Hollywood Bowl 2026 Summer Highligh
/7/16/2026 Mozart & Brahms
The Hollywood Bowl should sound different this summer, owing to the newly-installed, AI-improved speakers and sound system. That, hopefully, should quell my years of suffering the poor sounds at these classical concerts. I was extra eager to hear the new sound at the July 16 concert.
The program opened with Korngold's Straussiana, a postcard of old Vienna filtered through Hollywood gloss. Here, Spanish conductor Roberto González-Monjas showed a different face, leaning into the score's schmaltz and drawing tones as rich and voluptuous as Sachertorte from the orchestra. The AI-improved amplified sound rendered the woodwinds more clear, less opaque, than before and the strings warmer; the overall sonic balance was more homogeneous and natural.
Pianist Mao Fujita, still riding the momentum of his 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition silver medal, brought a light, unhurried touch to Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 19. His refined yet passionate playing roused the listener to frenzied excitement, notably in the stormy first movement cadenza. The second-movement allegretto was sublime in its simplicity and calm. In the concerto's puckish finale, Fujita produced a shimmering, impeccably voiced cascade of sound even through its trickiest passagework — no small feat in a work that features what may be the most complex finale of a Mozart concerto.
Conductor González-Monjas, currently chief conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, matched Fujita's sensibility from the podium. He partnered the soloist with lean, period-informed orchestral playing from the LA Phil musicians. The Brahms' Fourth showed plenty of grit and power in the cross rhythms, exactly as this music requires. It did not erase my memory of the Fourth when Muti brought the Chicago Symphony to the Disney Hall, but it was a gripping and wholly respectable performance.
8/1/2026 Tchaikovsky Spectacular with Fireworks
The Bowl's beloved pyrotechnic tradition — launched in 1969 when Zubin Mehta led the LA Phil's first all-Tchaikovsky program with cannon and fireworks — returned for its 2026 edition with a fresh creative pairing. This year's Spectacular brought Troupe Vertigo, the Los Angeles circus company, into the mix, following past collaborators like American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco Ballet. Troupe Vertigo's gravity-defying aerial and contortion virtuosity proved a perfect match for Tchaikovsky’s virtuosic skills in colorful orchestration. For once, one does not miss Petipa’s classic choreography in each dance and each ballet movement; rather, Tchaikovsky’s music for Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake sounded tailor-made for the Troupe’s whimsical and powerful acts.
French conductor Chloé Dufresne, a former Dudamel Fellow, made her auspicious Hollywood Bowl debut on the podium, leading a program built for spectacle as much as symphonic fireworks. In addition to the two ballet suites, played with high lyricism (a few electronic hiccups notwithstanding), Defresne also led a fervent Marche Slave before intermission, with flag-waving circus performers that bore more than a passing show of support for the current war in Ukraine. The night closed, fittingly and spectacularly, with the 1812 Overture — an explosive finale complete with the USC Trojan Marching Band and, once more, the flag-waving circus troupe. A minor nitpick was the decision to shoot fireworks during the earth-rumbling passage for the double-basses, rendering it inaudible. Here is hoping the very talented Defresne’s career will burn long and bright, and not go out in a flash.
8/11/2026 Mozart Under the Stars
pianist angela hewitt
The August 11 concert was billed as “Mozart Under the Stars”. Alas, there were no celestial bodies shining down from above Hollywood Hills, only a couple of errant aircraft buzzing over the ‘Big X’ no-fly zone. The only star was the Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt, who played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 K482 on her personal Fazioli piano that travels with her. It was a unique, unmistakable Fazioli sound – big, powerful tones up and down the scale, with stunning clarity and none of the haze of a Steinway. (Interestingly, the Fazioli logos were nowhere to be seen – those of you Steinway conspiracy theorists please comment below.) The bold piano sound held up well against the onslaught of trumpets, drums and expanded winds in this “Grand Piano Concerto” written for Vienna. Conductor Nicholas Ellis, another Canadian, is something of a Mozart specialist, coaxed the LA Phil into playing like a period instrument band, with minimal vibrato, brisk tempi, and matched Miss Hewitt’s sense of forward momentum and irrepressible energy. In the quietly contemplative C-minor andante, the pianist wisely winnowed down her very bold and assertive left hand to a tender whisper in the coda. But not for long, the irrepressible energy returned in the dotted rhythms of the allegro finale, during which Miss Hewitt magically stopped with a tender minuet episode (one of only two such episodes in all 27 Mozart’s piano concertos.) A thrillingly brilliant cadenza of tour-de-force contrapuntal power (not sure which version, but more tasteful and just as devilish as the old Edwin Fischer cadenza) ended the K.482 Concerto on a high note. The LA Phil was never a Mozart orchestra under Dudamel or sounded particularly at home in the Classical repertoire. But on this night, under maestro Ellis, their playing could rival that of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. As fine as the readings of the K551 ‘Jupiter’ Symphony and the Don Giovanni Overture, my mind kept circling back to the Piano Concerto, the Fazioli, and Miss Hewitt bringing to Mozart the same intensity and romanticism that she did with the music of J.S. Bach.
Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.