We’ve just crossed the year-to-go mark until the opening of LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, and as promised, the Miracle Mile museum is offering a pretty unique opportunity to step inside the building’s empty interior.
L.A. native, Kendrick Lamar collaborator and all-around saxophone wizard Kamasi Washington will headline three performances inside the new building this June—months ahead of its artwork-filled April 2026 opening. But he won’t be alone: More than 100 musicians will be scattered across 110,000 square feet of vacant gallery space.
Washington’s performances on June 26, 27 and 28 will tackle Harmony of Difference, a six-movement suite that he released eight years ago—but that’s never been performed live in its entirety.
“I wrote Harmony of Difference in 2017 to celebrate the beauty of humanity’s diversity through a metaphor of music,” Washington said in a statement. “In music it is the combination of different notes, chords and rhythms that create beautiful songs. The same is true in life; most of humanity’s greatest achievements came from the combined efforts of people of different backgrounds with different knowledge and abilities.”
Washington goes on to elaborate on the Geffen Galleries’ unique acoustic properties; visitors will hear both the direct sounds from nearby musicians as well as the “spirit” of other farther-away groups of performers.
If you want to check out the performance inside the Peter Zumthor-designed building, LACMA will release limited batches of tickets in three waves:
– May 2 at 10am ($60, LACMA members $48)
– May 22 at 10am ($75, LACMA members $60)
– June 12 at 10am ($100, LACMA members $80)
This won’t be the only opportunity to step inside the empty galleries, though you’ll need to be a LACMA member to take advantage of the others. The museum will hold a series of sneak peaks divided up by membership tiers: a reception for Partner-level members on June 29; Friend, Supporter and Partner-level on June 30; Individual and Dual-level on July 1; all levels from July 3 through 5; and NexGenLA members on July 6—that’s the free membership tier for kids 17 and under (and an accompanying adult).
Back to the Harmony of Difference preview: I’ll just add that it’s worth seeing Washington perform live in just about any setting, but I happen to think stepping inside an empty museum—before walls and artworks forever alter the interior—is a one-of-a-kind experience for art and architecture lovers. A decade later, I still look back fondly on a sound-and-video installation staged inside the Broad months before it officially opened.