Music Faculty and Alumni Perform Noon to Midnight at Walt Disney Concert Hall

This Saturday (Oct. 1), the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s (LA Phil) Green Umbrella contemporary music series brings together some of the city’s most adventurous ensembles for Noon to Midnight, a day of experimental music, world premieres and pop-up performances throughout the spaces in and around Walt Disney Concert Hall (WDCH) in Downtown Los Angeles.

The performance collective The Industry, under the artistic direction of Yuval Sharon and music direction of CalArts faculty Marc Lowenstein, begins a three-year LA Phil residency with the performance installation Nimbus. Clouds blow onto WDCH’s escalators, transforming the space, while music by CalArts alumnus and former faculty Rand Steiger (Music MFA 82) plays over 32 speakers distributed over the hall. The music changes over the course of the day, alternating between computer-generated musical atmospheres and compositions built from material recorded by soloists from the LA Phil. Vocalists from The Industry perform live throughout the day on Saturday. Nimbus will be on view for a year.

Noon to Midnight presents four world premieres. Among them is Flow by CalArts alumnus Ingram Marshall (Music MFA 71), performed by LA Phil New Music Group, conducted by John Adams.

More about the piece, from Marshall’s notes:

When I was asked by the LA Phil to write a new piece for solo piano and chamber ensemble, what I came up with was not exactly a piano concerto but a concert of textures. I think of Flow as a series of connected textures that ebb and flow seemingly at random, but still in a greater context of a lucid, ineluctable movement. The piece consists of many smaller, moving ideas—almost minimal ideas—which, when heard in rapid close canonic movement, complement rapid movement on the surface.

Many other CalArtians are performing throughout the day, including members of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, faculty Vicky Ray and alumni Danny Holt (Music MFA 06) and Richard Valitutto (Music MFA 11) with Piano Spheres, gnarwhallaby, WasteLAnd and Chris Kallmyer (Music MFA 09).

In keeping with the spirit of the “pop-up” scene, the festival atmosphere will be supplemented by a number of food trucks and vendors curated by Smorgasburg LA,

See the complete Noon to Midnight performance schedule.