Dudamel Conducts Tangos Under the Stars with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl
Premieres on Friday, March 31 at 9PM on PBS (check local listings)
Harry Forbes, the marketing director at WNET and Great Performances, shares fun facts about Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Phil Harmonic, The Hollywood Bowl and composers Astor Piazzolla, Alberto Ginastera, and Lalo Schifrin.
The Hollywood Bowl
1. The Hollywood Bowl is one of the largest amphitheaters in the world with a seating capacity of nearly 18,000.
2. The Hollywood Bowl has been the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since its official opening in 1922.
Gustavo Dudamel and The LA Phil
3. Under the leadership of Music Director & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presents music from all genres.
4. For this special occasion, note that Dudamel is wearing a white jacket instead of his usual black shirt.
Alberto Ginastera
5. Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera successfully blended indigenous music with the more rigorous European art music.
6. “Estancia” was based on Argentine country life, and was written in 1941 for American Ballet Caravan, with spoken and sung parts.
7. The dances in “Estancia,” inspired by Argentine folklore, signify the field hands, the wheat field, the cattle men, and the gauchos.
Astor Piazzolla
8. Stephen Holden in The New York Times once called Astor Piazzolla “the world’s foremost composer of tango music.”
9. Born in Mar del Plata, Piazzolla immigrated to New York with his family and grew up on the Lower East Side.
10. Piazzolla wrote a more modern harmonic, melodic and rhythmic tango as we hear in his most famous tangos.
Lalo Schifrin
11. Lalo Schifrin is best known for his Hollywood and TV film scores such as “Mission Impossible.”
12. Lalo Schifrin wrote the “Concierto de la Amistad” for his longtime friend Angel Romero who plays it tonight.
13. Seth Asarnow has a repertory of hundreds of tangos, and can be heard on recordings that range in style from traditional tango to pop.
14. Mr. Asarnow has both composed film scores and played on film soundtracks, working regularly with some of the finest tango dancers in the world.
