“I don’t think that there has been an important musical artiste in the 20th century, either classical or pop, who has not enthralled thousands at the Hollywood Bowl,” conductor Zubin Mehta had once said. The venue is the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where Mehta served as the Music Director from 1962 to 1978, assuming the position when he was only 26.

An annual tradition that started under the baton of Mehta found its way back to him this July when, after 31 years, the maestro returned to the Hollywood Hills to conduct Mozart Under the Stars, a summer concert where audiences experience Mozart’s masterpieces as the LA sunset turns into a starry evening. Mumbai, too, was starstruck this August as Mehta returned to the city of his birth to conduct the Symphony Orchestra of India at the NCPA.

The string that ties Mehta to the two institutions entwines other legendary performers. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, conductors Simon Rattle and Carlo Rizzi, jazz icon Herbie Hancock and singer-songwriters Chaka Khan and Angélique Kidjo have all played at both venues.

Set against the backdrop of the monumental Hollywood sign, the Hollywood Bowl is one of the world’s most prominent places in which to perform. What strikes visitors first is the appearance: the amphitheatre’s bandshell made of concentric arches is a cultural landmark; its design the result of several iterations to achieve acoustic excellence. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the venue has a seating capacity of nearly 18,000. 

More than a century ago, the scale of events organised in the space, built for cultural exchange through community efforts, was different. The earliest stage consisted of a wooden platform with a canvas top while patrons sat on moveable wooden benches. A pre-season concert of Bizet’s Carmen was how the first seats at the Bowl were paid for. On 11th July 1922, Alfred Hertz, fondly known as the ‘father of the Bowl’, conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the inaugural concert to present a programme of works by Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Grieg.  

Many of the key figures in the founding of the Hollywood Bowl were women, most notably the pianist Artie Mason Carter, who encouraged patronage of the venue through her vast network of contacts. Christine Wetherill Stevenson and Marie Rankin Clarke donated $21,000 to purchase the land on which the Bowl was built. Several other women patrons were instrumental in carrying out fundraising drives. The Women’s World Peace Concert on Armistice Day in 1921 was one of the first major events at the Bowl before its formal inauguration. English conductor Ethel Leginska was the first female conductor at the Bowl, who took the stage within three years of its inception.

The Bowl has possibly seen as many icons of jazz, rock, pop, R&B, rock ’n’ roll, gospel and soul music as it has of the classical genre. Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, Madonna, Tina Turner, Radiohead, Dolly Parton, Coldplay, The Police, Imagine Dragons, Mariah Carey and Billie Eilish have all performed under its arches. Not many venues have a festival in their records that brought together Martha Graham and her company, Dave Brubeck, Billie Holiday and André Previn, among others, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. In August 1956, a year after the festival, the first jazz recording made at the Bowl saw Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum and the Oscar Peterson Trio perform a sold-out show. 

The Bowl has been the mise-en-scène for many more historic musical events. The LA Phil was the first major symphony orchestra in the US to broadcast an entire concert on the radio live from the Bowl in 1927. After Vladimir Horowitz’s performance of Rachmaninoff ’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in 1942, the composer walked onstage to tell the pianist that it was how he had always dreamed his work should be played. Horowitz later described this as “the greatest moment of my life.” In 1962, Stravinsky celebrated his 80th birthday at the Bowl, leading the LA Phil in The Rite of Spring. A few years before that, The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus performed, but not without their elephants, a flying trapeze and cannons. In 1977, The Star Wars Concert, complete with lasers, took place here, starting a nationwide phenomenon six months after the film’s theatrical release.

The venue is also home to the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, an international mix of skilled musicians, many of whom spend their days on Hollywood’s scoring stages. That there is no overlap between the musicians of the LA Phil and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra is an indicator of the immense musical talent the city nurtures. 

One of the specialities of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra has been its live concerts of film music. Since the early 1990s, both orchestras have been committed to restoring and performing lost or neglected film scores, including Max Steiner’s theme for Gone with the Wind, the ‘dream ballet’ sequence from Oklahoma!, ‘Born in a Trunk’ from A Star is Born and many others. 

Movie nights at the Bowl attract huge audiences. The tradition continues this year with the world debut of the Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga Concert Experience, journeying through the first 23 films of the franchise and Barbie The Movie: In Concert, featuring an all-women and majority women-of-colour orchestra conducted by Tony Award-winner Macy Schmidt. 

When not in use for a performance, the amphitheatre acts as a public park and works in collaborative ways to involve locals in their cultural pursuits. The Bowl Walk is an immersive experience, enabling visitors of all ages to take themselves on a tour of the venue. The Hollywood Bowl Museum, in what was originally a tea room, is a celebration of the Bowl’s significance in the musical history of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

In more ways than one, the Hollywood Bowl is a letter of love to Los Angeles and its embrace of the music, the movies and the madness.