Esa Pekka Salonen

The Brentwood home of Esa-Pekka Salonen, former music director of the L.A. Philharmonic, has come on the market at $4.1 million. Designed by architect Ted Tanaka, the six-bedroom, 5 1/2 -bathroom house has 4,695 square feet of living space. Tanaka's works, which emphasize the use of light, geometric shapes and open space, are among the most recognizable in Los Angeles. He is responsible for the towers of colored lights at the entrance to LAX.

What goes up must come down, and that certainly holds true for the huge L.A. Philharmonic banners that flank the Walt Disney Concert Hall that herald the orchestra's changing of the guard. These outsize advertisements -- made of reinforced vinyl and called building banners in the trade -- stand tall at two points along the building's plain limestone facade, on the corners of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street and at Hope and 1st streets. Of the two, the vertical Grand Avenue banner, which measures roughly 20 feet wide by 40 feet high, is the more visible and traditionally features just the Philharmonic's music director, while the horizontal one at Hope and 1st (9 feet high and 47 feet wide)

Sir Andre, come home. I know we're not really supposed to call him that. As an honorary knight of the British empire, he is entitled to be known as Andre Previn, KBE. Still, I think "Sir Andre" has a certain ring. The former film composer, former music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and candidate for most versatile American musician, past or present, turned 80 last month and hasn't been back in town for a long while.

Esa-Pekka Salonen, the wunderkind turned maestro who changed the face of classical music in Los Angeles, took the podium Sunday afternoon at Walt Disney Concert Hall for the last time as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic -- and left, to stormy applause and tearful embraces, as the orchestra's first "conductor laureate."

In November 1984, a reserved, unknown, 26-year-old Finnish composer made his U.S. debut by conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He looked like a teenage movie star and tended to stare at his feet when he spoke in public. He was dynamic and startlingly confident on the podium, but, as he once put it, he was "absolutely not warm" by L.A. standards. In 1992, still baby-faced and matinee-idol material, he became the music director of the orchestra.

Here are excerpts of Times reviews, culled from key performances during Esa-Pekka Salonen's years leading the Phil: July 8, 1985 An oddball program performed with illuminating dash introduced the young Finnish conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, to Hollywood Bowl audiences at a preseason concert on Friday night.