In the latest example of turnover at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, principal concertmaster Martin Chalifour has announced he will retire from the orchestra at the end of the 2024–2025 season. He was appointed to the position in 1995, making him the longest-serving principal concertmaster in LA Phil history.
Chalifour is the third major figure at the orchestra to tender his resignation in the past couple of years. Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel will leave the orchestra following the 2025–2026 season to assume the same role with the New York Philharmonic. Chief Executive Officer Chad Smith exited for the Boston Symphony last year and was recently replaced by Kim Noltemy.
Adding to the uncertainty, Nathan Cole, the LA Phil’s first associate concertmaster, was appointed concertmaster of the Boston Symphony earlier this year. According to an LA Phil spokesperson SF Classical Voice contacted this summer, Cole is splitting his 2024–2025 season between Los Angeles and Boston. It is not clear where he will land come fall 2025.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as principal concertmaster of the LA Phil, performing orchestral works and chamber music with some of the greatest artists in the world,” Chalifour said in a statement. “While much has changed over these past three decades, the orchestra has kept its passion for making music, and its ambition to keep rising to higher and higher artistic levels.”
“It has been an honor and a privilege to have Martin Chalifour as principal concertmaster for my entire tenure at the LA Phil,” said Dudamel. “He sets the example for the orchestra each day with his skill, taste, knowledge, consistency, and deep love of the music. I am so grateful to have one more season with Martin by my side, and wish him all the happiness in the world as he enters this next chapter.”
A spokesperson for the orchestra said it is too early to speculate regarding the timeline for filling the position. She noted that the concertmaster, just like any other orchestra member, must undergo an audition process conducted by a “select panel of musicians” as well as the music director. It is not certain whether that music director will be Dudamel or his successor.
Chalifour, who was born in Canada in 1961, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He will be featured on several LA Phil programs during his final season, beginning on Nov. 19 with a chamber concert he curated. The program will include Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20, and a new work by Celka Ojakangas.
He will also be the soloist in Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons at Disney Hall April 10–13, 2025, and in Ralph Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending at the Hollywood Bowl on July 24, 2025.
