Summer is Gustavo Dudamel's season at the Hollywood Bowl this year, as the beloved conductor concludes his 17-year career leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Audiences will be able to say goodbye to him during a trio of performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall in June, before the Bowl kicks off a new season with a four-night Dudamel tribute titled “Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl,” which includes a show with the Foo Fighters. That series begins Aug. 20 as part of the LA Phil's packed summer lineup, which the organization is expected to announce Wednesday.
Dudamel's lovefest comes as the Bowl dedicates its iconic stage to John Williams in celebration of the composer's decades-long relationship with the venue. The newly named John Williams Stage and special Dudamel programming will pay tribute to two towering Bowl icons during an important moment of change for the LA Phil.
Dudamel conducted his first concert as music director of the LA Phil in 2009 at the Bowl. In “Welcome Gustavo,” the conductor performed with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA), a group to which he dedicated his heart and soul during his tenure.
“We kind of took that as our inspiration and said we have to complete this great adventure together,” said Meghan Umber, president of the Hollywood Bowl and director of programming for the LA Phil during a recent interview.
Umber said both the symphony and youth orchestras will return for “Beethoven 9,” the opening of “Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl.” That night, Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino will also premiere a new orchestral piece with lyrics by Amanda Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history.
Rounding out the four-day show are “Dudamel's Playlist,” a Latin pop rock variety show hosted by the director, a joint concert with the Foo Fighters and a retrospective that Umber described as “Gustavo's love letter to Los Angeles.”
“The Hollywood Bowl is where my journey with the Los Angeles Philharmonic truly began and remains one of the most meaningful places for me to make music,” Dudamel said in a statement. “Together, we have challenged ourselves, expanded what an orchestra can be, and built a community based on curiosity and connection.”
“Sharing these performances in the place where I was for the first time before this orchestra, surrounded by the city and the stars, is an immense source of pride and gratitude,” said the director.
“We don't consider this a farewell to Gustavo,” Umber said. “He's part of the family.”
Instead, he said, “for him, this is a transition into a new era.”
This year, in lieu of a headlining musical, the summer season at the Bowl will open with a Broadway-themed concert to benefit YOLA, capped by a monumental Bowl fireworks show.
Other concert highlights include a Juneteenth celebration headlined by Chance the Rapper; returning hip-hop night “A Roots Picnic Experience” with Nas; and a spectacular Fourth of July fireworks show featuring the Beach Boys and special guest John Stamos.
Complementing the Bowl's Independence Day program is a song cycle from Shaina Taub's Tony Award-winning musical “Suffs,” which, Umber says, examines America's 250th anniversary, “including that extraordinary female point of view.”
The film program includes three big hits: a film music concert with Studio Ghibli scores by Joe Hisaishi that includes clips from iconic films such as “Princess Mononoke,” “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Ponyo”; a celebration of world music by Wes Anderson; and a musical tribute to Williams with a 50-minute compilation of scenes from his most popular films.
“We all know what a gem John is, and those nights he hosts at the Bowl are like family nights… in the sense that you don't have to have a family, but it seems like L.A. is your family, the film industry is your family,” Umber said. “Everyone wields a lightsaber. You don't have to take yourself too seriously: we all feel like kids again.”
In addition to the new stage name, the Bowl will debut several other cosmetic updates this summer, including its new multi-use building (the Terri and Jerry Kohl Artist Pavilion), a premium sound system that will boost sonic immersion while reducing sound leakage, and a reimagined permanent collection at the Hollywood Bowl Museum that will celebrate the venue's more than 100-year history as a community and cultural center of Los Angeles. It will also mark the first time the collection has been renewed in the 30 years since the museum building's debut in 1996.
The new permanent exhibit, “Hollywood Bowl: Soul of a City,” consists of photographs, audio and video recordings, original documents, maps and architectural drawings, 3D models, listening stations and artifacts drawn from the vast archives of the LA Phil and Hollywood Bowl.
“There's a lot of riches in the history of the Hollywood Bowl, so it's impossible to decide what to put on it,” Umber said. But the focus of the exhibit will generally be the public-private partnership that has allowed the Bowl to serve generations of Angelenos.
“We're always talking about all the hard things in life,” Umber said. “We also have to celebrate the things that are going very well.”
Outside of the LA Phil's summer programming, the Bowl, in collaboration with promoter Live Nation-Hewitt Silva, will in the coming months present Netflix shows Is a Joke from notables John Mulaney and Marcello Hernández, plus a lineup of generational musical acts from Santana and the Doobie Brothers to the Black Crowes and Tedeschi Trucks Band.
For the full 2026 Hollywood Bowl schedule, visit the venue's website.
