LACO Close Quarters Digital Series Concludes With Episode Celebrating LA's Emergence From The Pandemic

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concludes its critically acclaimed CLOSE QUARTERS interdisciplinary digital series melding musical and visual arts with a joyous and optimistic episode featuring Tchaikovsky's enduring masterpiece Serenade for Strings laced with a poignant visual tone poem that reflects the diverse artistic family that LACO built through the series and chronicles Los Angeles' emergence from the global pandemic.

Guest Conductor Grant Gershon leads the Orchestra and LACO Creative Director of Digital Content James Darrah provides visual curation. Thanks to the generosity of individual donors, the new episode is available to the public at no cost and can be streamed on demand following its premiere on Friday, June 4, 2021, at 6:30 pm (PT), at https://www.laco.org/close-quarters/, LACO's YouTube channel.

"We're capping LACO's first-ever digital season with an uplifting, forward-looking and hopeful flourish," says LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader. "With the LACO musicians serving as the artistic inspiration and the Orchestra prominently featured throughout the episode, this time capsule of sorts filtered through the creative lens of Close Quarters conveys the remarkable and challenging journey we've taken, framed by our emergence to the other side. LACO is very proud of Close Quarters and deeply grateful to the sponsors and supporters who made it possible to present the digital series free to viewers around the globe, sparking hope and attracting more than 1.8 million viewers to date."

Darrah adds, "While we couldn't have possibly imagined it when LACO launched Close Quarters last fall, the timing of this final episode, amazingly, coincides with pandemic restrictions in Los Angeles finally being lifted after nearly a year and a half. So we felt it was imperative to embrace that story arc. With Close Quarters, LACO created a digital platform unique among music organizations in the country. During an incredibly difficult time when virtually no musicians or artists were working, LACO became a beacon in the creative community, providing a vital creative outlet and badly needed financial support for a host of musicians, composers, filmmakers, dancers, choreographers, animators and fine artists, who were all brought together by LACO's artistry and vision. In this final episode will take a look back on their invaluable contributions to this groundbreaking series and also gaze forward as they share their distinctive perspectives on the city today as it emerges from the pandemic."

In addition to Music Director Jaime Martín and LACO's stellar musicians, among the numerous artists who have been involved in the LACO Close Quarters series are: Conductor Laureate Jeffrey Kahane; soprano Nicole Cabell; piano duo HOCKET (Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff); pianist Alin Melik-Adamyan; violinist Gil Shaham; composers Juan Pablo Contreras, Jessie Montgomery, Ellen Reid, Peter S. Shin and Derrick Spiva Jr.; guest conductors Grant Gershon and Christopher Rountree; actress Olivia Cristina Delgado; Robey Theatre Company actors Ben Guillory, Julio Hanson and William Warren; visual artists Ken Honjo, Yuki Izumihara, Jian Lee, Will Kim, Yee Eun Nam, Ardeshir Tabrizi and HuiMeng Wang; choreographers Chris Emile and Rebecca Steinberg; dancers Joe Davis, Shauna Davis, Rosalynde LeBlanc and Layne Paradis Willis; television and stage writer christopher oscar peña [cq]; actor/filmmaker/poet Zackary Drucker; directors Isabel Leonard and George Miller; audio producers Nadia Sirota and Robert Wolff; videographers Nathaniel Beaver and Jerome Harris; costume designer Molly Irelan; cinematographer Michael Elias Thomas; lighting designer Pablo Santiago; and editor Frank Mohler.

CLOSE QUARTERS' "digitally native" programs, created specifically for streaming and hailed as "musically and artistically compelling" (Los Angeles Times), have drawn nearly two million views to date since debuting in November 2020. Between 30 and 40 minutes in length, they are safely filmed at either FOX studios or The Colburn School's Olive Rehearsal Hall. Additionally, Darrah has established a creative hub for developing artistic media content with L.A.-based artists and filmmakers at a first-of-its-kind LACO digital studio at Wilhardt & Naud: a film studio and multidisciplinary arts campus located in Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles. The artists, inspired by the Orchestra's musical programming, create new visual works in a variety of mediums that will factor into the broadcasts and endure long after the season concludes. CLOSE QUARTERS builds upon the highly successful LACO SummerFest series, the Orchestra's first foray into streaming that concluded in September and featured five digital chamber music concerts that have attracted more than 1.8 million views to date.

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