‘I get so overexcited and become obsessed with tracking these composers down!’
DAVID ZENTZ
The stars were aligned – quite literally – on the evening of 12 September 2023 at the Hollywood Bowl. They cloaked the clear Los Angeles night sky, a violet backdrop against the two crossed Hollywood searchlights beaming above the iconic 17,500-seat outdoor venue nestled in the Hollywood Hills. But they were aligned in other ways, too. Alongside the Los Angeles Philharmonic, US violinist Anne Akiko Meyers was performing, with the composer present, Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto no.1, which she will be recording next year alongside his New Chaconne for violin and bass-line, written for her. She is herself from California and grew up attending the Hollywood Bowl. Her interpretation of the concerto was seamlessly in tune with the soul of the piece. And the orchestra ended the concert with Holst’s suitably galactic The Planets.
Sentimentality aside, in our interview at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA the next morning, Meyers tells me that she was secretly wishing Jim Carrey would be there (Glass scored The Truman Show).