CLASSICAL MUSIC

CRISTINA ZAVALLONI

Singer

Young Italian chanteuse Cristina Zavalloni is a jazz improviser, a versatile singer of new music and a daring opera performer (she’s starred in an avant-garde opera by Sylvano Bussotti based on the works of De Sade). She is often compared to Cathy Berberian, who all but reinvented singing before her death in 1983, bringing Monteverdi into the modern age, taking the Beatles on a tour of the Baroque and functioning as muse to Luciano Berio. Berberian found a whole new assortment of vocal techniques that brought a vibrant sexuality into the then-sexless world of new music.

And Zavalloni does much the same as muse for the daring, deep, hard-edged Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, the towering figure in European Minimalism. In recent years, he’s written a string of works taking advantage of her laser-like, vibrato-less tone. The latest is “Racconto dall’Inferno,” and Zavalloni will join the Los Angeles Philharmonic for its American premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall on March 24. Based on Dante, the work comes close, Andriessen says, to the world of Fellini -- “part nightmare, part dream.”

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SUSANNA MALKKI

Conductor

The Finnish conducting teacher Jorma Panula is reputed to have an unerring ability to develop talent: Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jukka-Pekka Saraste were among his students. For its part, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Parisian new music group founded by Pierre Boulez in 1976, has had an exceptional record of finding the best young conductors: David Robertson and Jonathan Nott became music directors when they were barely known.

Next in line is Susanna Malkki, a young Finn from the Panula lineage. At the moment, Malkki, who was born in 1969, works mostly in Norwegian obscurity as music director of the Stavanger Symphony. But next fall she will step into the lion’s den as the Ensemble Intercontemporain’s new music director. Before then, all eyes in Paris will be upon her appearances with the group in February and March. So what is the Los Angeles Philharmonic waiting for? She also happened to study with Salonen.

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MARK GREY

Composer

Mark Grey is not an unfamiliar face at concerts. If you were at the Philharmonic’s recent performances of John Adams’ “El Nino,” you might have noticed a tall figure with a ponytail operating a large mixing board. Or maybe you’ve seen him at Kronos Quartet concerts. When Adams calls for amplification, the composer insists upon Grey, who is a sound designer for the Kronos and soprano Dawn Upshaw as well.

But he also happens to be a composer in his own right, and with a little help from his friends, his music has started to take off. Leila Josefowicz included his striking high-energy solo violin piece, “San Andreas” Suite, on her latest CD along with works by Beethoven, Brahms, Messiaen, Ravel and Salonen. She has included the suite on her recital programs everywhere and has now commissioned a concerto from Grey. But next for him will be a new piece for the California EAR Unit, to premiere at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 27.