Los Angeles Lawyers Phil prepares for its Disney Hall debut
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Consider the idea of 75 lawyers and judges spending three hours in one room. Imagine the bickering babble and angry roars. Picture the disgruntled frowns. Visualize stacks and stacks of hefty law books.
The last thing you would expect is to hear the luscious strains of Beethoven.
But there is a group that brings such a musical mash-up to reality: the Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic.
At a rehearsal Monday night at the Wilshire United Methodist Church, musicians didn’t chatter, much less bicker, as they readied their instruments. When the conductor stepped to the podium, the players focused their eyes on his baton and played the first note in unison. The violinists furrowed their eyebrows as they concentrated on fast passages, fingers flying. A clarinetist swayed her body to the rhythm of the melody. In the brass section, players tapped their feet to the oom-pah-pah beat. A young woman leaned over her cello to make a quick mark on her music.
The group composed of lawyers, judges and others in the legal field has been putting music practice over law practice in preparation for its first appearance at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Thursday night. In a show titled ‘Pops Concert Extraordinaire — First Annual Habeas Musicum,’ the young orchestra will play a variety of popular works from the classical and musical theater repertoire. Selections include Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and excerpts from ‘The Barber of Seville,’ ‘Carmen,’ ‘West Side Story’ and ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ for which the hall’s massive organ will be played. The featured piece will be selections from “Camelot,” with narration by actor Richard Chamberlain.
For more about this group of musicians – billed as “L.A.’s only legal orchestra” – click here.
- Daina Beth Solomon
‘Pops Concert Extraordinaire — First Annual Habeas Musicum.’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave.. 7:30 p.m., Thursday. Tickets $10 to $50. (323) 525-1800. www.LALawyersPhil.org.
Photo: At rehearsals of the Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic, music practice comes before law practice. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times
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