Walt Disney Concert Hall is reopening this month, but not with the orchestra you might expect. Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will play the first live concert at the venue since pandemic restrictions halted performances in March 2020.
LACO and Music Director Jaime Martín take the stage June 26. They’ll be celebrating not only the return to live performances but also Martín’s tenure with the orchestra; his contract, recently extended, now goes through the 2026–2027 season. On the Disney Hall program: Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony, Alberto Ginastera’s Variaciones concertantes, and Mariachitlán, by composer and sometime LACO collaborator Juan Pablo Contreras.
It’s just one of two inaugural concerts the orchestra has coming up. On July 1, LACO plays the first post-pandemic performance at The Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall. Martín again conducts, with more music from the Spanish-speaking world — de Falla’s El amor brujo, with mezzo-soprano Suzanna Guzmán as soloist — plus Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and a new piece from composer KiMani Bridges.
For both programs, the orchestra is mostly keeping it to an invited audience of family, friends, community partners, and donors. With the Disney Hall concert, LACO is giving away a select number of free tickets to the public; enter the giveaway here.
But the unlucky shouldn’t worry. The orchestra is recording both performances for the second season of its SummerFest series, streaming on LACO’s YouTube channel beginning in July. It’s also where you can tune in to the past year of programming any time.
