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The La Jolla Music Society Announces 2024-2025 Season
The La Jolla Music Society is presenting an impressive season for 2024-2025, with stellar music programs of classical, jazz, worldbeat, and more. “The La Jolla Music Society has been known to present primarily classical music, but I’m excited that we have open up our season to newer audiences,” says the society’s artistic director, Leah Rosenthal. “We have world-renowned classical performers, presentations of dance, our global music series, and jazz. We also have a series for kids!”
During her time with the society Rosenthal has noticed barriers breaking down among the divergent audiences. Jazz aficionados are checking out some classical performances, and everybody is a bit curious about worldbeat. “I’ve seen that many chamber music lovers also have a taste for jazz,” she says.
The Conrad
The amazing interior of the Baker-Baum Concert Hall at the Conrad. Courtesy of the La Jolla Music Society.
Since the shuttering of the Sherwood Auditorium in 2019, the La Jolla Music Society has made its home at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, or as most folks refer to it, “the Conrad.” “We have a premier performing arts center,” Rosenthal says of the Conrad. The $80 million 49,200 square foot performance center has impressed audiences and earned renown throughout the world for its beauty and impeccable acoustics.
The heart of the center, the Baker-Baum Concert Hall, combines the best of the old and new. New England-based Epstein Joslin Architects relied on traditional European concert hall designs in the construction of the hall. The incorporation of earth tones and geometric figures add a hint of Southwest art deco. Yasuhisa Toyota, president of Nagata Acoustics America, designed the acoustics of the hall, which can be adjusted for standard performances and amplified ones. The hall even uses ultra-quiet air conditioning.
Charles McPherson performing earlier this year at the JAI’s intimate listening space. Photo by Michael Oletta.
For jazz or contemporary performances, the Conrad features the JAI, which stands for generous supporters Joan and Irwin Jacobs. The JAI can transform into a cabaret or night club, emphasizing a casual atmosphere. Audience members enjoy refreshments and drinks, while performers fill the JAI with jazz or other popular music. The society also uses other San Diego performance arts spaces in its season, such as the Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego. The Martha Graham Dance Company is scheduled to perform there, as part of the society’s season, in January 2025.
The Season
Rosenthal emphasizes that no matter what genre or style of music or kind of performance, audience members are guaranteed to witness the best that can be found. “The quality of the performers is the sort that you would find at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center,” she says.
American Patchwork Quilt Quartet. Photo courtesy of the La Jolla Music Society.
Readers of the Troubadour may be especially excited about the appearance of the Americana/roots ensemble the American Patchwork Quartet on April 25 next year, which draws on the American traditions of folk and jazz, all mixed together with a country twang. The band might also be thought of as worldbeat, as their songs stray into West African hypnotics and East Asian ornamentation. The quartet will perform in the JAI.
The season features more than a dozen jazz concerts, all featuring top-notch performers. The jazz shows get underway when the Queen of Clarinet, Anat Cohen and her Quartetinho Quartet perform at the JAI on October 6. Among her many awards, the Tel Aviv-born New York-based musician and bandleader has been voted “Clarinetist of the Year,” from 2008 to 2023, by the Jazz Journalists Association, accomplishing this in a world in which Ken Peplowski walks the Earth. Quartetinho is known for sometimes quirky, sometimes subtle, and always surprising jazz arrangements.
Wynton Marsalis. Photo courtesy of the La Jolla Music Society.
The jazz series culminates with one of today’s grand masters of jazz, Wynton Marsalis, classical pianist Cecile Licad and a 10-piece all-star jazz ensemble will join the renowned trumpeter, composer, and music educator for a special showing of the film Louis, a 2010 silent film homage to Louis Armstrong, Charles Chaplin, and the early 20th century music that evolved into jazz. This performance is scheduled for May 18,, 2025, at the Balboa Theatre.
The wide variety of classical performances is sure to please just about every classical music lover, from baroque and chamber music to contemporary compositions. The strains of Hayden, Ravel, and Beethoven will fill the Baker-Baum Concert Hall when the Grammy-winning Takács Quartet performs on Saturday, October 26. If you like things big—the heavy metal version of classical music by Rachmaninoff and Mahler—the London Symphony Orchestra will perform the music of the Romantic heavyweights February 21 at the Jacobs Music Center.
A “power trio” of pianist Yefim Bronfman, cellist Pablo Fernández, and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will treat their audience to a program of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky piano trios at the Balboa Theatre on May 3. Organist Cameron Carpenter will perform two concerts at Saint James by the Sea, a classical program on May 16, followed by a performance of Carpenter’s original composition to accompany Fritz Lang’s mega-classic film Metropolis the following day. And there is much more—lots of performances of dance, opera, and even speakers covering topics from archaeology to mountain climbing.
Rosenthal, who came to San Diego after her affiliation with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, says that personal interactions set La Jolla and San Diego audiences apart from other classical audiences or any other type of audience that you might find. She says, “Here, audiences have the ability to interact with the artists.”