LACO Features Acclaimed Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott on Chamber Series

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra opens its 2023/24 Season with Lineage: Coleridge-Taylor + Chausson, the first of two intimate programs in the Orchestra’s Chamber Series curated by Concertmaster and Director of Chamber Music Margaret Batjer, on Saturday, September 30, 7:30 pm, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, and Sunday, October 1, 2023, 7:30 pm, at Zipper Hall in Downtown LA. Celebrated pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, who “plays with both technical virtuosity and evident joy” (The New York Times), joins LACO artists to trace the familial and musical lineage of Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his only daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, a pianist/composer who followed in her father’s musical footsteps. The program opens with Avril’s Idylle for Flute and Pianoforte proceeded by her father’s Clarinet Quintet in F-sharp minor. Lineage is also reflected in the final work, Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet by Chausson, which integrates the rhapsodic and introspective style of the composer’s mentor, César Franck.   

LACO’s Chamber Series showcases smaller groups of the Orchestra’s musicians and guest artists on different facets of the diverse chamber repertoire from the 12th century and early Baroque schools through the 20th century.

McDermott has performed concertos, recitals and chamber music throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. She also serves as Artistic Director of the Bravo! Vail Music and Ocean Reef Music Festivals, as well as Curator for Chamber Music for the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. McDermott has recorded the complete Prokofiev Piano Sonatas, Bach’s English Suites and Partitas, solo works by Chopin, and Gershwin’s Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with the Dallas Symphony. She also released a disc of Mozart Concerti with the Calder Quartet, hailed as “exceptional on every count” (Gramophone). Most recently, she recorded five Haydn piano sonatas and two Haydn Concertos with the Odense Philharmonic in Denmark. McDermott has toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Moscow Virtuosi and is a longtime member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center with whom she performs and tours extensively each season.

LACO recognizes the generous support of the Colburn Foundation. The Orchestra also receives public funding via grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; State of California; California Arts Council; the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. LACO gratefully acknowledges Hogan Lovells US LLP for generous pro bono support. Steinway is the official piano of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.  

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is located at 9390 N Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. For The Wallis engagement, Classical California KUSC’s Brian Lauritzen will host a pre-concert talk with the artists at 6:30 pm.  

Zipper Hall is located at 200 S. Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012.

For tickets ($46-$58, Zipper Hall; $19-$69, The Wallis) and information, please visit www.laco.org or call 213 221 3920.

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