4 Debuts Set for New Season of Music in Historic Sites Series

Four international ensembles--the Quartetto di Venezia, the Johannes String Quartet, the Belcea Quartet and Cardinall’s Musick--will make their local debuts during the 30th anniversary season of Chamber Music in Historic Sites.

The season begins Oct. 25 with the return of the Cologne-based Auryn Quartet and ends May 4 with the Shanghai Quartet. Both events will be held at the Doheny Mansion in downtown L.A.

The series, sponsored by the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, also welcomes back pianist Delores Stevens, who played in the first concert, in March 1973; the Arden Trio; the Pacifica Quartet; the California EAR Unit; the King’s Noyse with soprano Ellen Hargis and harpist Andrew Lawrence-King; and violinist Ida Levin.

Four of the 14 sites will be new to the series. The locations include private homes, churches and ballrooms by architects such as Robert D. Farquhar, Silas Burns & Sumner Hunt, Alfred F. Rosenheim, and Fisher, Lake and Traver.

During the season, the series will return to the Second Church of Christ Scientist, the Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Canfield-Moreno Estate and the Crystal Ballroom of the Regal Biltmore Hotel.

The events are designed to explore relationships between music and place, with an emphasis this season on four neighborhoods.

The Vernon/Central neighborhood will be featured in an appearance by James Moody at the Dunbar Hotel. An EAR Unit concert will be given at SCI-Arc’s downtown industrial neighborhood. A Latin jazz concert will take place at the East L.A. restaurant to which Mexican artist Tamayo gave his name and some of his own artworks. And a concert at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral will offer an opportunity to explore the Byzantine-Latino quarter at Pico Boulevard and Normandie Avenue.

Eight separate series are offered. In the Nakamichi series, for instance, the Orlando Consort plays a program titled “Sounds Delicious” at the Ebell of Los Angeles, while the Budapest Strings and the King’s Noyse perform in different hotel settings. The three-concert Premium series offers performances by violinist Ayako Yoshida, guitarist Paul Galbraith and the Johannes Quartet.

In addition to the six-concert Doheny Soirees in the evenings, a new Sunday series called Doheny Matinees will offer three concerts: the Pacific Quartet; cellist Tanya Tomkins playing Bach on a Baroque instrument and Britten on a modern cello; and the Shanghai String Quartet in a Beethoven-Barber-Chinese songs program.

For further information and a season brochure, call (213) 477-2929.