Dates have been announced for a season of the music of Duke Ellington with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at The Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Hollywood Bowl.
Saturday, 22 January 2022 at 8:00pm and Sunday 23 January at 2:00pm:
Symphonic Ellington: Sacred Concerts
Thomas Wilkins, conductor, explores the unmatched legacy of Duke Ellington in a programme of his music for orchestra.
In 1943, Duke Ellington premiered two works about the experience of Black Americans—one, Black, Brown, and Beige, traced their collective history and another, New World A-Coming, imagined a hopeful future. Ellington wrote about the latter in his biography, “I visualized this new world as a place in the distant future, where there would be no war, no greed, no categorization, no non-believers, where love was unconditional, and no pronoun was good enough for God.”
Within the context of the orchestra, Ellington explored these themes, as well as his faith, in many forms, from sacred concerts to extended suites to tone poems. He brought the full range of his musical vocabulary to bear on his symphonic work, weaving spirituals, jazz, blues, and even West Indian dance music into his orchestrations. In two programs over four nights, Thomas Wilkins leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a weekend dedicated to the orchestral music of a great American composer.
Programme:
Black, Brown and Beige
Solitude
David Danced from the Sacred Concerts
Intermission
Selections from The Sacred Concerts
Details here.
Thursday, 20 January 2022, 8:00pm, Friday 21 January 2022, 8:00pm:
Symphonic Ellington: New World A-Comin’ with Gerald Clayton
Thu / Jan 20, 2022 - 8:00PM
Thomas Wilkins explores the unmatched legacy of Duke Ellington in a program of his music for orchestra.
About this Performance
In 1943, Duke Ellington premiered two works about the experience of Black Americans—one, Black, Brown, and Beige, traced their collective history and another, New World A-Coming, imagined a hopeful future. Ellington wrote about the latter in his biography, “I visualized this new world as a place in the distant future, where there would be no war, no greed, no categorization, no non-believers, where love was unconditional, and no pronoun was good enough for God.”
Within the context of the orchestra, Ellington explored these themes, as well as his faith, in many forms, from sacred concerts to extended suites to tone poems. He brought the full range of his musical vocabulary to bear on his symphonic work, weaving spirituals, jazz, blues, and even West Indian dance music into his orchestrations. In two programs over four nights, Thomas Wilkins leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a weekend dedicated to the orchestral music of a great American composer.
Programme:
Night Creature
New World A-Comin'
Intermission
Black, Brown and Beige
The River Suite
Details here.
Saturday, January 15, 2022, 8:00pm:
Robert Glasper Reimagines Ellington
Sat / Jan 15, 2022 - 8:00PM
The pianist partners with an orchestra and some very special guests in a 21st-century tribute to Duke Ellington.
Like Duke Ellington before him, Robert Glasper sees through the boundaries that are often laid down between genres and styles of music. An accomplished pianist respected by the jazz establishment, he’s also deeply in touch with the sounds that are shaping the 2020s, and is a go-to collaborator for everyone from Herbie Hancock to Kendrick Lamar. Together with an orchestra and some very special guests, he’ll erase the boundaries of time, too, bringing the music of Ellington into conversation with jazz’s present and its future.
Details here.
