Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra blog

Head over to our podcast page to listen to two new podcasts from our Westside Connections series!

In our newest podcast, posted today, LACO music director Jeffrey Kahane discusses our upcoming Hope concert on March 20 and 21 with KUSC’s Brian Lauritzen. The concert commemorates composers whose music was suppressed by the Nazi regime. Listen to the podcast here or to view or subscribe to all of our podcasts, click here.

In a review of the February 20 Baroque + concert at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, Bill Peters writes, “Conductor Jeffrey Kahane stepped aside in order to allow the depth of talent in the principal chairs from the string and woodwind sections to take the spotlight.

Before last weekend’s Baroque+ concert LACO executive director Andrea Laguni sat down with violinists Tereza Stanislav, Josefina Vergara and Sarah Thornblade to discuss the evening’s program. If you unfortunately had to miss the talk, or want to learn more about the music of Bach, Vivaldi, Purcell and Mendelssohn (who puts the plus in Baroque+), you can listen to the podcast of their conversation here.

Each season, the LACO commissions and premieres a new piece of music composed especially for its virtuosic musicians. LACO patrons can take part in this creative process by donating toward the composer’s fee and costs of the premiere concerts. These Sound Investment members get to meet the composer in intimate previews of the new works.

As of last weekend’s Baroque+ concerts, our Orchestras Feeding America food drive for 2010 is well under way! We received enough monetary donations to purchase 240 meals for families in need, and a few people showed up with full grocery bags to donate and claim their free tickets to the concert.

Before I get into the specifics of this evening’s LACO concert, I’m going to discuss expectations. Everyone has expectations when it comes to attending an event. For example: “This party should be fun.” “I heard this movie was really funny.” “I’m gonna get the dumplings because this place has great dumplings.” “I’m dreading this concert of baroque music because I didn’t like the last baroque concert at all.” Now guess which one of those I was thinking to myself all day today? The answer is actually both the 3rd and 4th ones… I do love a good dumpling. But that’s besides the point. Last season, LACO performed the Brandenburg Concertos, and it was my least favorite concert of the season. In my blog about it, I talked about all manner of things besides the music because I didn’t want to go on and on about my boredom. So I expected, going into this evenings Baroque + concert, that I would come out grumpy and displeased. But I didn’t! What a surprise! Could it be that I like Baroque music after all? Since this was the Baroque + (plus) concert, I’ve decided that the difference must all be in the plus. Now, if only I knew what that was.

On February 20 and 21, LACO assistant concertmaster Tereza Stanislav is one of the featured musicians at Baroque +. In this unique concert, five LACO principals, including Tereza, step into the spotlight to showcase their brilliance in masterworks by Purcell, Vivaldi, Bach and Mendelssohn.

From now until the end of March, LACO is collecting food for the Orchestras Feeding America national food drive. We’ve partnered with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank to take part in making a difference in our community.

Last week, Nick Norton joined the LACO staff as the administrative associate, just in time for LACO’s Made in California Gala. Here is his introduction in his very own words. Welcome, Nick!

On Saturday, February 6, LACO wowed attendees with its Made in California gala at the California Market Center in the fashion district of downtown LA. The evening included a fantastic concert featuring Jeffrey Kahane, his son Gabriel and the incredible Punch Brothers performing with LACO strings; a silent and a live auction filled with art, collectibles and once-in-a-lifetime experiences; and dinner and dancing under a twirling disco ball in the fun retro-inspired Club 213.

I haven’t written a non-concert-related blog in a while, but there are a couple music-related things on my mind that I can’t stop thinking about. Firstly, after nearly 8 years of living in Los Angeles, I finally went to a performance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. To be nitpicky, it wasn’t my first time at the Concert Hall – I’ve parked there to go to MOCA down the street, and a couple times have gone up and walked around on the roof – an totally legal activity that, contrary to the initial imagery in my head, doesn’t involve suction cups, a unitard, or a black ski mask. Here’s how to do it: There’s a public plaza/park on the roof that’s accessible from two stairways (one on the corner of Grand and 2nd; the other on the corner of Hope and 1st). On the roof are some nice gardens and a little amphitheater and stairs that lead you on a path up and through the metal sheeting. There are some cool views of downtown and the building itself. But I digress.

I’ve wanted a mandolin for a really long time. I’ve seen them on TV, and at a store once, and enjoyed watching others use them. Of course, I’m thinking of the kitchen tool that makes easy work of cutting vegetables into slices of equal thickness… but here’s a fun fact: there’s another type of mandolin, which was played during this evening’s LACO concert, and it looks like a little guitar! The mandolin player was Chris Thile (which, as I’ve gathered, is pronounced like ‘tea leaf’ but without the ‘f’, but please correct me if I’m wrong…), who was phenomenal. My friend Tavi, who came with me to the concert, noted that his hands and fingers, as they flew across the mandolin with furious speed, looked like they were on crack. Nicely put, Tavi! Mr. Thile played a Mandolin Concerto that he composed, and followed it up with 2 really amazing encores.

If you study music and the history of music, there are composers who emerge from the names and dates and facts and become whole human beings instead of biographical sketches on the page. Sometimes our imaginations are aided by biographical films like Amadeus or Immortal Beloved. Documentaries may provide enough information to give a historical figure flesh and blood. Sometimes, we feel closest to the composers who were born in our hometowns or who referenced the folk songs of our youth. Or perhaps we relate best to the ones with similar life stories, or those who accomplished what we have only wished.

You may have seen the story at the LA Times’ Culturemonster blog or heard from various other sources that the Los Angeles Unified School District is looking at cutting its corps of elementary school arts specialists in half next year as one measure to help reduce a budget deficit of over $470 million. (The move would trim about 3% from the district’s funding gap.) If adopted, the plan would then see the remaining 170 or so instructors in music, dance, theatre and visual arts lose their jobs the following year, effectively drying up LAUSD’s pool of personnel qualified to teach those subjects. Once gone, the likelihood that those jobs and the surrounding program infrastructure could easily be re-instituted in more prosperous, less debt-ridden years, looks awfully slim.