Osmo Vänskä at the LA Phil

Walt Disney Concert Hall
Photo by Lisa Hirsch
March, 2017

I was in LA last week and took in the LA Phil with Osmo Vänskä, formerly the music director of the Lahti Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic. He was tremendous in his two most recent SFS appearances and was tremendous in the second half of this program, which featured a new work by the South Korean composer Donghoon Shin and Sibelius's Third. I hadn't heard the latter live in many years, not since Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted it at the Sibelius Unbound festival. The Brahms piano concerto no. 1 was less impressive but had its moments. I reviewed for SFCV; I would have sworn that was Mark Swed a few rows ahead of me, but I haven't been able to find a review in the LA Times yet. I'll update this post if I find a review.

My plus-one for the evening thought the Shin sounded like Danny Elfman or the first two Pink Floyd albums. I am woefully ignorant of certain genres and need to check out the Pink Floyd, but the Shin didn't sound at all like the Elfman cello concerto that I reviewed this past fall.

• Lisa Hirsch, SFCV
• Lisa Hirsch, Sibelius Unbound, 2007, SFCV
• Mark Swed reviews Vänskä in 2012

UPDATE, April 17, 2027: A final note. I'd inquired as to whether the commission to Donghoon Shin resulted from Vänskä's tenure at the Seoul Philharmonic. No: Upon His Ghostly Solitude was a commission for the LA Phil's Seoul Festival, which was cancelled because of COVID.