The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced today additional details for the Gen X festival, a multidisci­plinary, multi-genre exploration of generation X, the slackers, hackers and latchkey kids who started off analog and became digital. Born between 1965 and 1980, generation X is the dark horse demographic dwarfed in number by the boomers and millennials on either side. While small in number, their collec­tive impact on culture continues to be felt today. With concerts curated by Thomas Adès and Liz Phair, and special events by Waiting to X-hale podcasters Karen Tongson and Wynter Mitchell-Rohrbaugh, the festival combines orchestral con­certs, popular presentations and humanities events in a decidedly LA Phil-esque way.

“Putting together this mini-festi­val, I quickly came to feel that if there was one big thing that united creative artists born between 1965 and 1980, it was that there is no one big thing,” artistic curator Thomas Adès said. “Certainty is out; being right or being wrong are equally unappealing. Maybe even that is saying too much? Who wants to be put in any kind of box, be it a ‘gen­eration,’ or a start and end date?”

“As reductive as it may be to make generalizations based on the year someone is born, there is an undeniable affinity and even an atti­tude shared by people who, during their formative years, went through the same stuff … the same sociolog­ical shifts, the same presidential administrations, the same cultural juggernauts, the same silly trends, the same unimaginable heartbreaks. When I look across the festival’s programming and the incredible col­lection of artists, thinkers and cultur­al partners who’ve come to the party, I see a complex portrait of Gen X expression emerge that is thoroughly postmodern. It mixes high and low, skips through history, and brings identity and irony to the fore in ways that continue to reverberate in our culture today,” Julia Ward, the LA Phil’s director of humanities, said.

The Gen X festival runs from April 22 to May 14, with concerts at Walt Disney Concert Hall and humanities events across Los Angeles, many of which are free with RSVP.

For a complete listing of concerts and events visit www.laphil. com/genx.