The Dude came to town. Not Jeff Bridges, but Gustavo Dudamel, who shares with him the disheveled long hair. The conductor and music director of the LA Phil, a.k.a. The Savior of Classical music, (or not), filled up the hall for the first of two concerts at Davies Symphony Hall too. He filled up the stage too, with over a hundred musicians from the LA orchestra cramped around the podium so tightly, we imagined Dudamel flying in over them for his entrance. The man is supposed to have such supernatural abilities that we would not put it beyond him.
First thing on the program: John Adams' City Noir was written for the LA Phil and Dudamel, and premiered at Disney Hall this past October, when Dudamel started his first season in LA (video clip here). In an act of Norcal treason for the Berkeley-based composer, City Noir is a love letter to the Los Angeles of the 40s, as depicted in the movies of the era. What's next for John Adams, the creative chair for the LA Phil, an anthem for the Dodgers? We'll forgive him, he's trying to capture that era's dark, jazzy, edgy atmosphere with his own vocabulary. It's scored for a large orchestra with prominent parts given to saxophone, trumpet, trombone and a drummer (note to composers: drummers should not follow conductors, it does not swing), for the infusion of jazzy colors, interspersed with lyrical string episodes. Especially a beautiful viola solo; and the LA Phil principal violist is the ultimate jack-in-the-box, playing crouched like she learned the viola in the trunk of a ford Taurus, then popping up suddenly.