Julie Slater talks with Johanna Reese, Vice President, Presentations from LA Phil

Announcing the lineup for the 2024 Hollywood Bowl summer season schedule from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association

 

Transcript:

JULIE SLATER
You are listening to 885, The SoCal Sound. I'm Julie Slater, your midday host. Today, we get the lineup for the 2024 Hollywood Bowl summer season schedule from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. I am so excited. The Bowl is one of the most iconic places to see live music, to see, hear music, see people performing amongst the trees in L.A. It's one of my favorite venues in the world.

JULIE SLATER
And today I have Johanna Reese, vice president of Programing at the L.A. Phil, welcome aboard.

JOHANNA REESE
Thank you so much, Julie. Good to be.

JULIE SLATER
Here. You're about to give us the big scoop. I can't believe we're already talking about Summer.

JOHANNA REESE
You know, I feel the same, but we all look forward to it.

JULIE SLATER
If someone lives in Los Angeles and they haven't gone to the bowl yet, I feel like shame on you. It's such a great experience. So the L.A. film music and artistic director Gustavo Dudamel returning for his 15th Hollywood Bowl season. And I've heard one of the shows is going to be two nights with 18 time Latin Grammy winner Natalia La Fourcade.

JULIE SLATER
Can you tell me about that show?

JOHANNA REESE
Yes. We are so excited to have Natalia back. We've had her once before at the Hollywood Bowl. And so this is a return with her with a brand new show. And she and Gustavo have become very good friends. And so they're essentially putting the show together as a team. And it will be only happening at the Hollywood Bowl for these two nights.

JOHANNA REESE
There'll be one at Carnegie Hall in October, but it's a very special event to have Natalia for these for these shows. We're thrilled and it will be a fully new show, a new experience.

JULIE SLATER
And those shows are September 6th and 7th. That's great. Okay. Now I want to also talk about some of the Hollywood Bowl debuts, Laufey we've played live on the station. 24 years old, classically trained musician, sings, plays piano, cello, guitar. When that show, how did that come together? And is Laufey playing with the L.A. Phil then?

JOHANNA REESE
Yes. The show is Wednesday, August 7th. And yes, she's playing with the L.A. Phil, and we're thrilled to have her actually back for the second time, because last summer we had her with the L.A. Phil at the Ford, our venue across the street. And we knew we all knew as soon as we announced the show and the fans just came out of the woodwork that we have never seen anything quite like it with the fans and the reaction on that show.

JOHANNA REESE
It was an extraordinary concert. She's an extraordinary artist and well-deserved with this trajectory that she is on because, yeah, I mean, she's doing incredibly huge numbers, sell out, concerts sell out. I think she's going into arenas next summer. I mean, it's wow, an incredible story and it's so well-deserved. And you see the art, you know, that she's putting out there.

JOHANNA REESE
And it's so wonderful that, you know, so many young people are so into it.

JULIE SLATER
And how about Mitski?

JOHANNA REESE
That show is at the end of the summer, that September 28th. Equally excited of course, we have been hoping to have Mitski at the Bowl for years and we're we're thrilled And we have Sharon Van Etten actually. love her. Yeah. Supporting her on that show. Yeah, it's been another one with this trajectory just off the charts and it's all deserved.

JOHANNA REESE
These are these incredible young artists who are just doing wonderful things.

JULIE SLATER
And then tell us about the Juneteenth celebration. Yeah.

JOHANNA REESE
So the Juneteenth show, we are absolutely over the moon about this one. We have T-Pain performing with an all black orchestra called The Color of Noise, led by conductor Derrick Hodge. And I don't know how familiar you are, but if you have not listened or been playing The Live at the Sun Rose covers that came out in December last year.

JOHANNA REESE
T-Pain It's amazing. And we all know the history with T-Pain and he blows your mind. He's an incredible, incredible vocalist. He's got this one cover of "Change Gonna to Come" that is, it's just heart wrenching and beautiful and emotional and the whole record, you know, it's he's he's got some Black Sabbath covers and Luther and Journey and Sam Smith and like I said, Sam Cooke.

JOHANNA REESE
So anyway, it's that's a night that will be incredible in terms of having he's inviting much of special guests. So this is one we're we're super excited about. It's you know, celebrating Juneteenth and he'll have special guest T-Pain's inviting friends and, you know, celebrating freedom and determination, creativity and all of black freedom and excellence that that makes for a Juneteenth celebration.

JOHANNA REESE
So we're thrilled about this one.

JULIE SLATER
There's another show that I'm eyeing. I've seen Kamasi Washington before. I saw him at the Ford, so it looks like Kamasi Washington is coming for the return of the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Fest.

JOHANNA REESE
Yes, indeed. So Jazz Fest is coming back June 15 and 16. We work closely with Kamasi Washington and Herbie Hancock, our creative chair of jazz, curating that festival. So they put this together and we all work on it. And Kamasi is headlining on the second night, the Sunday night. We also have Robert Glasper is coming with Yebba. We have Christian McBride, Baby Rose.

JOHANNA REESE
Soul Rebels, Sean Cootie, Alex Isley, Herbie Hancock's Institute of Jazz Performance from UCLA, Joe D.C. and a whole bunch of others. So we're thrilled about that. I love working with Kamasi. It's always great at the bowl.

JULIE SLATER
It's always so amazing to see. Kamasi is so great himself, but everyone he surrounds himself. If you're a musician at all, you just you sit there in awe of just how great all the musicians are. It's really super fun. I highly recommend that show, everybody. Okay, let's talk about July 4th fireworks. Spectacular. I love who you have playing for this one.

JULIE SLATER
Go ahead. Tell us about it.

JOHANNA REESE
And yeah, Harry Connick Jr. He'll be doing the three nights a three night 4th of July spectacular. So it's with the orchestra. It's with the L.A. Phil conducted by Thomas Wilkins And then all three nights, of course, have the fireworks that we all love every year with the marching band and all the great American music. So, yeah, it's another, you know, another great night at The Bowl.

JOHANNA REESE
And I should say it's interesting this year 2024 celebrates we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Hollywood Bowl becoming a county park. wow. Yeah. The ball was actually privately owned and then gifted to the county 100 years ago. And they made it a public park, which it still is. So that's why for all the L.A. Phil shows, you can bring in all your own picnics, picnic baskets, your beverage of choice, and you can come and there's 18 different picnic areas on the property.

JULIE SLATER
It's the best experience to picnic at the Hollywood Bowl. It's so much fun. And then you were saying, like, if someone goes on onto the Hollywood Bowl and looks at all the shows, how do they know which shows they can bring? I think you can bring in food to all the shows, right? But it's the beverages that are just the L.A. Phil's shows.

JOHANNA REESE
That is correct. The L.A. Phil in-house shows, if you go on to the website, TheHollywoodBowl.com our website or app, you'll see it listed if it's a special event, a lease event, and then it will say special lease event restrictions apply. So it clearly marks what the rental the lease events are. So, you know, okay, those are the ones we cannot bring everything in.

JULIE SLATER
I also wanted to go over some of the artists that we play at The SoCal Sound. It sounds like Beck's coming.

JOHANNA REESE
Beck is coming, so he will also be performing with the L.A. Phil. So it'll be a full Beck with orchestra show. Wow. Yeah, that's July 6th. And we love Beck. I mean, we consider Beck a member of our family. We've worked with him so often over the years at all three of our venues. And so having him back in his in his hometown for his for his hometown show at the Bowl, we're we're very happy to have him back.

JULIE SLATER
I'm going to list off some of the other artists that we love. Rodrigo y Gabriela, Vance, Joy, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Sylvan Esso, Chaka Khan, India.Arie, the Gypsy Kings, Gary Clark Jr, So many Christopher Cross and Toto. That's amazing.

JOHANNA REESE
That'll be a fun one.

JULIE SLATER
And then also, what about did we mention this yet? The world premiere debut of Marvel Studios Infinity Saga Concert Experience. What's that?

JOHANNA REESE
Yeah, that is another one with the full orchestra and Gustavo conducting, and that is going to be a fully new film created and sort of all the Marvel stories woven together in one film played with the orchestra. So you will not be able to see this anywhere until you come and see this at the Hollywood Bowl. And you don't actually even have to be a fan of the Marvel series if you haven't seen those movies.

JOHANNA REESE
Like I am sorry to admit I have not. But I watched the trailer, they said as they were preparing this for the film and the music. I loved it. It's great. Doesn't you have you don't have to have any sort of background or knowledge. And it was it's a super fun film with the orchestra.

JULIE SLATER
Now, will the last show be a see hear the end of season fireworks finale? Is that the final show of the season?

JOHANNA REESE
It is not. It's their final subscription weekend. Yeah. Boyz Two Man with the fireworks. Yes, they are coming back to the bowl. They sold out the last time years ago and they're always super fun. It's amazing how many hits they have and how many songs everybody knows.

JULIE SLATER
And that is really an awesome lineup for our 2024 Hollywood Bowl season. Coming up, I am here with Johanna Reese from the L.A. Phil, so tell us about people can either buy single tickets to shows, but there's also a subscription. And what does that mean?

JOHANNA REESE
That means that actually, as of today, as we're announcing this 2024 season, you can purchase a subscription, a new subscription for any of these shows that we talked about as a subscription. And essentially what that means is you choose which package works for you. There's Saturday night packages, Friday night packages, the Sunday night packages, Wednesday, Jazz, etc.. So it's all on the website and you basically pick out you can, you know, can be three shows, it can be six, it can be four.

JOHANNA REESE
There's a few different ways to purchase subscriptions. And then on March 19th, we actually have a package that's called Create Your Own, where you essentially create your own subscription from all different shows so you don't have to buy just the Saturday nights or just the Sundays, etc., so you can pick and choose and create your own custom subscription.

JOHANNA REESE
And then on May 7th, single tickets are available.

JULIE SLATER
So when you do a subscription, is that kind of like with sports? Do you sit in the same seats you do?

JOHANNA REESE
That is! Not that I would know about the sports part, but yes, for this part, YES! And again, you can you know, you a lot of people come early. We really encourage people to come early, bring their picnics, picnic baskets, beverages of choice, and hang out with their neighbors, because ultimately a lot of the people that are subscribers are coming and sitting in the same seats for each of those shows, and they become friends with all the people around them.

JOHANNA REESE
So it's quite a community experience.

JULIE SLATER
That's super fun as well. Thank you. Johanna Reese from the L.A. Phil announcing the Hollywood Bowl 2024 lineup so far. There will be more to come, right? Other shows that you guys surprise us with as the year goes.

JOHANNA REESE
On there will there will we have more shows that we can announce in a month or two? Yes.

JULIE SLATER
And people can go to is the Hollywood Bowl dot com.

JOHANNA REESE
That is right.

JULIE SLATER
All right. Looking forward to shows at one of my favorite venues. Thank you, Johanna.

JOHANNA REESE
Thank you so much. See you soon.