Anne Akiko Meyers Performs 'Fandango' with LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl (Review)

Ahh, the lovely Hollywood Bowl on a torrid evening in late summer. A picnic, a light breeze, the sun setting over the hill - and music. Listening to the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl felt in turns like a joyful celebration - and like a gut-punch. Music does that.

First was the celebration: violinist Anne Akiko Meyers performing Mexican composer Arturo Márquez's "Fandango" with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

By now Los Angeles audiences are familiar with "Fandango," as Meyers has given a number of performances of the work with the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel, performing the world premiere together right after the pandemic in August 2021 at the Hollywood Bowl, then four performances in October 2022 at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Their recording of Fandango went on to win two Latin Grammys last fall. All told, she has given some 40 performances of the piece over the last four years at orchestras all over the world - 10 of those with conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, who was on the podium on Tuesday night.

Meyers commissioned Marquez to write the piece after falling in love with the composer's 1994 composition "Danzon No. 2," which she heard in 2018, played by the Detroit Symphony. "I thought, this is genius, it's so colorful," Meyers told me in a 2021 interview about the creation of 'Fandango.' "The orchestration was just so spectacular."

In recognition of this inspiration for the violin concerto, Tuesday's performance began with Marquez's "Danzon No. 2." The piece starts like a small dance between various woodwind instruments - and kudos for great solos all night from Principal clarinet Boris Allakhverdyan, Principal oboe Marion Arthur Kuszyk and Principal flute Denis Bouriakov - the LA Phil woodwind section was a real highlight in this concert.

"Danzon No. 2" grows in scope as the whole orchestra joins the dance, full of tempo changes, mood changes and as Meyers mentioned - colors flying everywhere. I was impressed with the piccolo and piano playing perfectly in sync, well across the stage from each other at the cavernous Hollywood Bowl - well done.

Anne came out for "Fandango" wearing one of her signature fab dresses and ready to create some energy with her 1741 "Vieuxtemps" Guarneri del Gesù violin. From the beginning, she created a silky smooth tone that captivated, playing with the fluid feeling that this is a piece she has made her own.

It had been a 98-degree day in Los Angeles, and while temperatures were beginning to fall on Tuesday evening, it had to be hot on that stage. But Meyers just continued to turn up the heat: luscious melodies then rhythmic ricochet, notes plucked out of the sky and a barrage of rapid-fire notes.

Those lush melodies in first movement pervade the entire string section, at times sounding like something from another era. I was attending the concert with my 25-year-old filmmaker son Brian, who gave it one of the best compliments he can give music: "It sounded so cinematic in places..."

The second movement "Plegaria" - both a Chaconne and a "prayer" - was a lulling, rockabye prayer, sometimes sultry and slow, sometimes coiled with energy.

A highlight of this concerto was the beginning of third movement "Fandanguito": it begin with a solo, Meyers playing a rhythmic and angular dance alone on her violin, and as this starts hitting its groove, the orchestra joins in, putting a different perspective on the beat and rhythm. It's a wonderful moment.

Following her performance Meyers received a standing ovation and enthusiastic applause from the audience - this is a piece that has been a hit for the audience while also providing plenty of virtuosity for the soloist. I hope to see others take it up. I will look forward to hearing Meyers play one of the many other pieces she has commissioned in recent years - next spring she will perform Eric Whitacre's "The Pacific Has No Memory" - a piece written in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfires - with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

After the intermission the spotlight was on the orchestra itself, which is currently in a state of transition. Earlier in the day, the LA Phil had announced that Esa-Pekka Salonen, 67, who served as the LA Phil's Music Director from 1992 to 2009, will return in fall of 2026 as Creative Director. This announcement comes in the conspicuous absence of a succession plan for Gustavo Dudamel, who leaves the LA Phil after the 2025-26 to become Music Director of the New York Philharmonic.

On Tuesday the LA Phil had a great many unfamiliar faces in the mix - and the veterans onstage included retired concertmaster Martin Chalifour sitting in as concertmaster. The orchestra continues to perform with a glaring number of vacancies in the first violins, including three leadership positions: Principal, First Associate and Assistant Concertmasters. The orchestra also is operating with vacancies for Principal viola, oboe, English horn, etc.

Tuesday's performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony was uneven, with some wonderful moments - but also some disappointing derailments.

Guerrero introduced the piece from the podium, explaining how it was composed in the Soviet Union during the fraught, pre-World War II time when Shostakovich had been condemned by Stalin. "There are hot and cold moments, very Mahlerian, very Tchaikovsky, great moments of joy and triumph with moments of terror." Shostakovich makes fun of the powerful - and he deftly illustrates the tension and fear so prevalent in Soviet life.

Indeed, after the powerful introduction, the first movement felt very eerie - made even more effective by the strings playing intentionally without vibrato. The violinists walked a tightrope - this is edgy and uncomfortable stuff. The mood turns on a piano entrance - on Tuesday this was satisfyingly menacing, from the LA Phil's Joanne Pearce Martin. This musical show of dark force also depends on some entrances in the brass, a slow call in the trumpets. In this pivotal moment one of them simply missed an entrance - playing a measure behind the orchestra for that phrase. These things happen, but it was a key transition - the entrance creates kind of a syncopated tension that leads to the next tier of this build-up by Shostakovich. It's the kind of stumble you really don't want to hear from a fine orchestra.

They did recover - it morphed into an incredibly exciting march. Shostakovich somehow manages to bring on the music in full force and yet make it tipsy-sounding - a musical depiction of corrupt power. After that brazen power marched through the middle of everything, the music shrank back to its thinner thread - trepidation everywhere - a spooky flute solo, and ending with a tremulous concertmaster solo.

The LA Phil's basses, led by Christopher Hanulik, began the second movement with a gratifying show of fierce energy. It's a heavy dance, bottle of vodka in hand. Shostakovich's off-kilter rhythmic patterns and skittering up and down the register - puts the feeling of a dangerous sway into this dance. There were some especially well-played solos by principal flutist Bouriakov and bassoonist Shawn Mouser.

The third movement "Largo" opens heavy with sorrow - the third violins sounded quite solid on this marooned-on-the-moon partial-section solo. This movement is an ache that just grows, reaching an apotheosis of sorrow. The music thins out again - with a lonely lament in the oboe - played beautifully by Kuszyk - over an icy tremolo played by a third of the violins. At the end of this solo the entire orchestra drops out so that this violin tremolo can descend into a kind of redemptive chord - however on this night the violins missed the count or missed the cue - instead of a deliberate descent there was just confusion as it petered into the next section. Another disappointing miss, unfortunately. The movement regained its energy toward the end, with the cellos, led by Robert deMaine, playing strong and heartfelt section solo - boldly wailing into the upper reaches of their register.

Guerrero had prepared us for the last movement - which ends in the repeated notes in most of the orchestra, said to depict the march-step forced clapping of the politburo, an applause at gunpoint. In this reading those repeated notes nearly drowned out the exuberant "victory march" in the brass - appropriate, and very moving.