Music

Beethoven & Dessner with Esa-Pekka Salonen

Beethoven’s monumental “Eroica” and a reunion of two of Finland’s finest
May 2, 2025  |  11:00AM - 1:00PM
The Walt Disney Concert Hall

For well over two hundred years, the “Eroica” Symphony has been celebrated as one Beethoven’s greatest works and one of the most revolutionary masterpieces in classical music. Esa-Pekka Salonen leads the LA Phil in this powerful piece of defiance, contrasting it with Debussy’s dreamy and fluid Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. Pekka Kuusisto, a fellow Finn and one of Salonen’s favorite collaborators, joins the orchestra for Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto, which Kuusisto describes as “super energetic, and athletic, active—but it’s the big changes of scenery that really make it magic.”