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LOS ANGELES (SEPTEMBER 16, 2025) – The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association today announced its 2025/26 Insight festivals and special projects. Bringing together a diverse range of guest artists and partner organizations with intellectually curious audiences, Insight takes the LA Phil’s concert programming as a starting point for thematic exploration. Insight activities—ranging from panel discussions and performances to exhibitions and publications—are typically offered in conjunction with festivals, special projects, and The Ford summer season.
Meghan Umber, the LA Phil’s Chief Programming Officer and President of the Hollywood Bowl, said, “Whether its staging John Luther Adams’ Crossing Open Ground in Elysian Park or celebrating the meeting of Caribbean and Latin American culture with composer Angélica Negrón at La Cita, Insight is an expansion of our Music & Artist Director Gustavo Dudamel’s vision and desire to work towards the kind of cross-cultural understanding and connection offered to us through art, gathering, and the power of learning.”
Senior Programming Director Julia Ward said, “Insight has taken many forms, from variety shows and listening parties to art installations and monographs. In some ways, the initiative is most easily understood as museum-style public programming that takes concerts instead of exhibitions as a point of departure. But that fails to capture Insight’s essence. An Insight program is thoughtfully curated and nurtured by a diverse community of artists, thinkers, and partners, but it is also fun, unexpected, and calls on its audiences to be active rather than passive participants in the world.”
Cosmic-Classical Sounds of Terry Riley: A Listening Party
Friday, September 5, 2025 at 7PM
LOCATION: James Irvine Japanese Garden at JACCC, 244 South San Pedro Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
A co-presentation between In Sheep’s Clothing, the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, and Insight, Cosmic-Classical Sounds takes a deep dive into Terry Riley’s catalog of hypnotic recordings to hear how this legendary composer evolved the fabric of contemporary music by transcending boundaries to create his otherworldly sonic offerings. This listening session serves as a warm-up for Terry Riley’s 90th Birthday Celebration concert at The Ford on September 7, featuring Bang on a Can All-Stars, Gyan Riley, and special guests performing some of the mystic minimalist’s most iconic works live under a luminous full moon.
This event has passed but is included to illustrate the full scope of the 2025/26 Insight season.
Terry Riley 90th Birthday Celebration
with Bang on a Can All-Stars, Gyan Riley, and special guests
Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 7:30PM
LOCATION: The Ford
A celebration of the mystic minimalist’s 90th birthday, featuring performances of his iconic pieces: the elemental Keyboard Study No. 2, In C (called “musical democracy at its highest level” by the Library of Congress), and A Rainbow in Curved Air, the latter in a new transcription by Terry’s son and frequent performance partner Gyan Riley. Along with Gyan, Bang on a Can All-Stars and a host of special guests conjure some of the greatest music of the 20th century under a full moon—aligning with Terry’s cosmic outlook in the most auspicious way.
This event has passed but is included to illustrate the full scope of the 2025/26 Insight season.
Black Horror Halloween at The Ford
While it brings thrills and chills, the horror genre also serves as social commentary, examining our collective anxieties and fears through the metaphorical power of monsters, the supernatural, and terrifying scenarios. This is particularly true of the Black Horror subgenre, which can act as a powerful tool for introspection on the themes of racism and inequity. Insight joins with The Ford in celebration of a Black Horror Halloween with film screenings and discussions about this potent and popular genre.
Vibe Check Live
with special guest Tananarive Due
Tuesday, October 28, 2025 at 8PM
LOCATION: The Ford
Kicking off a week of film screenings celebrating Black Horror, acclaimed podcast Vibe Check returns to The Ford stage to explore the poetry and politics of the genre and more. Described as your “favorite group chat come to life,” the weekly podcast, hosted by audio-journalist Sam Sanders, poet Saeed Jones, and theater producer Zach Stafford, takes on the news and culture of the day from a Black queer perspective. The hosts are joined by special guest Tananarive Due, the award-winning author of The Reformatory, professor of Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA, and producer of Shudder’s groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. In this special presentation, the audience will be seated on stage with the hosts for an intimate Halloween experience.
Get Out
Thursday, October 30, 2025 at 8PM
LOCATION: The Ford
Produced in Partnership with Street Food Cinema, Insight is proud to present this special screening of Jordan Peele’s 2017 directorial debut. Get Out is a groundbreaking psychological horror film that deftly blends social commentary on race, privilege, and identity, with elements of suspense and tension. The story follows Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), an African American man who visits his white girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) family estate for a weekend trip. As Chris interacts with Rose’s family and their staff, he begins to sense that something isn’t quite right. What initially appears to be a typical, albeit awkward, meeting soon reveals unsettling and mysterious layers beneath the surface. Widely acclaimed for its originality and fresh take on horror, Get Out and its success was both a critical and cultural milestone.
Night of the Living Dead
Friday, October 31, 2025 at 8PM
LOCATION: The Ford
Produced partnership with Street Food Cinema, Insight is proud to present this special screening event of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead—the seminal 1968 horror film that revolutionized the zombie genre in popular culture. The film begins with a simple premise: a group of strangers take refuge in a remote farmhouse after a sudden outbreak of violent, undead creatures begins to ravage the countryside. As the group struggles to survive, tensions rise, and the true horror becomes not just the relentless zombies outside but also the psychological strain the survivors experience within. While Night of the Living Dead is filled with chilling moments of terror, it also explores themes of isolation, fear, and the breakdown of social order in times of crisis. It was revolutionary in its portrayal of race and its subversion of genre conventions, offering a stark reflection of the era’s societal issues.
Trópico Tuesdays: Recovecos – Magic Spaces of Memory & Sound
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 at 10PM
LOCATION: La Cita, 336 S Hill St, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Enjoy a musical journey which takes you from the concert hall to the nightclub with a post-concert tropical dance party! Following the Green Umbrella: Recovecos concert curated by Puerto-Rican composer Angélica Negrón, we will migrate from Walt Disney Concert Hall to the dance floor of Downtown Los Angeles’ historic La Cita Bar. The Trópico Internacional DJ collective and special guest artists will lead us on a journey into the spirit of Caribbean and Latin America dance music to further explore the physical and intangible spaces of memory, nostalgia, labor, play, catharsis, longing, joy, and healing highlighted in the concert. Co-presented by Trópico Internacional.
Body and Sound: Music in Five Senses
The Body and Sound festival offers opportunities to experience music differently. In complete darkness. While in motion. During a composer-created meal. With a combination of multi-sensory mainstage concerts and off-site Insight events scheduled from January through April 2026, Body and Sound seeks to counteract the forces that numb our senses and reveal music’s profound impact on our health and well-being.
Haegue Yang: Star-Crossed Rendezvous (Special Event)
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8PM
LOCATION: MOCA, 250 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012 and Walt Disney Concert Hall
LA Phil Insight and MOCA partner present internationally acclaimed artist Haegue Yang (Seoul, 1971) and her ongoing interest in and engagement with the late Korean composer Isang Yun (1917–1995). Yang is celebrated for her unique abstract visual language accompanied by choreographies of sensory experience. Often grounded in deep archival research, Yang’s work explores the life and musical legacy of the composer Isang Yun through this presentation.
The evening will be centered around Yun’s musical composition, Double Concerto for oboe, harp, and small orchestra (1977), which audiences will encounter twice. First during a special preview of Yang’s sprawling installation in the galleries at MOCA, then during a live performance by LA Phil musicians at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. In doing so, Yang attempts to connect the physical sites of MOCA and LA Phil while bridging genres and histories. Activating our senses to travel across disparate places and time, the presentation will create a full body and sound journey that will unfold across the partner institutions.
In conjunction with this presentation, Yang and MOCA will organize a daylong symposium, Star-Crossed Rendezvous: The Musical Legacy of Isang Yun, gathering leading musicologists, composers, and historians at MOCA on November 22, 2025. For more info, visit www.moca.org
Ancestral Table
with artist Mary Prescott and chef Jazz Singsanong
Thursday, March 19, 2026 at 7PM
Friday, March 20, 2026 at 7PM
LOCATION: Millwick, 800 E 4th Place, Los Angeles, CA 90013
Co-Produced with Liquid Music, Ancestral Table is a shared meal and interdisciplinary performance that examines relationships between ecology, migration, cultural inheritance, and maternal legacy through the recipes of composer Mary Prescott’s Thai mother. Ancestral Table audiences will experience an evening-length solo performance presented alongside a communal meal retracing the legacies of Prescott’s maternal ancestors and their pathways of migration as revealed through foodways. Legendary local chef Jazz Singsanong of Jitlada joins Prescott in preparing the evening’s meal.
Haas in the Dark
with JACK Quartet
Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 8PM
LOCATION: REDCAT, 631 W 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Communicating solely through the sounds produced by their instruments, the musicians of JACK invite one another into musical processes, accepting these invitations or responding in kind with an invitation of their own—and always deciding for themselves how far they choose to go down each path together, before turning back.
Georg Friedrich Haas’ visionary Third String Quartet is designed to be performed in total darkness, creating a uniquely physical concert experience. As Haas wrote in his “darkness rider” for this work, “The outline of one’s hand will ideally not be visible even when directly in front of their face. The darkness is absolute, and the effect is disorienting: an audience member feels they have become absorbed in an India ink level of blackness with no visual cues to demarcate the size and shape of the space or their relation to it.” For the Body and Sound festival, JACK Quartet, the foremost interpreters of Haas’ work, will perform his String Quartet No. 3, “in iij Noct.” Co-produced with Liquid Music. Co-presented by REDCAT.
John Luther Adams’ Crossing Open Ground
Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 6PM
Sunday, April 19, 2026 at 6M
LOCATION: Elysian Park, Elysian Fields, Park Road, Los Angeles, CA 90012
In a co-production with Liquid Music, Insight presents environmentalist composer John Luther Adams’ Crossing Open Ground, an outdoor work for winds, brass, and percussion. Led by conductor Christopher Rountree and director Dimitri Chamblas and featuring 40 local musicians, the piece offers an opportunity to rediscover and reconsecrate place. Throughout the performance, each performer and listener is free to follow their own individual path through the physical and musical landscape. The New Yorker called Adams “one of the most original music thinkers of the new century.” With Crossing Open Ground, he invites us to listen to the older, deeper natural world beneath our feet.
Great Wall of Los Angeles (Publication)
Saturday, March 7, 2026 at 2PM (Green Umbrella Concert)
LOCATION: Walt Disney Concert Hall
Inspired by Judy Baca’s mural The Great Wall of Los Angeles, Gustavo Dudamel and Gabriela Ortiz bring together a group of composers—Juhi Bansal, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Viet Cuong, Estevan Olmos, Xavier Muzik, and Nina Shekhar—to create an hour-long symphonic tribute to Angelenos who have shaped this city’s history, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and featuring an original film by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The concert, part of the Green Umbrella series, will be accompanied by a special Insight publication edited by MacArthur award-winning cultural historian, critic, and curator Josh Kun.
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Additional events to be announced in conjunction with May 2026’s Gustavo Dudamel and Yo-Yo Ma programs in early 2026.
LA Phil Insight is generously supported by Linda and David Shaheen
Additional support for Crossing Open Ground, Haegue Yang: Star-Crossed Rendezvous, and The Great Wall of Los Angeles
provided by the Hillenburg Family.
Insight event tickets will be available beginning October 2025.
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