BFMI * Bernhard Fleischer Moving Images

20 Years Walt Disney Concert Hall

A Frank Gehry Celebration

The LA Phil honors the maverick architect and artistic collaborator, who designed the iconic downtown LA venue.

Preparations and rehearsals for the big event celebrating the 20th anniversary in the 2023-24 season.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Frank Gehry-designed home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened on October 23, 2003 after 16 years of planning and construction.

24 hours before the gala concert: the calm before the storm.

Pumping up.

Gustavo Dudamel has put many aspects of water into play in his curation of this gala program: Frank O. Gehry’s long-standing fascination with the sea is reflected in the choice of the evening’s repertoire.

The evening’s program journeys from Walt Disney Concert Hall’s storied beginnings to the architect’s oceanic inspirations, immortalized in the building’s steel sails and unprecedented sense of movement.

Lucinda Childs, performing her own original choreography to Esa-Pekka Salonen’s composition “Fog” which is a fantasy around that Bach Prelude, imagined through a dream.

The play of water has seldom been expressed more, well, fluidly than in Debussy’s “La mer.” Indeed, the second of these three symphonic sketches is titled “Play of the Waves.”

Frank Gehry, who turns 95 this year, attended the concert.

The main concert hall contains 2,265 vineyard-style seats placed close to the stage for an intimate experience. The hall features wooden walls and ceiling panels designed to optimize acoustics, developed by the master architect of the invisible: acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota.

Herbie Hancock performs “Maiden Voyage,” the title track from his 1965 album recorded for Blue Note Records, continuing the concert’s aquatic theme.

A new member the circle of artistic collaborators is H.E.R., the Grammy- and Oscar-winning Bay Area R&B singer-songwriter.

“Thank you Herbie Hancock for playing with me!”

“I’m so happy to be here and I wanna thank you, Gustavo, for letting me play with you once again, and for all of these amazing musicians. I cannot believe, I’m standing next to you again. It’s an honor!”

“Liquid architecture. It’s like jazz, you improvise, you work together, you play off each other, you make something, they make something.” – Frank Gehry

Herbie Hancock, the Phil’s Creative Chair for Jazz, superstar R&B singer H.E.R., together with Gustavo Dudamel.

Paul Jacobs, the first organist ever to win a Grammy Award, interpreted Poulenc's Allegro giocoso from the Organ Concerto in G minor in a fierce and virtuoso manner - befitting the occasion.

Projections of Frank O. Gehry’s first sketches envisioning “a living room for the city.” Gehry’s choice of steel over titanium was tied to his desire to have scenes of every concert projected onto the skin of the building in real time.

“The most important thing to do when you design a place like that, is to connect people. There’s nothing tricky about it, it’s just very obvious. The relationship between the audience and the orchestra is the most important thing.” – Frank Gehry

Jonas Kaufmann

The Sound of Movies

Shooting PR Clips with Jonas Kaufmann for his latest album “The Sound of Movies”

“As a cinephile, I have always loved going to the movie theater and listening to the music which heightens our experience of film. This inspired me to record some of my favorite pieces from the movies.”