No, these aren’t esoteric California license plates. These are just of few of the elements that were a part of the Fifth Annual Grand Avenue Festival to celebrate Los Angeles’s Downtown Art and Culture. This was truly a gallimaufry (look it up!) of arts and entertainment, and it was all free! And it wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Without even being in the midst of it, the drumming that could be heard as I walked up Grand Avenue from home was some sort of tribal aphrodisiac conjuring up all sorts of things. As I came over the crest of Grand Avenue, there it all was between Temple and 5^th Streets. Tents, booths, music, the aroma of foods yet to be discovered — an entire marketplace of treats in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles. I had to follow the sounds of the drumming first because it was so compelling. As I gravitated toward the sounds, there were booths offering tickets. Great. I knew the FREE part was too good to be true. The tickets were required because of limited seating...but they were all FREE after all: Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Colburn School, including Zipper Hall and Thayer Hall, and LA Opera Wine Tasting (there’s more than one way to get people to go to the opera). When I looked at the schedule, it was astounding. Every half-hour was an event at one or more of the venues, including “Get Your Chops Back” with open rehearsals for anyone who wanted to warm up their “ax”: guitars, flute choir, saxophone ensemble and, last but not least, the drums. So I got me some FREE tickets and kept walking toward the drums. Found them!

Drum Downtown was an astounding assortment of percussion instruments that somehow knew what each other was doing to create this irresistible rhythm that had all sorts of people reelin’ with the feelin’. I was tempted to buy another tambourine, since mine had been taken away from me years ago for obvious reasons, but I resisted. If we can’t drive and talk on a cellphone, then we certainly can’t drive and play a tambourine while listening to the radio.

I checked my tickets and realized that I still had time to join in the “Biggest Dance Ever,” featuring the Electric Slide with lessons beforehand. Count me in! And what’s the Electric Slide? I found out soon enough, with the large group instruction that took place on 1^st Street with hundreds of people participating and having a really good time. It turns out that the Electric Slide is a kind of line dance that was started in 1976 and blossomed into an international hit song, “Electric Boogie” by Marcia Griffiths, which was written for her by Bunny Wailer. Knowing this didn’t help me out. I was on my own.

After volunteers passed out fans to the crowd for the heat and we learned the steps, the music was put on. Everyone could do it! I left to go get something to drink, and when I came back, everyone was still “Electric Sliding!” But now I had a concert in the Disney Concert Hall waiting –- for FREE.

Our Disney Concert Hall is spectacular, whether you like it or not. And now, with free tickets, a lot of people who normally couldn’t afford the price of admission were going to get to experience a concert in this extraordinary setting. Not only that, it was going to be the Sonus Quartet, Double G, and da KAH Hip Hop Orchestra reinterpreting Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Arnold Schoenberg’s Op.7 String Quartet. Pretty heady stuff, and all with a veneer of rap.

The theatre was completely full with a very eclectic audience. The stage was full of an odd assortment of characters and instruments, and the wings of the stage were occupied with rappers and their assortment of “bling.”

This was a show in itself before the real show even started. Then Double G, the creator and conductor of daKAH, casually came on stage. Besides having a baton in his hand, I knew he had to be Double G because he was a very imposing figure well over six-feet tall in white tie and tails, and sneakers that were impeccable, as were his two very long, beautifully braided pigtails!

The ground-breaking daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra is the brainchild of Geoff “Double G” Gallegos, with their distinctive sound being a symphonic ensemble that combines the electronic rhythms of hip-hop with jazz and classical music. But first, with Double G at the podium, this young guy came humping across the stage, leaning on a cane with a stocking pulled down over his face with eye holes to bring the audience to attention. He had mine!

Then music started from a string quartet that he rapped along with. It was the Sonus String Quartet. The music sounded vaguely familiar, and the rap had a narrative to it but still unidentifiable. Then it hit me. It was the Arnold Schoenberg Op. 7 String Quartet that I had analyzed in college! I’ve never heard it like this before, and it’ll never be the same for me again, I’m sure of that.

When it was finished, more rappers from the sidelines wandered on stage, and Double G started to chat with us. Yup, it was Schoenberg. Double G said that while he was on tour, that piece of music “[kept] looping through my mind.” Next, we were going to hear Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring as the tribute to Esa Pekka Salonen last with the LA Philharmonic.

It was truly a celebration, with their interpretation which segued into a piece by Mos Def and the Funkadelpics’ Gary Schneider as a guest.

As curiously as it began, it ended. The audience just sat for a minute, digesting. Slowly, some of them timidly came to the stage to talk to the performers who were more than available. There was truly a communion between the performers and the audience.

I gathered up all the things I’d collected (no tambourine…) that the Downtown Library so generously had FREE bags for, and started back home with the sound of the drums in the distance.

What a lovely, FREE Sunday in Downtown LA.