United States ‘Beethoven Under the Stars’ & ‘Sarabande Africaine’: Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, 26 & 29.8.2024. (LV)
‘Sarabande Africaine’, Angélique Kidjo and Yo-Yo Ma’s program of African laments, Bach sarabandes, spirituals and pop anthems, connected with a fervor reminiscent of the reception Ma’s complete Bach cycle received at the Hollywood Bowl in 2017. With no subtitles on the giant screens and only brief spoken introductions, English speakers – so accustomed to being accommodated – found themselves in the unusual position of having to catch what they could of the words and letting the music do the rest. The effect was liberating: Kidjo’s voice, Ma’s cello and the pulse of percussion filled the space that translations might have occupied, carrying the evening with clarity, color and joy.
The sequence itself traced a cultural migration. It began in solemnity, with the Ewe dirge ‘Blewu’ beside a Handel sarabande, before opening outward into spirituals, Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ and Dvořák’s ‘Goin’ Home’ – works that themselves carry the imprint of African and African American song. Midway came percussion breaks, Haitian and Caribbean folk melodies and Piaf’s ‘La Foule’, before the mood shifted again with Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ and Talking Heads’s ‘Once in a Lifetime’. The finale – Kidjo’s ‘Afrika’ and Miriam Makeba’s ‘Pata Pata’ – sent the large and happy crowd dancing out into the warm summer night.
What lingered was not a single piece but the way the program nudged listeners past words into sound, past categories into connections. Kidjo and Ma offered less an argument than a demonstration that Bach, Gershwin, Hendrix and Makeba all inhabit the same continuum when heard with open ears. It was a celebration of music’s migrations: the sarabande traveling from Africa to the Americas and back to Europe, spirituals inspiring Dvořák, Gershwin drawing on Gullah song Kidjo reshaping Bach into Yoruba. Two endlessly curious artists, meeting in the middle, reminded the Bowl’s vast audience that joy, memory and rhythm are never confined to a single tradition.
The show was on a mini-tour of sorts: it had already been presented in Chicago before arriving at the Bowl, with a final stop at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre (review here) now completed. Throughout the evening, the one constant was the sheer fun Yo-Yo Ma was having – bouncing around the stage, noodling on his cello or sinking into sarabandes that carried echoes of history and cultural legacies.
Tuesday night’s classical concert at the Bowl culminated in an ‘Eroica’ that became the evening’s defining statement. Under the baton of Lithuanian conductor Giedrė Šlekytė, the LA Philharmonic responded with a sense of urgency and openness. Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont had opened the program in straightforward fashion, and in the Piano Concerto No.4 Šlekytė found a natural balance between soloist and ensemble, allowing Nobuyuki Tsujii’s delicacy of phrasing to merge gracefully with the Philharmonic’s texture. It was in the Symphony No.3, however, that the performance came fully alive – especially in the Marcia funebre (Funeral March), where she persuaded the orchestra to play with rare vulnerability, the music’s solemn tread unfolding with unexpected power. The Finale’s blazing coda crowned the evening, the orchestra proclaiming Beethoven at his most elemental, lifted by a young conductor whose clarity and conviction brought fresh life to the familiar notes.
Meanwhile, the conducting mercato is heating up, with Los Angeles and Paris suddenly at the center of the classical world. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s return to the Orchestre de Paris may be logical, and his continued presence at the LA Phil will allow him to contribute to the city’s expanding cultural ambitions. But where is LA’s new music director? Perhaps they are waiting for Yuja Wang, who has already been seen conducting from the keyboard this summer, to get some more experience under her belt. And Cate Blanchett – Dudamel’s tongue-in-cheek choice after Tár – still hovers as a reminder that in LA, more than anywhere, imagination and precedent need not be in conflict.
The related announcement that the Orchestre de Paris and LA Phil will be visiting each other’s halls means that audiences in LA will get a chance to compare their home team to Paris’s best orchestra. A friend in Paris, who has heard both orchestras under Salonen, Dudamel and Klaus Mäkelä, the current music director, provides a scouting report: ‘I love the brass of the LA Phil – so rich! As for the strings, both orchestras go for impact; they’re fast, virtuosic and love rhythmic punch – but both could use more warmth. I prefer the contrabasses of the LA Phil. For the woodwinds, though, I lean toward the Orchestre de Paris – their sound has such beauty, natural vibes, a touch of poetry. As for the percussion – both are simply fantastic’.
Laurence Vittes
Featured Image: Dancing in the aisles at ‘Sarabande Africaine’ at the Hollywood Bowl © Elizabeth Aster
26.9.2025 – Beethoven: Nobuyuki Tsujii (piano), Los Angeles Philharmonic / Giedrė Šlekytė (conductor).
Beethoven – Overture to Egmont, Op.84; Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, Op.58; Symphony No.3 in E-flat major, Op.55, ‘Eroica’
28.9.2025 – ‘Sarabande Africaine’: Yo-Yo Ma (cellist), Angélique Kidjo (singer), Thierry Vaton (piano), David Donatien (percussion).
Bella Bellow – ‘Blewu’
Handel – Sarabande from Keyboard Suite in D minor
Angélique Kidjo – ‘Kelele’, ‘Agolo’, ‘Zelie’, ‘Aisha’ (arranged from J. S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No.5), ‘Afrika’
Glass (arr. Michael Riesman) – ‘Yemandja’ from Ifé: Three Yorùbá Songs
Gershwin (arr. Angélique Kidjo & Jean Hebrail) – ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess
Traditional (arr. Harry T. Burleigh) – ‘Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen’
Perkinson – ‘Lamentations’ from Black/Folk Song Suite
Dvořák – ‘Goin’ Home’ from New World Symphony
J. S. Bach – Sarabande from Suite No.2 for Unaccompanied Cello
Citron Malavoi – ‘Ti’
Ángel Cabral (arr. Angélique Kidjo & Jean Hebrail) – ‘La Foule’
Ravel/Kidjo – ‘Lonlon’, arranged from Bolero
Hendrix/Kidjo – ‘Voodoo Chile’
Talking Heads/Kidjo – ‘Once in a Lifetime’
Miriam Makeba – ‘Pata Pata’
(Arrangements for cello by Mike Block unless otherwise noted)