Experience L.A. - Yuja Wang & Dudamel: Rachmaninoff Concerto 2
The Experience L.A. series takes USC students on trips throughout the city to experience Los Angeles's dynamic cultural landscape firsthand.
Admission is free and open to current USC students only, who must use the provided transportation to participate.
Renowned pianist Yuja Wang will join conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a captivating, lush, and virtuosic all-Rachmaninoff evening. “Listening to his music, it’s just the most sensuous and passionate thing. I don’t know where he got it,” Wang said of Rachmaninoff. “Every time I play his music, it’s a gift.”
One of the most beloved piano showpieces in the symphonic repertoire—one that has been used in too many films to list—Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 emerged from a terrible case of writer’s block. After being depressed by his First Symphony’s critical flop, the composer turned to hypnotherapy to break his internal logjam. What resulted was an outpouring of captivating melody, unfolding effortlessly with lush Romantic harmony, that earned breathless praise at its premiere. The brilliant pianist Yuja Wang reveals the Second Concerto’s emotional peaks and valleys when she joins Dudamel and the LA Phil.
In the second half, Dudamel leads one of Rachmaninoff’s most loved works that he wrote while living in the United States. Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances was the composer’s final orchestral work and drew on his life’s work with nods to sacred chants and his own earlier music while looking forward to the new harmonic language of the 20th century.
Presented by USC Visions and Voices.
The Experience L.A. series takes USC students on trips throughout the city to experience Los Angeles's dynamic cultural landscape firsthand.
Admission is free and open to current USC students only, who must use the provided transportation to participate.
Renowned pianist Yuja Wang will join conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for a captivating, lush, and virtuosic all-Rachmaninoff evening. “Listening to his music, it’s just the most sensuous and passionate thing. I don’t know where he got it,” Wang said of Rachmaninoff. “Every time I play his music, it’s a gift.”
One of the most beloved piano showpieces in the symphonic repertoire—one that has been used in too many films to list—Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 emerged from a terrible case of writer’s block. After being depressed by his First Symphony’s critical flop, the composer turned to hypnotherapy to break his internal logjam. What resulted was an outpouring of captivating melody, unfolding effortlessly with lush Romantic harmony, that earned breathless praise at its premiere. The brilliant pianist Yuja Wang reveals the Second Concerto’s emotional peaks and valleys when she joins Dudamel and the LA Phil.
In the second half, Dudamel leads one of Rachmaninoff’s most loved works that he wrote while living in the United States. Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances was the composer’s final orchestral work and drew on his life’s work with nods to sacred chants and his own earlier music while looking forward to the new harmonic language of the 20th century.
Presented by USC Visions and Voices.