The best upcoming concerts in L.A.

One of L.A.’s best free live-music offerings, Jazz at LACMA has featured legit legends over its three-decade run at the museum. Seating for the program is available in the museum’s plaza on a first-come, first-served basis, though you’re welcome to picnic on the grass, too (you won’t really be able to see the show, but you’ll still hear it). You’ll find the series on Friday evenings in LACMA’s welcome plaza (just behind Urban Light) throughout the summer.

Treat your ears to a vibrant concert on a spring or summer night this year by attending MUSE/IQUE’s annual program. This monthly series of performances, held at cultural venues across L.A., features a mix of performances inspired by music movements and public figures, including tributes to Ray Charles, immigrant film composers, the Memphis sound, Etta James and more. The best way to attend is to become a MUSE/IQUE member; you could make a $75 donation to the performing arts nonprofit for a single event (with the exception of September’s free open house), but if you’re interested in more than just one, it’s cheaper per event to become a full-fledged member.

Everyone’s familiar with Leonard Bernstein’s star-crossed lovers musical, but did you know that the composer originally imagined it as an opera? LA Opera has taken his suggestion and ran with it with an elevated, maximalist and operatic take premiering at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that incorporates the iconic original choreography and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics. 

Listen to classical and jazz in a dome more than a mile above L.A. during this mountaintop concert series. The Mount Wilson Observatory is hosting monthly concerts this summer inside the dome of its 100-inch Hooker telescope, which was the largest telescope in the world for much of the first half of the 20th century. Tickets cost $60 (that also includes access to the exhibit at the observatory) and it’s highly recommended that you buy them in advance since seating is limited. You’ll need to be able to climb 53 steps to reach the dome, and children under 12 aren’t permitted. 

The disco pop queen is blessing us with two dates at the Forum on her “Radical Optimism Tour.”

This delicately melancholic singer-songwriter (real name Mike Hadreas) started out playing fractured, dark indie pop, utilizing a piano and minimal instrumentation. Over the past few years, though, he’s scaled up his tonal palette with glitzy synth shimmer, an exuberant sense of uplift and grandiose crescendos befitting M83. Now a queer underground music icon, he’ll be playing an alfresco show at the Ford during the L.A. stop on his Glory tour.

True blue Valley girls Alana, Danielle and Este Haim bring their brilliant and breezy West Coast harmonies and epic, ‘80s-influenced pop back to their home base for a night at the Forum.

Brookside at the Rose Bowl will become a pop-up Pink Pony Club for two nights in October as Best New Artist Grammy winner Chappell Roan stops by at the end of her three-city mini tour. The singer wrote on Instagram, “I love these three cities so much + wanted the chance to do something special before going away to write the next album.” Luckily Pasadena made the cut, and at the time of writing you can still snag tickets that won’t break the bank.

Before achieving mainstream success with Fun, singer Nate Ruess fronted indie pop darling the Format. After the pandemic scrapped plans for a reunion, Ruess will finally rejoin multi-instrumentalist Sam Means for a limited tour, including this October 10 stop on the Fairbanks Lawn at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Upping the aughts nostalgia: “California” scribes Phantom Planet open the show.

The millennial nostalgia shows no signs of slowing: By now you’ve likely heard the news that Rilo Kiley is back together. Yep, L.A.’s own indie darlings, led by Jenny Lewis, are in the spotlight again after over a decade apart. Following shows in San Luis Obispo, Ojai and Pasadena’s Just Like Heaven fest, they’re embarking on a reunion tour they’re calling “Sometimes When You’re On You’re Really F**king On,” which wraps up right here in L.A. at the Greek Theatre, with Waxahatchee opening. Due to demand, another show has already been announced for Oct. 14, where SNL’s Kyle Mooney will join Waxahatchee as openers. Tickets for the shows go on sale Friday, May 16, at 10am here.