Memories, Music of Hollywood Bowl

Ben Kanter was performing solo in the Hollywood Bowl, to a captive audience. Sixty seventh-graders from St. Alphonsus Catholic school in East Los Angeles had been bused to the Bowl--under a program sponsored by the Hollywood Bowl Museum--to learn the joy of good music. Kanter raised his clarinet and the notes rang clear and melodic in the morning air as he played a medley from George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” created in 1924.

It is music that Kanter knows well. As the young lead clarinetist in Gershwin’s orchestra, he stood to play his part of the score for the first time. The audience was enchanted, and Gershwin, his fingers moving delicately across the keys of a nearby piano, glanced across the stage at the newly hired musician and smiled approvingly.

Kanter, now 80, and by no means retired, is one of the volunteers for the Hollywood Bowl Museum’s program of field trips for elementary, junior high and high school students. Laden with instrument cases containing flutes, a piccolo, saxophones and clarinets, he demonstrates each instrument so that young listeners can identify its sound within the orchestra.

Eleanor Vigil, Maxine Miller and Brian Bouvier are other volunteers who explain music, relate the history of the Bowl and escort the students on tours that begin in the nearby museum building.

A Little-Known Service

But the student field trip program is just one of the offerings of this little-known museum tucked just inside the entrance to the Bowl on Highland Avenue.

Visitors can watch a 21-minute film here, including footage on the Beatles, clips of movie stars attending Hollywood Bowl performances, and of motion pictures that have been made using the Bowl as a backdrop. There are two listening rooms with earphones where you can hear various tapes of past musical programs.

The current exhibit at the museum, “Sound Waves,” features displays on the careers of performers and composers who have played important roles in the Hollywood Bowl’s history. And what an imposing list it is. To name a few: Ernestine Schumann-Heink, the Austrian contralto who in 1928 sang excerpts from Wagner’s operas with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; Jascha Heifetz, one of the greatest violinists in the history of the instrument who made his first appearance at the Bowl in 1935; Artur Rubenstein, the renowned pianist whose initial performance here was in 1941 with Leopold Stokowski conducting.

Generations of Singers

There was Lily Pons, the French coloratura soprano who became one of the most popular singers of her generation, and appeared repeatedly at the Hollywood Bowl from 1936 to 1954. On her opening night in August of 1936 more than 26,000 people attended. The conductor was Andre Kostelanetz. They later married.

There was also Nat (King) Cole, who appeared in Bowl performances between 1954 and 1960. And then there was the concert considered the most frenetic and emotional ever held here. It was in August, 1964, when the Beatles made their first Bowl appearance. This writer, who was present, can recall more than 17,000 teen-agers shrieking in the stands, their bewildered parents wishing for earplugs.

“We want to expose the museum to the performing arts,” explained Dr. Naima Prevots-Wallen, its director. “We are bringing children to a place many would never come, and trying to get them excited about music and the Bowl--to come back with their families. This has happened repeatedly on evenings when we have concerts, and we see them come through the door with their parents.”

The museum is a joint project of Los Angeles County and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. Hours from now until June 29 are Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Enter the parking lot off the Hollywood Freeway at Highland Avenue. Admission to the museum and parking is free. During the summer season the museum is open Monday through Sunday. On concert days it remains open until 8:30 p.m.