Celebrated for its musical flexibility and forward-looking programming, Camerata Pacifica promises another bold season of works both new and revered in 2024–2025.
Founder and Artistic Director Adrian Spence said of the chamber organization’s 35th season: “Camerata Pacifica builds upon its storied history of adventurous programming … with a broad selection of works by emerging composers and classical giants. We’re delighted to welcome to our stage a dozen stellar guest artists, some new to Camerata Pacifica and others returning, who join our own esteemed chamber artists for a constellation of programs designed to inspire, amuse, surprise, and thrill audiences.
“And, as always,” added Spence, “we look forward to engaging with patrons at the four distinctive Southland venues in Santa Barbara, Thousand Oaks, Los Angeles, and San Marino, where we present our concerts.”
Made up of virtuoso musicians from around the globe, Camerata Pacifica will present a total of nine programs next season. Highlights include two U.S. premieres: Nibiru for horn and electronics by Zoë Martlew and a new work for horn and piano by Oliver Leith, both commissioned for Camerata Pacifica by Judith Vida-Spence in memory of her husband Stuart Spence.
Other contemporary works on tap include Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s Veiled for solo viola and live electronics with fixed media, William Bolcom’s Orphée-Sérénade for piano and chamber orchestra, and Thomas Oboe Lee’s Parodia Schumanniana for oboe, viola, and piano.
Also on tap: a pair of works composed specifically for Camerata Pacifica artists. Principal cello Ani Aznavoorian is featured on Lera Auerbach’s Dreammusik (a 2014 commission for Camerata Pacifica and the cellist), and principal oboe Nicholas Daniel is slated to perform Helen Grime’s Two Birthday Fragments for Solo Oboe, written for him in 2022 in celebration of his 60th birthday.
Artistic Director Spence has also programmed a range of chamber masterworks by J.S. Bach, Béla Bartók, York Bowen, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Kazuo Fukushima, George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Camille Saint-Saëns, Arnold Schoenberg, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Igor Stravinsky, and Kurt Weill.
Camerata Pacifica Baroque, described by Spence as the chamber collective’s “period instrument annex,” which was launched last season and is curated by flutist Emi Ferguson, continues with a pair of extraordinary programs that offer an inventive perspective on Baroque music. The first includes Ferguson, joined by celebrated classical and jazz keyboardist Dan Tepfer on clavichord, presenting selections from Tepfer’s 2023 solo album Inventions/Reinventions. Later in the season, the early-music band Ruckus and violinist Rachell Ellen Wong reunite with Ferguson in three trio sonatas by Handel, as well as Ignatius Sancho’s 12 Country Dances for the Year 1779.
A number of artists, including Tepfer, are making their Camerata Pacifica debuts: violinists Jolente De Maeyer, Alena Hove, and Grace Park, cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia, soprano Sarah Maria Sun, flutist Sooyun Kim, and a husband-and-wife piano duo Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee.
Returning guest artists include violists Che-Yen Chen and Timothy Ridout, hornist Ben Goldscheider, Berlin Philharmonic principal flute Sébastian Jacot, bassoonist Kathleen McLean, and percussionist W. Lee Vinson.
Each of Camerata Pacifica’s nine programs is presented at four Southern California venues: downtown L.A.’s Zipper Hall, San Marino’s The Huntington, Santa Barbara’s Music Academy, and Thousand Oaks’ Janet and Ray Scherr Forum Theatre.
And to bring its 2023–2024 season to a close, Camerata Pacific is presenting Clarice Assad’s Petite Suite, composed for accordionist Julien Labro. A Camerata Pacifica commission, the work for accordion, clarinet, cello, and marimba runs May 17–23 at the collective’s four Southland venues.
