Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Westside Chamber Series features a musical twist with Bach’s Goldberg Variations for String Orchestra, led by Concertmaster Margaret Batjer, on Saturday, March 12, 2022, 8 pm, at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica. Bach’s monumental work, comprised of 30 variations originally written for solo keyboard and published in 1741, gained prominence in the twentieth century with pianist Glenn Gould’s famed 1955 recording of it and garnered further exposure with violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s 1984 arrangement for strings, the version LACO’s is presenting. The brilliant arrangement for strings – dedicated to Glenn Gould – honors note-for-note Bach’s seminal work, long a staple of the piano repertoire, while imbuing it with a fresh new musical perspective that brings to the work an entirely different spectrum of timbre and sonorities.
Batjer, lauded for her “gleaming warmth” (Los Angeles Times), “high-flying” performances and ability to make “her instrument purr and soar…with an engrossing combination of intensity and technical fluency” (San Francisco Classical Voice), is “downright exciting to watch and hear” (Violinist.com). She has served as concertmaster of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 1998, which has featured her on numerous world premieres and CDs, including a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with violinist Hilary Hahn.
Tickets are $58 and may be purchased online at laco.org or by calling LACO at 213 622 7001 x1. Discounted tickets are also available by phone for seniors 65 years of age and older and for students.