Los Angeles Times praises Seong-Jin Cho at the LA Phil Homecoming Gala

Conductor Gustavo Dudamel and pianist Seong-Jin Cho on Saturday at the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Photo credit: Ringo Chiu / The LA Times)

Review: For Dudamel, Erivo and the L.A. Phil, an incomparable ‘Homecoming’ gala
By Mark Swed
Los Angeles Times
October 10, 2021

Homecoming can easily turn fraught. Just ask Ulysses.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic untypically appeared to be taking no chances Saturday night with “Homecoming,” its first season-opening gala in two years. On paper it looked as though an irrepressible orchestra that likes nothing more than to challenge expectations with its glitzy, provocative, artistically ambitious and occasionally goofy galas had become cautiously moxie-free.

That’s right, no glittery confetti celebrating the momentous occasion of the L.A. Phil’s first concert back in Walt Disney Concert Hall since March 8, 2020. “We counted the 470-something days, hours, seconds, and here we are,” Gustavo Dudamel exultantly told the audience. The orchestra’s music and artistic director counted on something else as well: that music is all that matters.

You can’t get much more commonplace in classical than the opening of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Yet Dudamel, with the help of the young Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, somehow made it fresh. The L.A. Phil musicians can doubtlessly play it in their sleep, but the almost-forgotten reality of this orchestra in this hall (sorry, Apple, but your new spatial music does not come remotely close) became its own kind of Tchaikovskian peyote.

The horns heralded yet another vision. Cho, who comes across on his recordings as a mild-mannered performer whose crystal-cut phrasing tells you almost nothing of himself, sprung to life with magnificent sparkle, the sounds of bells ringing, approaching that of Horowitz. Cho made a perfect foil for Dudamel’s extravagant expressivity. The orchestra stopped just short of overwhelming Cho, framing his playing, instead, in rich glory. You will not find its like captured on Cho’s discs or downloads.

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