Said to be the most performed among today\u2019s living composers, a composer whose music is touched with sonic purity and infused with beguiling spirituality, Arvo P\u00e4rt is revered as an agent of escape.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the favorite composer of all time, Mozart ever tops lists among performers and audiences alike. (He was even John Cage\u2019s favorite composer.)<\/p>\n
P\u00e4rt\u00a0reveres Mozart, referring to him as the greatest of them all, especially when it comes to expressing the wonder of the divine spirit. The Mozart & P\u00e4rt festival, which the Los Angeles Philharmonic<\/a> began Thursday night with Gustavo Dudamel, is, therefore, seemingly a natural, even though no one else seems to have thought of it before. The orchestra is promoting the two-week festival with a video on its website as a way to get away from it all, leave behind the hurly-burly of L.A. life in the sanctuary ofWalt Disney Concert Hall<\/a>. Even Mayor Eric Garcetti<\/a> extols L.A. escapism on the video.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sorry to disappoint. Yes, you have to turn your distracting cellphone off in the concert hall. Yes, Dudamel himself may seem like someone in search of immediate spiritual solace. He is just off a rocky ride in Austria, booed at the Vienna State Opera where he conducted \u201cTurandot\u201d and praised for what was reported as a darkly contentious \u201cWest Side Story\u201d with Cecilia Bartoli in Salzburg. Much must furthermore weigh on Dudamel as his native Venezuela descends into economic and political chaos, leaving the fate of hundreds of thousands of El Sistema students uncertain.<\/p>\n