Master Chorale makes its move

Conductor Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale will highlight their inaugural season as a resident company of the new Walt Disney Concert Hall with commissioned works by crossover artist Bobby McFerrin and Minimalist composer Steve Reich.

Gershon and the chorale also will also have a solo spot on the Oct. 23 Disney Hall gala opening concert, which kicks off the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2003-04 season. On that program, Gershon will conduct the chorale in Gyorgy Ligeti’s a cappella “Lux Aeterna.”

The new digs mean increased performance time for both Music Center resident companies, and the chorale will expand its schedule by repeating four of its eight subscription concerts. Two concerts of the total 18 will be off-site.

“You will hear the Master Chorale as never before,” Gershon said after a news conference Wednesday in a rehearsal hall at the Colburn School of the Performing Arts overlooking Disney Hall across the street.

“It will be a challenge for all of us. The myriad visual chameleon qualities of that building we will explore aurally this season, from 12th century to contemporary works, from small, a cappella ensembles to large-scale collaborations.

“We will be going from a 3,200-seat hall, which is too big, to a 2,100-seat hall. It’s a very nice problem. But if we didn’t start to double programs we think will be the most popular, we’d actually be decreasing our potential audience.”

The shift to the new hall also comes with increases in ticket prices. Season tickets will range from $160 to $480, up from $155 to $399. Single tickets, to go on sale Oct. 6, will range from $25 to $75, up from $20 to $58.

Gershon will open the chorale’s 40th season, which runs from Nov. 16 to June 15, 2004, with the new work by McFerrin. Although known for his conducting as well as for vocal onstage improvisations that often involve the audience, McFerrin will not have a part in the piece, which is yet to be titled. The concert will also include music by Bach and John Adams and the 12th century plainchant “Veni creator spiritus.”

The new Reich work, as yet untitled, for 16 singers and instrumental ensemble, will receive its world premiere in L.A. on May 23, 2004. It is the chorale’s first co-commission, with Lincoln Center and the Ensemble Modern. Ensemble Modern will sing the European premiere in London in the fall of 2004.

The chorale will team up for the first time with the Luckman Jazz Orchestra under the direction of James Newton, the Faithful Central Bible Church Choir, guest soloists and dancers to present music from Ellington’s “Sacred Concerts” March 7 and 9, 2004. Shared conducting duties for the concert are under discussion, Gershon said.

Another guest conductor will be Helmuth Rilling, who will lead the chorale and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in a Bach program at Disney Hall on April 17 and at UCLA’s Royce Hall on April 18.

The season will close with a “New Broadway” program, devoted to Sondheim and the next generation of composers whose music, Gershon said, “is reenergizing the musical theater world and whose works have barely penetrated the West Coast,” on June 13 and 15.

Among six nonsubscription events, which include the annual “Messiah” Sing-Along on Dec. 15, the chorale will return to the Cathedral of our Lady of Angels for an a cappella concert Oct. 12.

For more information, call (213) 972-7282.