrew Bird, Bernadette Peters and Kamasi Washington et. al. in jazz and pop.

And, of course, there is Yuja Wang. She will open the season, with a gala conducted by Teddy Abrams, who becomes artistic director of the Ojai Festival next season. Wang sticks around for the first subscription concerts as soloist Barber’s Piano Concerto, with Kwamé Ryan conducting.

Guest orchestras have become rare guests these days. Touring is expensive, not great for the environment and can be a visa nightare for foreign performers. Next season there will be two in Disney: Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal led by its music director Rafael Payare (who is also music director of the San Diego Symphony) and the London Symphony and its music director Antonio Pappano.

One more ritual. Conducting YOLA, the youth orchestra and teaching program founded by Dudamel on Day One arriving in L.A. (even before he officially became music director), remains a ritual when he’s in town. Although there has been controversy over possibly cutting back on YOLA, the orchestra says it remains vital. The season will include a major celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Gehry-designed Beckmen YOLA Center. The architect who died in December will be further honored during the season with a performance by the L.A. Phil of Thomas Adès’ “Tower for Frank Gehry.”

And then there is that other tower in Topanga. The pilgrimage, caping Salonen’s “Rituals,” involves dancer and choreographer Dimitri Chamblas, producer Kate Nordstrom and composer Tim Hecker. No word yet on what they’ll be up to.