Organ Recital – Walt Disney Concert Hall – October 12, 2025
It seems like every time we are in Walt Disney Concert Hall we end up talking about the organ, which Julie calls “Jesus versus the Pope”. We saw Paul Jacobs in the spring with Pacific Symphony and he was wonderful. So when I saw cheap tickets ($24.50 each), I jumped on them. We have seen them wheel a portable organ onto stage rather than the big guy and were concerned that’s what it might be (although Julie said she didn’t think Paul Jacobs would agree to play an organ that wasn’t the big one). I emailed LA Phil to ask and got a response saying it would take a week for them to give me a response and then a week later a second response saying “no idea and also subject to change.” Clearly they could have left off “subject to change” since they weren’t committing one way or the other, but there you go. I got an email the day before the show saying we should plan to arrive an hour early because streets were being closed for CicLAvia. In case you haven’t heard of CicLAvia, it’s a program where they close down an area to vehicle traffic to encourage people to ride their bikes and walk. They take place in various areas all around the city. When I checked, it said it would be ending at 4:00 and this show wasn’t until 7:30, so I’m not sure why they thought we needed to be there an hour early. Add to that the fact that WDCH has its own parking, separate from the Music Center parking and an hour early seems even more excessive. However, we have been burned before, so we planned for an hour early. Julie ended up finding a spot on level 2. That’s how early she got there. I made may way to level 6 as always. It’s just familiar to me. Parking was $10. I tried to put “WDCH Lower Grand Parking” into Maps but it insisted on sending me to the 2nd St entrance. I think that might be why the Lower Grand entrance is always empty. The parking attendent looked a little bored as I pulled up. So keep in mind that you can use that entrance. From the 110N (which is how I come) get off on 4th, turn left on Lower Grand and drive to the end, where you’ll see the parking entrance. If you are southbound into DTLA, get on Olive and turn right on General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way and another right toward Colburn Parking. WDCH parking is on your left past Colburn.
Okay, now onto the show. As I said we got there very early. Plenty of time to look in the gift shop, use the restroom and find our seats. It was far from crowded. They did not open the side terraces or the orchestra view sections. Maybe half to two-thirds of the sections were available and the available sections were only about half full. I guess a Bach organ concert draws a very particular kind of person. We were disappointed to see the portable organ wheeled into the middle of the stage but Julie said, “I’m sure it will be fine.” Paul Jacobs came out and explained that he’d be playing a whole lot of fugues and each fugue had 2 parts and then he encouraged us to let the music wash over us. Once he began we saw flaps moving on the big organ and realized that the portable organ onstage was controlling it. I spent the rest of the concert wondering how it was done. Where did they plug it in? There were no wires anywhere! I was also a little torn between watching Paul play – which is fascinating because you play organ with your whole body – and watching pieces of the organ move which was equally fascinating. The fugues ebbed and flowed as they got more and less dramatic and before we knew it, the show was over. 75 minutes with no intermission. It was honestly nice to get home so early on a Sunday evening and gave me time to google the organ to try to figure out how it worked. I’m not sure I’ll go to another organ recital, but definitely worth the $24.50 I paid.