Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra launches its 2013-14 season with “Beethoven, Mozart, LutosÅ‚awski & Kodály,” a dynamic program brimming with youth conducted by Music Director Jeffrey Kahane and featuring 24-year-old violinist Benjamin Beilman, lauded by The New York Times for his “handsome technique,†on Saturday, September 21, 8 pm, at Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium, and Sunday, September 22, 7 pm, at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Beilman, making his LACO debut, performs Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A major, K. 219, “Turkish,†written when the composer was just 19 years old. Kahane also conducts Beethoven’s Twelve Contredanses for Orchestra, Wo0 14, composed after Beethoven studied the art of dance music with Haydn and which contains fragments that appear in some of the composer’s later great masterworks. The program concludes with two works rooted firmly in the 20th Century – Kodály’s masterful and deeply personal Dances of Galánta, rich in folk melodies that reflect the composer’s idyllic childhood in the Hungarian countryside in Galánta, and LutosÅ‚awski’s Chain 2, the title of which is based on a musical form invented by the preeminent Polish composer and consists of two structurally independent strands linked together like chains. Beilman is also the featured soloist on Chain 2.
Concert Preludes, pre-concert talks held one hour before curtain and free for ticket holders, provide insights into the music and artists.
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is considered one of the world’s premier chamber orchestras as well as a leader in presenting wide-ranging repertoire and adventurous commissions. Its 2013-14 season, the Orchestra’s 45th, features a compelling mix of beloved masterpieces and genre-defying premieres from firmly established and notable up-and-coming composers programmed by Jeffrey Kahane, one of the world’s foremost conductors and pianists, who marks his 17th season as LACO’s music director.
Tickets, starting at $25, are on sale now and may be purchased online at laco.org, by calling LACO at 213 622 7001, or at the venue box office on the night of the concert, if tickets remain. Discounted tickets are also available by phone for seniors 65 years of age and older and groups of 12 or more. College students may purchase student rush tickets ($10), based on availability, at the box office the day of the concert. Also available for college students is the $25 “Campus to Concert Hall All Access Pass†– good for all seven of LACO’s Orchestral Series concerts at either Ambassador Auditorium, Alex Theatre or UCLA’s Royce Hall, LACO’s Discover Beethoven’s Eroica at Ambassador Auditorium, and all three Westside Connections concerts at the Moss Theater.