5 June saw the premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's major new orchestral work Wing on Wing at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles. Written in celebration of Frank Gehry's stunning new hall for the orchestra, the piece was Salonen's gift to the LA Philharmonic. The term "wing on wing" refers to when a sailboat opens both the foresail and the main sail to a 180-degree angle to produce the maximum amount of sail area, and this image was used by Gehry as a metaphor for the design of the hall.
"The work contains writing of striking orchestral brilliance… it includes the most unabashedly beautiful and introspective music that Salonen has written… This is a piece, both devilishly difficult and inspiringly confident in its instrumental writing, that says to the Philharmonic not only that it has arrived but that the composer has arrived as well." - Mark Swed, LA Times
