CELEBRACIÓN! GUSTAVO DUDAMEL & THE LA PHIL WITH JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ

SATURDAY, JANUARY 1 @ 7:30PM

Great Performances spotlights the October 7 opening night concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Music Director Gustavo Dudamel featuring renowned Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Actress Eva Mendes hosts the broadcast.

In describing the conductor’s interpretation of Rossini’s “Semiramide” overture, critic Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times enthused, “Dudamel rode Rossini’s crescendos like a surfer on an epic wave, sending nature’s power into to the concert hall. He brought out wonderful instrumental details. The orchestra sparkled.”

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GLENN GOULD: GENIUS WITHIN

MONDAY, DECEMBER 27 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

A profoundly enigmatic musical poet, there have been many documentaries about Glenn Gould, but they were typically sidetracked by his eccentricities, focusing on the pills and gloves and scarves – missing the man, the magic and the message behind his music.

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FRAMED

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26 @ 7:00PM & 11:30PM

London’s National Gallery houses some of the world’s finest masterpieces, and its curator, Quentin Lester, wants nothing more than to live among them, distraction-free, in a pure and simple life of the mind. When the Gallery’s Victorian-era plumbing fails and floods the museum, its paintings are brought to safety in an abandoned slate mine in Manod, North Wales — the very mine to which the collection was evacuated to during World War II. Quentin accompanies his beloved Raphaels, Titians, and Velasquez to safety, relishing a chance to tend to them in isolation.

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THE CALLING

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

Through a growing series of interviews, videos, and articles, What’s Your Calling? pushes the notion of “calling” to explore all of the stuff that makes us human: our values, our passions, our doubts, and hopes. Join a conversation about notions of “calling” from both religious and secular perspectives.

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ENDGAME

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

A nation teeters on the brink of civil war in this real-life political thriller about the negotiations that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa and the release of Nelson Mandela. Michael Young, a British businessman working in South Africa, has the audacious hope of bringing both sides of the apartheid conflict together — the entrenched government and the rebel African National Congress (ANC). But when his dream of secret talks is realized on an estate in England, it quickly becomes clear that common ground will be elusive as explosive tensions boil just below the surface. Against a backdrop of danger, terrorism and escalating unrest, a high-stakes chess match plays out, ultimately proving that peace is possible.

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FEATURING NATALIE COLE…

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24 @ 8:30PM & 11:30PM

Grammy Award-winner Natalie Cole and Pulitzer Prize-winner David McCullough join the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a magnificent Christmas celebration featuring some of the season’s most beloved songs. Natalie Cole joins the Choir to perform “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and David McCullough reflects on “American Christmas Memories.” The program also includes “For Unto Us a Child is Born” from the Messiah, “Christmas Carols in the Air,” “Angels, from the Realms of Glory” and more.

PARIS THE LUMINOUS YEARS

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18 @ 7:00PM

PARIS THE LUMINOUS YEARS tells the story of Paris from an unprecedented point of view, not as the familiar, glamorous backdrop for the revolutions that exploded there, but as active protagonist, catalyst and midwife to modernity. The film spotlights now-famous key figures in the art world’s first international avant-garde, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Hemingway, Serge Diaghilev, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Aaron Copland, Josephine Baker, Marcel Duchamp, Langston Hughes, Sylvia Beach, Janet Flanner and many more, as they recount their individual stories of why they came to Paris, whom they met, what they made there, and how being in Paris transformed them and their work.

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CLOSE TO HOME

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM

As the U.S. unemployment rate hits a 25-year high and the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits a six-year low, award-winning FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel chronicles the recession’s impact on one unlikely American neighborhood — New York’s Upper East Side.

In Close to Home, Bikel sets up her cameras in the hair salon she’s patronized for 20 years. It’s an intimate space where she has come to know well the surprisingly diverse clientele — from athletic trainers and housewives to high-end bankers, actors and opera singers. Despite expectations that this neighborhood is a secure bastion of privilege, these days, when clients get in the chair, they offer a window into the country in recession: Some are broke, others don’t have a plan, and they’re all looking to commiserate.
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