How do you stay young and vital at age 60? Some solid strategies include taking on new projects, meeting new people, and simply having fun.
The Los Angeles Master Chorale is availing itself of all of the above as it celebrates six decades next season.
The Master Chorale’s 2024–2025 season will include collaborations with several interesting and unexpected creators, including multidisciplinary artist Doug Aitken and singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright. It will also feature the launch of L.A. SINGS! — described as “a set of group singing experiences that invites our entire community to make music with the Chorale.”
“Singing brings us together in ways that are both profound and joy-filled,” Artistic Director Grant Gershon said in announcing the season. “This year we celebrate that constantly evolving legacy with music from across the ages and around the globe.”
Music that will at times emanate from all corners of Walt Disney Concert Hall. L.A. SINGS! gets underway Nov. 10, when Gershon and Rachael Worby conduct singers and instrumentalists from Worby’s MUSE/IQUE. The please-join-in repertory will range from Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre to Harold Arlen and Woody Guthrie.
The series will continue with two holiday concerts: a “Carols on the Plaza” concert on Dec. 16 and the traditional Messiah sing-along later that same evening.
The non-participatory concerts kick off Oct. 6, when Gershon conducts the 60th Anniversary Celebration Concert with short works by classical masters including Tchaikovsky, Anton Bruckner, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Lightscape, a collaboration between the Master Chorale, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Aitken, follows on Nov. 16. A daylong new-music festival will be capped off by the premiere of an original film by Aiken, with a new score performed live by members of the Master Chorale and the LA Phil New Music Group, conducted by Gershon.
For the holidays, LAMC will perform not only a sing-along Messiah but also Mozart’s arrangement of the Handel masterpiece. That concert, conducted by Gershon, will be Dec. 15.
On Jan. 19, 2025, for Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, Jason Max Ferdinand will conduct a program entitled “Lift Every Voice.” It will include a world premiere by Ferdinand, which is an LAMC commission. Another commission, a new work by Reena Esmail, will precede Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana on March 16, 2025; Jenny Wong conducts.
Wainwright’s Dream Requiem, an LAMC co-commission, will have its U.S. premiere on May 4, 2025. Gershon will conduct the Master Chorale and Los Angeles Children’s Chorus in this large-scale work that combines the narrative of Lord Byron’s poem “Darkness,” which chronicles the societal disruption that followed a volcanic eruption, with the Latin requiem liturgy.
The season concludes June 1, 2025, with a program entitled “New Renaissance.” Gershon will conduct music ranging from William Byrd to Michael Abels.
Season subscriptions are now on sale; single tickets will be available Aug. 2. For more information, call 213-972-7282, or go to the Master Chorale’s website.
