Music Center, Los Angeles

The Music Center, situated on the summit of Bunker Hill, was built from sandstone in the years 1964-67, and is similar in many ways to the Lincoln Center in New York, dating from about the same period. At the time, the total cost of the three buildings amounted to 34 million dollars, half of which came from public collections made by Mrs Dorothy Chandler, the mother of the publisher of the "Los Angeles Times". A plaza links the three buildings which, were it not for the giant sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz, would have a somewhat desolate appearance.

Picture - Exterior of the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Picture - Detail of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

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Music Center Map

The Music Center, Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles is a huge arts center and one of the largest in the United States. There are four venues here; the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Ahmanson Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum.

The Ahmanson Theatre is home to the Center Theater Group and hosts a variety of plays throughout the year. Its unique design makes it a good venue for both large and small productions. The recently renovated, state of the art Mark Taper Forum also hosts the Center Theater Group. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is where you will find performances by the Los Angeles Opera.

At the south end of the Music Center is the buildings most recent addition, the spectacular Walt Disney Concert Hall. The main auditorium is designed to resemble a ship's hull and offers incredible acoustics, with seating for over 2,200 people. There are also two outdoor amphitheatres. The concert hall is hard to miss with its unique exterior of stainless steel sails.

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Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and The Kirk Douglas Theatre

The Center Theatre Group has three stages; the Ahmanson Theatre, the Mark Pater Forum, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Together these three theatres present a broad range of high quality productions of the classics and hit Broadway plays and musicals.

The Taper has developed an impressive number of Tony Award® and Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, including "Children of a Lesser God," "The Shadow Box," "The Kentucky Cycle" and "Angels in America," and has earned a number of distinguished honors including a Tony Award® for Theatrical Excellence. The Mark Taper Forum has recently undergone renovations.

The Kirk Douglas Theatre, which CTG transformed from an historic 1940s Streamlined Moderne-style movie house into an intimate live theatre venue, was named for the theatre's initial major donor, Kirk Douglas. The theatre opened in October 2004 and during that first season six world premieres were presented including Jon Robin Baitz's "The Paris Letter," Charles L. Mee's "A Perfect Wedding," and Nancy Keystone's "Apollo Part 1: Lebensraum."

Picture - Exterior of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Picture - Tower of the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles.

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Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

In the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion concerts (Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra), operas (Los Angeles Music Center Opera) as well as musicals and solo performances take place. The 3,200 seats are filled almost every evening. The opera company, performances by which are held in the months of October, December, February, April and May, has a modern repertoire by American standards: in the 1988/1989 season, for example, the company performed "Tales of Hoffmann" and "Orpheus in the Underworld", both by Offenbach, Janàcek's "Katja Kabanowa", Rossini's "Tancredi", Verdi's "Othello" and "Salome" by Richard Strauss. The Joffrey Ballet also appears here, mainly in the spring.

The pavilion was named for Dorothy Chandler who raised $20 million in private donations for the original site.

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Ahmanson Theater

Four musicals and stage plays are presented each season in the Ahmanson Theater, as well as guest performances by the New Yorker Broadway Theater, and also some of their own productions by the Center Theater Group (2,100 seats).

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Walt Disney Concert Hall

The Walt Disney Music Hall was built in accordance with plans drawn up by the Californian architect Frank Gehry. It is the permanent home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and is used exclusively for concerts given by it and other orchestras.

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