Hollywood Bowl’s 2017 lineup: ‘Harry Potter,’ Misty Copeland, ‘Mamma Mia!’ and more
When the Hollywood Bowl announces its 2017 summer season on Tuesday, the lineup will swing from the ABBA musical “Mamma Mia!” to a Gustavo Dudamel-conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, to Solange and Blondie concerts, to two “Harry Potter” movies with John Williams’ scores performed live to picture. Plus, “The Muppets Take the Bowl.”
“It’s such a big place, and it’s such a wonderful place, and it’s such an L.A. place, a county park that’s really meant for everybody, and we program with that in mind,” said Gail Samuel, executive director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. The orchestra oversees programming and jointly manages the county-owned venue.
“Because we have the opportunity to do such a broad spectrum of music, we have the opportunity to reach a lot of people,” Samuel said. “And I love the differences on different nights, the mix of people that we have. It’s such a cross section.”
Dudamel will conduct nine concerts at the Bowl, his most prolific season there, Samuel said. That includes a “Stars of the Ballet” program in which hometown hero Misty Copeland will make her Bowl debut, dancing with Marcelo Gomes, Sergei Polunin and Natalia Osipova.
Yo-Yo Ma will perform a solo recital — unusual for the Bowl — of Bach’s six cello suites.
Film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment include “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Singin’ in the Rain,” both conducted by David Newman, as well as “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” conducted by Justin Freer.
Fans of musical theater will have to wait a bit longer to hear casting for the Bowl’s annual staged musical, “Mamma Mia!” The Hollywood Hills also will be alive with the Bowl’s annual “Sing-A-Long ‘Sound of Music.’”
The Moody Blues will open the season June 17 in a fireworks-filled evening that also includes Youth Orchestra L.A. performing with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. Other season highlights:
- Dudamel will conduct “Sondheim on Sondheim,” what the Bowl calls “a cabaret-style collage of the composer and lyricist’s life and work.” The conductor and the L.A. Phil also will perform, for the first time, with Tony Bennett.
- As part of the Getty’s “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA” program celebrating Latin American and Latino art across Southern California, the Bowl will stage an evening with the Mexican band Café Tacvba, the Mexican-American band La Santa Cecilia and Chilean singer-songwriter Mon Laferte.
- Jazz at the Bowl will include “100 Years of Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie,” “Quincy Jones: The A&M Years” and “Herbie Hancock and Kamasi Washington.”
The full Bowl lineup can be seen here.
Follow me on Twitter: @debvankin
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