LOS ANGELES — Here we go again. Last year at this time, we looked back at our buoyancy, gingerly bouncing back from COVID-19. But 2022 became, with new surges, a boomerang year. Somehow, though, the performing arts are getting through it.
Many institutions, particularly new music groups, were not expected to survive, but Monday Evening Concerts, Brightwork newmusic and its Tuesdays @ Monk Space series, Wild Up and Jacaranda managed impressive and progressive seasons. The in-most-ways wonderful Wende Museum of the Cold War was the outlier, disappointingly dropping its fascinating new music programming.
Musicians, bereft of playing for live audiences during the pandemic, have soldiered on, and many thrived. Gustavo Dudamel has been a model. He's been news every year since his Hollywood debut in 2005 and is easy to take for granted. But his accomplishments in a compromised 2022 require a whole column of their own.
