USC Annenberg School of Communication Professor Josh Kun will collaborate with Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA to present a series of public events delving into the music of Los Angeles and Latin American communities, the Getty announced today.
The Getty revealed that Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA will go outside the walls of museums when it opens in September 2017, with partner institutions presenting concerts, performances and events at the Hollywood Bowl, The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Walt Disney Concert Hall, Grand Park, and a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces throughout Los Angeles and the region. Made possible through grants from the Getty Foundation to the LA Phil, The Music Center and USC Annenberg, the performances will expand the four-month-long celebration of Latin American and Latino art even beyond the wide circuit of its exhibitions at more than 70 institutions across Southern California.
The announcement concludes the grantmaking phase of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, in which the Getty Foundation has committed more than $16 million toward the initiative since 2013.
“We are excited by the ways in which Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA continues to grow,” said Jim Cuno, President of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “The newly announced grants for the performing arts will give Los Angeles audiences and our visitors from around the world an even more expansive experience of the great, ongoing heritage of Latin American and Latino art. We are honored to support the creative visions of Gustavo Dudamel at the LA Phil, Josh Kun at USC Annenberg and Rachel Moore at The Music Center.”
In collaboration with various Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA partner institutions, USC Annenberg will present Musical Interventions, a series of public events organized by Professor Kun, a historian of popular music, and recently named MacArthur Fellow. Six public programs will create a multi-part “musical exhibition” exploring the musical networks that move between Los Angeles and various Latin American communities and cultures.
Events will include a free outdoor big-band celebration of Latin American composers in Hollywood featuring Mexican Institute of Sound at the Getty; a free concert of leading Latina vocalists paying tribute to Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac at the Hammer; an outdoor sound installation and performance by Guillermo Galindo at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens; a concert in UCLA’s Royce Hall honoring the Brazilian musical legacy in L.A. and the classic funk album A Bad Donato in conjunction with CAP UCLA and the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition at the Fowler Museum; an imaginative updating of a traditional Spanish-language variety show co-produced with USC Visions & Voices in consultation with the UCLA Film and Television Archive held in a Downtown venue; and a performance at LACMA of newly commissioned music inspired by the paintings of Carlos Almaraz from Los Angeles experimental rock band Chicano Batman.
Accompanying the events will be a multi-author catalogue, published by University of California Press, which opens new avenues of inquiry into the Latin American musical past that has shaped the soundscape of contemporary Los Angeles.
The LA Phil’s participation in Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA kicks off with a celebratory concert at the Hollywood Bowl, featuring Café Tacvba, La Santa Cecilia and Mon Laferte plus additional artists to be announced. In October, the LA Phil will produce a ten-day festival titled CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico) that presents a window into Mexico City’s vibrant music scene, from orchestral and contemporary programs to folk, pop and film music. Three orchestra programs led by Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel will include collaborations with Café Tacvba and Natalia Lafourcade. The festival will include world premiere commissions by established and up-and-coming composers such as Gabriela Ortiz, Felipe Waller and Diana Syrse. To further create the soundscape of the city, three organilleros (organ grinders) will perform throughout the concert hall preceding the events. Additional concerts will include a screening of González Iñárritu’s Birdman (2014) with live improvisation by drummer Antonio Sánchez, and a marathon concert featuring established and emerging acts of the flourishing CDMX pop scene. Finally, the LA Phil will host the third iteration of their National Composers Intensive, bringing together talented young composers – who are currently studying in, or recently graduated from, a music composition program at an accredited college or university – for a week of immersive composition education with key faculty drawn from the LA Phil’s CDMX Festival, led by acclaimed composer Andrew Norman.
The Music Center will present Cuba: Antes, Ahora / Cuba: Then, Now, a four-day exploration of traditional and contemporary Cuban music and dance, incorporating opportunities for educational, family-friendly and participatory programs alongside more traditional performing arts events. Programs will include performances in The Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by Cuban-based Malpaso Dance Company of works from its repertory, along with the premiere of newly commissioned work by a renowned American choreographer. Malpaso will also perform to live music by Grammy-award winning jazz composer Arturo O’Farrill. The Music Center will also present artists and art that honor contemporary and traditional Cuban voices in “Sleepless: The Music Center After Hours,” a late-night event featuring stellar Cuban performers such as tres player Pancho Amat; singer, rapper, musician and poet Telmary Diaz; and percussionist Yissy García and her group Bandancha alongside local and Cuban-American performers and visual artists. A third group of performers will engage directly with audiences in Grand Park as part of the celebration with immersive and participatory public programs, including Afro-Cuban drumming and dance workshops and a community jam session.
"We are delighted to add a strong performing arts component to Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA with the new grants to the LA Phil, The Music Center, and USC," said Deborah Marrow, Director of the Getty Foundation. "Latin American and Latino visual arts are deeply connected with music and dance of all types. Together with the previously announced grant to CalArts/REDCAT for the Performance Art Festival and the exhibitions all across Southern California, there will be extraordinary events happening in our region this fall and early winter."
Full descriptions of performing arts events, including locations and dates, will be available online at pacificstandardtime.org in summer 2017.
About Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA:
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles taking place from September 2017 through January 2018. Led by the Getty, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA is a collaboration of arts institutions across Southern California. Through a series of thematically linked exhibitions and programs, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA highlights different aspects of Latin American and Latino art. With topics such as luxury arts in the pre-Hispanic Americas, 20th century Afro-Brazilian art, alternative spaces in Mexico City, and boundary-crossing practices of Latino artists, exhibitions range from monographic studies of individual artists to broad surveys that cut across numerous countries.
Supported by more than $16 million in grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA involves more than 70 cultural institutions from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, and from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
