Leonard Slatkin, in his third year as principal guest conductor of the Philharmonic at the Bowl, leads two weeks of themed concerts: an all-Russian program with Gil Shaham in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, and a concert of French and Italian favorites, including overtures by Berlioz and Rossini as well as Ravel's Piano Concerto in G with soloist Andreas Haefliger.
Slatkin also conducts Jonathan Biss in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 and violinist Karen Gomyo and pianist Christopher O'Riley in music by Litolff, Sarasate and Massenet. He closes the season leading programs featuring bassist Edgar Meyer in his own Double Bass Concerto No. 2 and Lynn Harrell performing Dvorák's Cello Concerto.
Michael Tilson Thomas returns to the Bowl for the first time since 1985 for two programs: an all-Beethoven night, including the Symphony No. 9, and an all-American night, including Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, Gershwin's An American in Paris, and two Copland works, Old American Songs with baritone Thomas Hampson and A Lincoln Portrait with Gore Vidal narrating.
Baroque specialist Nicholas McGegan leads a two-week project examing music written for four of Europe's 18th-century cultural capitals: London, Paris, Vienna and Venice. The musical itinerary includes orchestral scores by Handel, Haydn, Arne and Mozart as well as concertos for various instruments by Vivaldi, plus the rarely heard Symphonie concertante for two violins and orchestra on French Revolutionary airs by Jean-Baptiste Davaux.
St_phane Denve returns to conduct the Philharmonic and two acclaimed soloists, violinist Sergey Khachatryan and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, in Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2 and Saint-SaêŠns's Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Egyptian"). He also conducts Stokowski's orchestration of Bach's Passacaglia and a French repertoire program.
Kirill Petrenko makes his Bowl debut with Russian repertoire, including Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with Nikolai Lugansky.
Another summer highlight is film composer John Williams conducting the Philharmonic in his own movie scores.
The classical highlight of the Sunday Sunset Performance series features Slatkin leading a concert version of The Magic Flute, with Isabel Bayrakdarian as Pamina, Eric Cutler as Tamino, Sumi Jo as the Queen of the Night, Alfred Reiter as Sarastro and Hugh Russell as Papageno.
The Hollywood Bowl has been the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 1922.
