MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS AND ZUBIN MEHTA
TO LEAD THE LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC IN
TWO OF MAHLER’S GREATEST SYMPHONIES IN 2023

LOS ANGELES (December 13, 2022) – Composer Gustav Mahler’s (1860-1911) Ninth and Third symphonies will fill Walt Disney Concert Hall in the new year led by Michael Tilson Thomas and Zubin Mehta, respectively, as each of them returns for his annual concerts with the orchestra.

January 13–15, Michael Tilson Thomas will conduct Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. The composer’s final completed symphony acts as a farewell to life and is beloved by generations of music fans. MTT, lauded by The New York Times as his generation’s leading Mahler interpreter, will lead the LA Phil through the many facets of the Ninth, a work flouting tradition and combining raw, raucous enthusiasm with heartbreaking gestures of acceptance and final goodbyes.

Zubin Mehta, Conductor Emeritus at the LA Phil and long-time Mahler champion, will lead alto Gerhild Romberger, the LA Phil, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 on March 2–5, 2023. The Third Symphony, one of Mahler’s largest creations and noted as his tribute to nature and love, is a piece close to Mehta’s heart. He will lead the vocal and instrumental ensembles in the expressions of nature and summer, echoing with communications from the flowers, the forest animals, humankind and the angels, all capped by a monumental movement conveying Love itself.

MTT Conducts Mahler 9
Friday, January 13, 2023 – 8PM
Saturday, January 14, 2023 – 8PM
Sunday, January 15, 2023 – 2PM

MAHLER  Symphony No. 9

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor

Mehta Conducts Mahler 3
Thursday, March 2, 2023 – 8PM
Friday, March 3, 2023 – 11AM
Saturday, March 4, 2023 – 8PM
Sunday, March 5, 2023 – 2PM

MAHLER  Symphony No. 3

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Zubin Mehta, conductor
Gerhild Romberger, alto
Los Angeles Master Chorale
     Grant Gershon, Artistic Director
     Jenny Wong, Associate Artistic Director
Los Angeles Children's Chorus
     Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, Artistic Director

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About Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas is Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony. He previously held appointments with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to conducting the world’s leading orchestras and winning 12 Grammy® Awards for his recordings, Tilson Thomas is noted for his work as a composer and for producing projects dedicated to music education and the expansion of the concert experience. His television work includes series for the BBC and PBS, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts and numerous televised performances. He has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC’s Nightline and PBS’s American Masters. Tilson Thomas is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, member of the American Academies of Arts & Sciences and Arts & Letters, National Medal of Arts recipient, Peabody Award winner and Kennedy Center Honoree.

About Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta was born in 1936 in Bombay and received his first musical education under the guidance of his father Mehli Mehta, a noted concert violinist and the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After a short period of pre-medical studies in Bombay, in 1954 Zubin left for Vienna, where he eventually entered the conducting program under Hans Swarowsky at the Akademie für Musik. Zubin Mehta won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition in 1958 and was also a prize winner of the summer academy at Tanglewood. By 1961, he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras and has recently celebrated 50 years of musical collaboration with all three ensembles.

Mehta was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and also assumed the Music Directorship of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1962, a post he retained until 1978 and was honored as the LA Phil’s Conductor Emeritus in 2019. In October 2019, he celebrated his farewell with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which he served for 50 years. On this occasion, he was named Music Director Emeritus of the IPO.

In 1978, he took over the post of Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, commencing a tenure lasting 13 years, the longest in the orchestra’s history. From 1985 to 2017, he was chief conductor of the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.

About Gustav Mahler
The Austrian Jewish composer and conductor is noted for his 10 symphonies and many songs with orchestra, which drew together many different strands of Romanticism. Although his music was largely ignored for 50 years after his death, Mahler later came to be regarded as an important forerunner of 20th-century techniques of composition and an acknowledged influence on such composers as Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten. 

About the LA Phil 
Under the leadership of Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, the LA Phil offers live performances, media initiatives and learning programs that inspire and strengthen communities in Los Angeles and beyond. The Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra is the foundation of the LA Phil’s offerings, which also include a multi-genre, multidisciplinary presenting program and such youth development programs as YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles). Performances are offered on three historic stages—Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and The Ford—as well as through a variety of media platforms. In all its endeavors, the LA Phil seeks to enrich the lives of individuals and communities through musical, artistic and learning experiences that resonate in our world today.