Los Angeles Philharmonic

Do we really have to play Name the Next Conductor? It is such a silly game. Yes, yes. We know. It is the favorite pastime these days in newspaper offices, concert-hall foyers, board rooms, dressing rooms and upscale parlors throughout the nation, probably throughout the world. Still, it isn't particularly useful or productive. The subject is simply too subjective, the outcome too speculative. And anyhow, our crystal ball is both scratchy and cloudy. OK. OK. Stop twisting our arm. We don't want to be different.

  Los Angeles Opera can stop worrying right now. The Los Angeles Philharmonic's new production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," which had its first of four performances Friday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, is certainly getting all the attention at the moment and for all the obvious and all the right reasons. The hall's architect, Frank Gehry, has designed stunning sets. The fashion world, long enamored of Disney, is involved, with powerfully theatrical costumes from Rodarte and hairstyles by Odile Gilbert.

Bowl change: Pianist Andre Watts, who was scheduled to perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl next Thursday, has canceled because of tendinitis in his left forearm, the orchestra said. He will be replaced by Peter Jablonski.

There've been commedia dell'arte versions of "Don Giovanni" and a 3-D version of "Don Giovanni. " Mozart's terminally debauched antihero has been reimagined as a kind of peruked Hugh Hefner and as a junkie with a hypodermic needle stuck in his arm and aMcDonald's hamburger on his breath. But when conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic present a new, semi-staged production of "Don Giovanni" at Walt Disney Concert Hall for four sold-out performances starting Friday, the emphasis won't be on some radically high-concept re-invention of Mozart's 1787 masterpiece.

Carrie Dennis, principal viola of the Berlin Philharmonic, has been named principal viola of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, beginning in September. A native of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., Dennis, 30, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She served as assistant principal viola of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 2002 to 2006, when she joined the Berlin Philharmonic. -- -- Chris Pasles

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard has canceled his appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic next Thursday through Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall on doctor's orders because of back strain. Peter Serkin will fill in with a slight change in program. Replacing Janacek's Capriccio for Piano Left Hand and Winds will be Messiaen's "Petites esquisses d'oiseaux" (Small Sketches of Birds) for piano solo. The remainder of the program, to be conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi, will be the same: Messiaen's "Oiseaux exotiques" (Exotic Birds)

The Los Angeles Philharmonic comes to Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall next week, its first visit to New York in four years and its first trip here with its music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen. Once more, the orchestra joins the great New York musical jostle for recognition. The parade of orchestras visiting New York this season has already included the Boston Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra (both of which offer short seasons here), the Pittsburgh Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Houston Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, along with orchestras from St. Petersburg, London, Osaka, Weimar, Wales and Slovakia.

T here is some choice, but not much, in what violinists are asked to play on their audition tapes and at the ensuing live audition for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In both cases, applicants get to play a portion--either all or part of the first movement--from any of the following concerti: Mendelssohn Beethoven Brahms Prokofiev No. 2 Bartok No. 2 Sibelius Tchaikovsky The rest of the format is set in stone. Each violinist must play the following music : ON TAPE: Brahms' Symphony No. 4, second movement: Play from measure 88 to 102 Schumann's Symphony No. 2, Scherzo: Play from the beginning to measure 50 Strauss' "Don Juan," play from the beginning to the 14th measure after letter C LIVE: The first and second movements of Mozart's Concerto No. 3 in G major, No. 4 in D major, or No. 5 in A major.

James Conlon -- whose fuel reserves have been compared to those of the Energizer Bunny -- has been locked in overdrive this week, launching Los Angeles Opera's first Wagner "Ring" while also observing the Mendelssohn bicentennial with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is no doubt thankful that the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Walt Disney Concert Hall are right across the street from each other. Actually, Mendelssohn is a great fit for Conlon right now since revisiting this composer could be considered an extension of the conductor's "Recovered Voices" project at L.A. Opera.

A story John Cage liked to tell involved his teacher of Zen Buddhism, D.T. Suzuki: "Before studying Zen, men are men and mountains are mountains. While studying Zen, things become confused. After studying Zen, men are men and mountains are mountains. "After telling this, Dr. Suzuki was asked, what is the difference between before and after. He said, 'No difference. Only the feet are a little bit off the ground.' " Thursday night Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Richard Strauss' "Alpine Symphony" at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Among the many guest conductors who pass regularly through Southern California armed with fat music scores and frequent-flier miles, Nicholas McGegan is certainly one of the more recognizable faces. In the past 10 years, McGegan has become a presence with' the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducting frequently at the Hollywood Bowl and at Walt Disney Concert Hall. He has led nearly 30 performances with the orchestra since 2001. This month the British conductor will make his debut with another local group, the Pasadena Symphony, in two concerts at the Ambassador Auditorium.

It begins innocently enough, with sleigh bells. On Friday at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Gustavo Dudamel will conduct Mahler's most classical, least angst-ridden symphony, the Fourth, which opens with frolicsome jingling and ends in angelic folk song. But that's just the start of a project so ambitious as to be a little crazy, to use one of Dudamel's favorite words, and the word he, himself, chose to describe the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Mahler Project during a conversation in his office at Disney Hall.

Top conductors make their way to the podium in various ways. Bernard Labadie got there almost accidentally. The 48-year-old French Canadian — who is scheduled to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an all-Mozart program at Disney Hall this weekend — describes himself as having been a "very ordinary" recorder player who changed his focus to singing. But that didn't exactly work out, either. "I was a bad singer, a very lazy one," he said recently by telephone from Quebec City, where he's lived all his life.

They're honoring the winners of the 2011 Nobel Prizes this week, but there are a number of human endeavors the Nobels don't cover. Music composition is one of them, and in the breach there is the University of Louisville's prestigious Grawemeyer Award, whose founder once mused that such a prize might mean "perhaps we could find another Mozart. " Its latest winner is Esa-Pekka Salonen, who for 17 years held the baton at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But the Grawemeyer honors what he did with a pen -- or a computer mouse, or both: the " Violin Concerto " he composed in his last months in L.A. He's taking his concerto on tour, from Boston to Hamburg.

Los Angeles Philharmonic What: A program of Handel with conductor Emmanuelle Haïm and soprano Sonya Yoncheva Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, downtown L.A. When: 8 p.m. Thursday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Nov. 20 Tickets: $24 to $178 Information: (323) 850-2000 or http://www.laphil.com

When Emmanuelle Haïm conducts an ensemble, it looks like a sensual experience, as though the Baroque music she directs is passing through her. Like a modern dancer, Haïm's body wavers and swirls in lithe, graceful gesticulations as she drives the music. At moments, she might bore in on a singer's solo, using two precise fingers pinched together to draw out a singular note, as if drawing it out on a fragile string. "I try to feel the music, but it also consumes me, even when I don't try," Haïm said recently in her home in the northwestern Parisian suburb of Asnières-sur-Seine.

Los Angeles Philharmonic With: Conductor Leonard Slatkin Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood When: 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday Tickets: $1 to $130 Information: (323) 850-2000 or http://www.laphil.com

It could be one of the largest big-screen casts since "Ben-Hur. " When the Los Angeles Philharmonic beams its live concert simulcast from Caracas, Venezuela, in February, several hundred musicians will be gathered onstage to perform Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand," so-called due to the prodigious number of players it requires. Among them will be the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, and the conductor who made his reputation with both of them: Gustavo Dudamel, the Phil's music director.