LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA RECEIVES $150,000 GRANT FROM NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS AS PART OF THE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN

(Los Angeles, CA, February 2, 2022)— Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) has been selected to receive a $150,000 American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), designed to help the arts and cultural sector recover from the pandemic. LACO will use the grant to help ensure continued programming, community engagement and creative opportunities as it emerges from the pandemic. In total, the NEA will award grants totaling $57,750,000 to 567 arts organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, DC, which may be used to save jobs and to fund operations and facilities, health and safety supplies, and marketing and promotional efforts to encourage attendance and participation.

“Our nation’s arts sector has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, chair of the NEA. “The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan funding will help arts organizations, such as Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra rebuild and reopen. The arts are crucial in helping America’s communities heal, unite, and inspire, as well as essential to our nation’s economic recovery.”

“LACO is incredibly grateful and honored to receive this significant and meaningful grant from the NEA,” said LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader. “As the Orchestra continues to reemerge from the pandemic, the grant will enhance LACO’s resilience, and inspire our growing service to the community with diverse and impactful programming.”

The American Rescue Plan was signed into law in March 2021 when the NEA was provided $135 million for the arts sector. The funding for organizations is the third installment providing more than $57.7 million for arts organizations. In April 2021, the NEA announced $52 million (40 percent) in ARP

funding would be allocated to 62 state, jurisdictional, and regional arts organizations for regranting through their respective programs. The second installment in November 2021 allocated $20.2 million to 66 local arts agencies for subgranting to local artists and art organizations.

For more information on the NEA’s American Rescue Plan grants, including the full list of arts organizations funded in this announcement, visit www.arts.gov/COVID-19/the-american-rescue-plan.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra ranks among the world’s top musical ensembles. Beloved by audiences and praised by critics, the Orchestra is a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and, with eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, a champion of contemporary composers. Headquartered in the heart of the country’s cultural capital, LACO has been proclaimed “America’s finest chamber orchestra” (Public Radio International), “LA’s most unintimidating chamber music experience” (Los Angeles magazine), “resplendent” (Los Angeles Times), and “one of the world’s great chamber orchestras”(KUSC Classical FM). Performing throughout greater Los Angeles, the Orchestra has made 32 recordings, including, most recently, a 2019 BIS Records release of works for violin and chamber orchestra that features Concertmaster Margaret Batjer and the world premiere recording of Pierre Jalbert’s Violin Concerto (a LACO co-commission). In 2020, due to the global pandemic, LACO pivoted from presenting live performances to producing the groundbreaking CLOSE QUARTERS interdisciplinary digital series melding musical and visual arts, which has garnered more than 1.8 million views across social media platforms since its debut in November 2020. The “digitally native” programs, created specifically for streaming and applauded as “musically and artistically compelling” (Los Angeles Times) have “redefined how classical music can be presented in the 21st century (Cultural Attaché). LACO, with offices located in downtown Los Angeles, has toured Europe, South America and Japan, and performed across North America. www.laco.org.

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NEA Grant