LOS ANGELES — Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Frank Gehry-designed home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with a 2023-24 season that will pay tribute to the hall and its architect, the orchestra is expected to announce Tuesday — on Gehry's 94th birthday.
This fall's Disney Hall lineup will call back to Oct. 3, 2003, when an L.A.Times article titled "Disney Hall opens to fanfare" began: "With a parade of stretch limos and the sort of celebrity buzz that Los Angeles usually reserves for Oscar night, a black-tie crowd of the powerful and socially prominent threw a Thursday night coming-out party for the city's most highly anticipated debutante in decades: the new Walt Disney Concert Hall."
The $274 million edifice will once again be the belle of the ball with a 20th anniversary season dedicated to its acoustic charms and the man who made it possible. An early October gala for Gehry will help kick off a season that includes the statewide California Festival featuring more than 50 partnering institutions; a two-year tribute to the film music of John Williams; the continuation of Gustavo Dudamel's Pan-American Music Initiative; a revival of the critically lauded "Fidelio" opera in collaboration with Deaf West Theatre; more than 12 world premieres of L.A. Phil commissions; guest conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Zubin Mehta and Simone Young; as well as guest artists including Yuja Wang, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Marisa Monte and Herbie Hancock.
