LA Master Chorale – Photo Credit Marie Noorbergen/Tao Ruspoli
The Los Angeles Master Chorale kicked off its fall season with a pair of works they’ve never before performed: a majestic 19th century Mass by Anton Bruckner and a recent work by Osvaldo Golijov, led by Artistic Director Grant Gershon.
Osvaldo Golijov – Photo Credit Robson Fernandjes
Grant Gershon tells KUSC host Brian Lauritzen, “The F minor ‘Great’ Mass, was Bruckner’s third and final mass. I look at it as cosmic in scale; it’s one of these pieces where there are so many moments when you just feel like the heavens are opening up, and, you know, rays of sunshine are floating down upon the stage. It has become to me a desert island piece, and here is the crazy thing: this is the first time that the Master Chorale has ever performed the Bruckner’s F minor Mass”.
Grant Gershon – Photo Credit Marie Noorbergen/Tao Ruspol
Oceana, written some 20 years ago for the Brazilian jazz singer and composer Luciana Souza, will also receive its Los Angeles premiere at this weekend’s concerts. Grant Gershon describes the piece as an ode to the power and mystery of the Ocean. The work marries music with poetry by Pablo Neruda and depicts, as Golijov says, “water and longing, light and hope, the immensity of South America’s nature and pain”.
Learn more about Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s season at lamasterchorale.org.
