To commemorate the 100th season at the Hollywood Bowl, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is publishing “Hollywood Bowl: The First 100 Years,” a 300-page coffee table-style book filled with rare photos and historical facts that pays homage to notable performances and moments in the history of the iconic venue.
The book, which was written by LA Phil’s Derek Traub and edited by LA Phil’s director of humanities Julia Ward and Robin Rauzi, will be available June 3, and it coincides with the official opening of the 100th season at the venue with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil performing with Gwen Stefani and special guests. The book can be purchased at laphil.com and in-person at the LA Phil Store at Walt Disney Concert Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl.
“The Hollywood Bowl is a little bit magical,” Ward said during a recent interview backstage at the venue. “It’s situated in a gorgeous, natural environment and it’s an experience. You can bring a bottle of wine, sit under this beautiful night sky and hear some of the greatest music in the world. It has become a tradition in the lives of so many families in Southern California. There are people that have handed down their box subscriptions for generations now, so it’s really a part of people’s lives and a part of the fabric of this city.”
The Hollywood Bowl got its start in an outdoor canyon then known as Daisy Dell in 1921, according to the book. That was the first time the LA Phil performed there and when Artie Mason Carter, also known as the Mother of the Hollywood Bowl, began to champion the location to become a permanent home for affordable symphonic concerts that would cost no more than a quarter.
“One of the things I was vaguely aware of but didn’t fully realize until this book was how the early history of the Hollywood Bowl was so informed by really progressive women,” she said. “The very early origins were a combination of city boosters and typical city interests, but you had these bohemian theosophist women who wanted to do plays about all the world’s religions.”
Then there was Artie Mason Carter.
“She came out of community choruses and she wasn’t wealthy,” Ward continued. “She was a music teacher and just deeply passionate about her mission. She believed music was for everyone and should be accessible to everyone and she acted on that. In the first few years everyone thought it would fail, but literally penny by penny she collected the funds and made it a success.”
The book explores decades of operas, symphonies, ballets, theatrical productions, film screenings, comedy shows and popular music concerts. It dives into legends of the venue including that of Ella Fitzgerald, who sold out the venue across five decades from the 1950s to 1990s, and conductor John Williams, who brought the music of “Star Wars” to a live audience for the first time. It was also the place where the Beatles broke the attendance record in 1964, selling 18,000 tickets in just hours. In 1979, it became home to one of the longest-running music festivals in the area, the Playboy Jazz Festival, which ceased in 2019 and is now the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival.
Ward said the Hollywood Bowl is definitely a place where every artist brings their A-game and there have been moments working at the venue that have not only given her goosebumps but have etched themselves in her memory.
“It’s amazing when there’s a single musician on stage in front of 18,000 people and you can hear a pin drop,” she said. “Like when Yo-Yo Ma plays the Bach Cello Suites, it’s just stunning. In 2014, when the Ferguson protests were going on, John Legend was here doing a tribute to Marvin Gaye and he came out and did ‘What’s Going On’ and everybody knew what that meant. There was a feeling of solidarity and being with one another in a space of processing and healing that you weren’t going to get on a couch alone at home.”
Along with the book, the LA Phil will also put out a limited edition vinyl box set “Hollywood Bowl 100: The First 100 Years of Music,” which includes seven LPs featuring over 50 live recordings of classical, pop, rock, film and jazz performance from the venue between 1928-2021.
A 10-episode podcast series, which was written and is hosted by Traub, will be available for free through podcast platforms or can be accessed at hollywoodbowl.com/first100years on June 3. In each 5-10 minute episode, Traub shares the history of the 88-acre campus with stories pulled from an oral history of interviews and thousands of documents from the venue’s archive and historical collections throughout Southern California.
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