Los Angeles Philharmonic announces new season without Dudamel but as big and bold as ever

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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.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 ...