Philharmonic unveils season lineup

The inauguration of the 6,134-pipe organ at Walt Disney Concert Hall and a semi-staged production of Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde,” directed by Peter Sellars, will be among the highlights of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 2004-05 season, announced Thursday.

Frederick Swann, a former organist for the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove and the Riverside Church in New York, will inaugurate the organ, designed by Frank Gehry and Manuel Rosales, on Sept. 1. The recital program has yet to be announced.

Five additional solo organ programs will complete the orchestra’s new organ recital series. The organ also will be featured in concerts during the first two weeks of the main series.

The season will begin officially Oct. 1 with Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and soloist Todd Wilson performing Lou Harrison’s Organ Concerto, Saint-Saen’s “Organ” Symphony and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. The program, also featuring Bach’s “Little” Fugue in G minor transcribed for orchestra, will be repeated Oct. 2 and 3.

“Tristan and Isolde” will be staged one act per night, with each act paired with a work that was influenced by it: Act 1, Dec. 3 and 10, with Berg’s “Lyric Suite”; Act 2, Dec. 4 and 11, with the Suite from Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande”; and Act 3, Dec. 5 and 13, with the West Coast premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s “Cinq reflets de l’Amour de loin.” The stagings will include videos by Bill Viola produced in collaboration with the Paris National Opera.

Visiting orchestras will include the Cleveland, led by Franz Welser-Most; the Kirov, led by Valery Gergiev; and the San Francisco Symphony, led by Michael Tilson-Thomas.

Additional season highlights include four world premieres and two mini-festivals -- a “Silenced Voices” series, with music by composers who perished in Nazi concentration camps, and the series “From Bohemia’s Meadows and Forests,” exploring the role of folk music in Brahms and other composers. Among the premieres will be Peter Lieberson’s “Neruda Songs,” to be performed by the composer’s wife, mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

The Philharmonic will continue its jazz series, featuring artists such as Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins, and its world music series, with the Kronos Quartet and vocalist Emil Zrihan. It also will initiate a new American song series, with k.d. lang, Barbara Cook and Peter Cincotti.

For more information, call (323) 850-2000.