Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra conductor Jeffrey Kahane has many splendid things planned for the orchestra's 38th season, starting with versatile solo artists and the continuing salute to the 250th birthday of Mozart. The season opens with a concert titled "A Many Splendored Thing" Saturday night at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. Orchestra member Susan Greenberg will be the soloist for the piece, Continuum IV — Cascades, written especially for her by Gernot Wolfgang, a Los Angeles-based composer.

The board of directors of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is a diligent cluster of music enthusiasts. Steadfast in keeping the art of orchestral music alive and well, it has embarked on a new project and is continuing another toward that end. First is the Sound Investment commissioning club. The board has resurrected the age-old practice of commissioning new works by composers, just as in Beethoven's time. For a $200 annual contribution, members can assist in the project of creating new music.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will herald the beginning of the holidays with an all-Baroque concert at 8 tonight at The Alex Theatre in Glendale. The orchestra will be conducted by Jeffrey Kahane. The selections are Corelli's Concerto Grosso in G minor, his Christmas concerto; Cimarosa's Concerto for two flutes, showcasing the Chamber Orchestra's David Shostac and Susan Greenberg and Bach's Cantata No. 5, featuring soprano Karina Gauvin and principal trumpet David Washburn.

Musicians showed breathtaking skill Josh Bartell, 10, of La Crescenta, is a fifth-grader at La Crescenta Elementary School. GLENDALE -- The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra put on a great performance during Sunday's Family Concert titled "Bach, Bluegrass, and Bugs!" the opening event for the annual series at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. Two musicians, Bela Fleck on banjo and Edgar Meyer on the double bass, played music they had written that took the audience's breath away.

Seahorse, Sarcastic Fringehead, Pufferfish and friends sail into the Alex Theatre in Glendale for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's third Family Concert April 25 at 2 p.m. Joana Carneiro, LACO's talented assistant conductor, conducts Bruce Adolphe's music for the program titled "Oceanophony," which features poems that will be narrated by the poet, Kate Light. Kids and adults alike will love "Reef Story" and other fishy tales as they sway to the strains of Coral Music and the Octopus Octet.

chamber orchestraLos Angeles Chamber Orchestra launches 15-month celebration of Mozart's birth.The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has launched a 15-month commitment to perform Mozart's complete piano concerto repertoire in honor of the 250th anniversary of his birth. It's a bold undertaking that was the brainchild of music director/conductor Jeffrey Kahane, Executive Director Ruth Eliel said. "No other orchestra here or abroad has done this," she said. "Jeffrey came up with this idea, and we've been teasing him ever since because it's the most work for him."

Paul Andersen, Enjoy! GLENDALE -- The number 33 can mean many things. With its double open sides and rounded curves, it can be an open invitation to caricaturists. Taken against 100, it signifies one-third, though at some future point a one will need to be added to get to that century mark. Using it as a person's age, it means the onslaught of middle age has firmly commenced. And those of us familiar with vinyl records can smile at the memory of the long-playing album.

organsThe players of Crescenta Valley High School Girls Soccer squad celebrated the holidays once again at the seventh annual Pajama Party with the children at City of Hope. With gifts galore and extra special raffle items, the pediatric patients and their families were treated to a magical night with Santa, which also included music and dinner. The players of the CV High School Girls Soccer squad served dinner and also provided crafts at every table for the children to enjoy.

Chamber orchestra honors composer with concert and `instrument petting zoo' at the Alex.More than 1,000 children, parents and others enjoyed the first show of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's annual Family Concert Series at the Alex Theatre on Sunday, an event that featured intimate and informative performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's music on the day after the Austrian composer's 250th birthday. Prior to the concert, kids got a chance to make colorful masks and to participate in an "instrument petting zoo" with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra volunteers in the theater's courtyard.

On Sept. 24, Glendale's Alex Theatre will host electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans, who will perform with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Hijmans, 44, a resident of Amsterdam, grew up in Holland with parents who were lovers of classical music. By age 10, he was playing classical percussion in his hometown of Middelburg, which he considered a boring place save for one exception: its annual festival of new music. “I didn't hate classical music but I loved the sound of The Beatles and the sound of the electric guitar,” he said.

Andrew Norman, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's newest composer-in-residence, was speaking to a small audience seated on folding chairs one February evening at Pierre's Fine Pianos in Los Angeles. "Close your eyes and count 22 seconds silently, then raise your hands as you finish," Norman said. The audience complied. "I love silence and how we perceive it when there's nothing to mark it," Norman said, when only a few audience members raised their hands squarely on the 22-second mark.

An upright piano installed near the administration building at Glendale Community College last month as part of a three-week performing arts project is slated to become a permanent fixture on campus. The piano was one of 30 placed at public sites around Los Angeles County by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra to celebrate 15 years under the leadership of music director and pianist Jeffrey Kahane. “One of the best parts of having the piano outside on campus is to see students with no other access to musical instruments just playing with it and having fun,” said Peter Green, chairman of the visual and performing arts division at Glendale Community College.

An upright piano, installed near the administration building at Glendale Community College last month as part of a three-week performing arts project, is slated to become a permanent fixture on campus. The piano was one of 30 placed at public sites around Los Angeles County by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra to celebrate 15 years under the leadership of music director and pianist Jeffrey Kahane. “One of the best parts of having the piano outside on campus is to see students with no other access to musical instruments just playing with it and having fun,” said Peter Green, chairman of the visual and performing arts division at Glendale Community College.

If conductor Jeffrey Kahane led the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra with even more vim and vigor than usual during last weekend's concert at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, he had good reason. The program of new and familiar music on Saturday, April 21 offered not only a celebratory wind up to the deeply respected Kahane's 15th anniversary season as LACO's music director - with the group's original founder, Sir Neville Marriner, in attendance - it marked the first time that he had conducted an orchestral work by his son, Gabriel Kahane, a critically acclaimed, rising young composer, singer-songwriter and musician.

Who says classical music has to be a formal affair? Not PROJECT Trio, a classical chamber ensemble fueled by the sounds of rock 'n' roll, hip-hop and jazz, from Guns 'N Roses to Duke Ellington. With some 66 million hits on YouTube, appearances on Nickelodeon and MTV and gigs in major concert halls, coffeehouses, clubs and classrooms around the world, this Brooklyn-based ensemble - Greg Pattillo on flute, cellist Eric Stephenson and Peter Seymour on bass - has electrified audiences of all ages with its virtuosity and wild enthusiasm for making music.

After its summer hiatus, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is back in business for the season, and Burbank musician Julie Gigante says she's happy to return. A violinist with the orchestra since 1986, Gigante put it simply: “We love it. It's really nice to get back to the orchestra and see everybody and play great music.” On Sept. 24, the chamber orchestra performs at the Alex Theatre in Glendale under conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane. The Netherlands' Wiek Hijmans will also appear, with his electric guitar performance in a Derek Bermel concerto.

On Sept. 24, Glendale's Alex Theatre will host electric guitarist Wiek Hijmans, who will perform with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Hijmans, 44, a resident of Amsterdam, grew up in Holland with parents who were lovers of classical music. By age 10, he was playing classical percussion in his hometown of Middelburg, which he considered a boring place save for one exception: its annual festival of new music. “I didn't hate classical music but I loved the sound of The Beatles and the sound of the electric guitar,” he said.

In its season’s first family concert presentation — French composer Camille Saint-Saëns’ celebrated “Carnival of the Animals” at the Alex Theatre in Glendale — the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra proved that not only can music soothe the savage beast, it can engage a youngster’s enthusiasm so completely, you wonder why public schools leave it off the curriculum menu in the first place. Part of the orchestra’s regular season, three family concerts are presented each year in an effort, spokeswoman Nicolette Atkins said, to “make music as accessible as possible to children.

The final family concert of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra season looked like a scene from a 1950s family film Sunday at the Alex Theatre. There were happy fathers, busy mothers, doting grandparents and laughing kids in every direction. The Instrumental Petting Zoo was in the theater courtyard. Volunteers from La Serna High School let everyone see what it was like to sit down, hold on to a French horn and blow (with wet wipes available in deference to flu season). Then there were the trombones, tubas, flutes and the ever popular drum set to try. Many of the audience members were already long-term fans, and proud members of the chamber orchestra.

Send DATEBOOK items to Glendale News-Press, 221 N. Brand Blvd., 2nd Floor, Glendale, CA 91203 or fax to (818) 241-1975. Submissions must be received two weeks before publication. ? TODAY Friends of The Bright Light Chamber Players will present ?Flute Duos? during their free noon concert from 12:10 to 12:40 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Glendale, 209 N. Louise St., Glendale. A light lunch created by Angela?s Bistro is available for $6 after the concert.