“Ingeniously original music”– The Wall Street Journal
"A composer biography like no other" - The Boston Globe
The Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience and the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music are proud to present the West Coast premiere of composer Tod Machover’s chamber opera, Schoenberg in Hollywood, May 18, 20 and 22, 2025 at the newly-renovated UCLA Nimoy Theater. These performances are part of Schoenberg 150, the worldwide celebration of the sesquicentennial of composer Arnold Schoenberg’s birth.
Schoenberg in Hollywood is a high-spirited, affectionate homage to one of the most influential artistic figures of the 20th century, and UCLA’s revered professor of music composition from 1936 to 1944. It presents vignettes from Schoenberg’s life, seen through the aesthetic of the Hollywood film industry. It explores the complex relationship between uncompromising art and mass appeal, and whether—and how—art can change the world.
Called "America's most wired composer" by The Los Angeles Times and a "musical visionary" by The New York Times, Tod Machover is R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media at MIT. He is widely recognized for designing new technologies for music performance and creation, and is director of the Media Lab’s Opera of the Future group.
Based on a scenario by Braham Murray with a libretto by Simon Robson, Schoenberg in Hollywood was commissioned by Boston Lyric Opera, which gave its world premiere in 2018. Our production will feature English baritone Omar Ebrahim, who created the role of Schoenberg in the Boston production, and American director Karole Armitage, who directed the Boston premiere. Playing multiple supporting roles will be soprano Anna Davidson and tenor Jon Lee Keenan. The orchestra of 15 will be conducted by UCLA Director of Orchestral Studies and Milken Center Artistic Director Neal Stulberg.
Machover recalls that he started thinking about the concept of Schoenberg in Hollywood over 20 years ago when he read Alexander Ringer’s book, Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer As Jew. “The book was a revelation. I had long admired Schoenberg’s music but didn’t know about his complex relationship to Judaism, or about how Nazi critics used his Judaism as a way of justifying their hatred for his music.”
Born in Vienna, Schoenberg converted from Judaism to Lutheranism in 1898. “But then”, Machover notes, “he was kicked out of the Berlin Conservatory the day Hitler came in, and his music was banned in Germany.” In 1933, Schoenberg and his family fled the Nazi regime for Paris, where the composer reconverted to Judaism. In 1935, the Schoenbergs arrived in Los Angeles where the composer lived until his death in 1951. Schoenberg was among many intellectual émigrés who fled Nazi persecution and settled in California in the 1930s.
Schoenberg’s life in Southern California included friendships with George Gershwin, Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Marx and other Hollywood luminaries. It was Harpo Marx (who makes an appearance in Schoenberg in Hollywood) who introduced him to MGM’s legendary head of production Irving Thalberg in 1935. Knowing of Schoenberg’s eminence as a composer, Thalberg asked him to consider writing a score for MGM’s upcoming film, “The Good Earth.” Schoenberg felt conflicted about the offer, but eventually began negotiations with Thalberg, which included a proposed $50,000 fee and total artistic control of his music. He was not offered the job.
“When I heard about that story and meeting, it just seemed to crystallize all of these contrasts,” Machover recalled, “of serious art and commercialism, reaching a large public and being true to yourself, finding your identity and being political and changing the world. So I wanted to make an opera with that meeting as the centerpiece.”
In presenting Tod Machover’s intriguing, exuberant opera about Arnold Schoenberg -- on the UCLA campus -- the Milken Center and Alpert School honor the artistry of two composers whose music resonates deeply with the American Jewish Experience, and celebrate the legacy of one of UCLA’s foundational musical giants.
Three Performances
Sunday, May 18
Tuesday, May 20
Thursday, May 22
This event is made possible by the Lowell Milken Fund for American Jewish Music at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music with additional support from the David Vickter Foundation.