L.A Theatre Works Presents US Premieres of 'BELOVED CLARA' and 'ODYSSEY OF LOVE'

Two uniquely beautiful performance pieces compiled from the music and letters of Robert and Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt by award-winning British pianist Lucy Parham, will be given their U.S. premieres by L.A. Theatre Works. Music for Beloved Clara and Odyssey of Love will be performed live by multiple award-winning pianist Parham, while extracts from the composers' letters and diaries will be read by celebrated British actors Rosalind Ayres and Martin Jarvis. The live performances, directed by Mr. Jarvis, will be recorded in front of a live audience December 3 through 7 at the Skirball Cultural Center for broadcast on LATW's nationally syndicated, weekly radio theater series, The Play's The Thing.

The story of the intense relationships between Robert Schumann, his wife Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms has always fascinated music lovers. Beloved Clara (Thursday, December 4 at 8 pm and Saturday, December 6 at 2:30 pm) brings their history to vivid life through their music and excerpts from their passionate writings. It chronicles the sometimes troubled marriage of Clara and Robert; the arrival in their household of the dynamic, 21-year-old Brahms; Robert's decline into mental illness; and the deepening, intriguing bond between Clara and Brahms Beloved Clara premiered at London's Wigmore Hall Masters Series in 2002 and has since been performed throughout England in festivals and concert halls to great acclaim.

Throughout his life, Franz Liszt burned the candle at both ends. Drawn largely from his prolific and colorful letters and interspersed with some of his most ecstatic and expressive piano music, Odyssey of Love (Wednesday, December 3 at 8 pm; Friday, December 5 at pm; and Sunday, December 7 at 4 pm) depicts Liszt's tempestuous relations with two fascinating women: the aristocratic freethinking rebel (and mother of his children) Marie d'Agoult, and the cigar-smoking intellectual Princess Carolyne von Sayn Wittgenstein. A child prodigy who became the greatest keyboard virtuoso of his time, Liszt was also a prolific composer whose output ranged from hundreds of piano pieces to symphonies, tone poems, songs and oratorios. An indefatigable traveler and a friend and supporter of Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin and Wagner, Liszt's life was crammed full of incident and romance, and he was drawn to women like a moth to a flame. Odyssey of Love premiered at Wigmore Hall in February 2008 as part of the London Pianoforte Series.

Acknowledged as one of Britain's finest pianists and one of the leading interpreters of Robert and Clara Schumann. Lucy Parham first came to public attention upon winning the 1984 BBC TV Young Musician of the Year Piano Class. Since then, she has performed extensively throughout the UK and Europe, South Africa, USA, Canada and Russia including with the Russian State Symphony Orchestra at the Tchaikowsky Hall in Moscow, L'Orchestre Rencontres Suisse, Bergen Philharmonic, L'Orchestre National de Lille, and three UK tours with the Polish National Radio SO and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. Lucy Parham made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1989, and has since appeared regularly at all the major London venues and with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Philharmonia, RTE Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia, RoyAl Scottish National Orchestra, Hallé and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Parham's unique recording of Robert and Clara Schumann's piano concertos with the BBC Concert Orchestra/Wordsworth (Sanctuary Classics) won the BBC Music Magazine "Critics' Choice of the Year." Her other recordings include concertos by Ravel, Franck and Faure with the RPO for RPO Records, Rhapsody in Blue with the BBC Concert Orchestra for BBC Worldwide and with the RPO for EMI, and a solo Chopin disc for ABM. "The Romantic Piano" for Sanctuary Classics was released in January 2005 and a year later her solo Schumann CD was released on ASV.

Martin Jarvis' career as actor and director encompasses starring roles in London's West End and an award-winning performance in the title role of By Jeeves on Broadway - plus The Royal National Theatre and on British and American television. He gave an acclaimed performance in Honour opposite Diana Rigg in London last year. Martin was recently seen on CBS guest-starring in Numb3rs and in the cult show Stargate Atlantis. He is the star of the new BBC series, filmed in East Africa, Taking the Flak. Other TV appearances: Leonard in Much Ado - Shakespeare Retold; also Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Lorna Doone, A Touch of Frost, Inspector Morse, Sex 'N' Death (HBO). Plus Dr Who,,The Bill, Space Above and Beyond, Murder She Wrote, Walker Texas Ranger, The Bunker (Emmy Award) and Ike (as King George VI.) Feature films include the new British thriller Framed, Oscar-winning Titanic, David Hare's Absence of War, Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War, Kid With the X-ray Eyes, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Buster and The Last Escape. He has won both British and US Audie awards for his audiobook recordings. Martin's many LATW productions as actor include Mary Stuart, Shadowlands, The Ayckbourn Trilogy, Orson's Shadow and The Doctor's Dilemma directed by his wife Rosalind Ayres. He directed the recent Life of Galileo starring Stacy Keach, now also released on CD. He has directed numerous BBC radio dramas featuring some of his favorite actors, including Judi Dench, Teri Garr, Alfred Molina, Hector Elizondo - and of course Rosalind Ayres. He won the British Independent Radio Award for his performance in the world premiere of Mamet's Keep Your Pantheon on BBC, and for his direction of Pack of Lies starring Rosalind Ayres, Michael York and Ed Begley Jr. Martin is the author of two popular theater books, Acting Strangely and Broadway Jeeves, and is invested as an Officer of the British Empire by The Queen for his services to drama and the arts.

Rosalind Ayres' numerous film roles include Lady Lucille Duff Gordon in James Cameron's multi-Oscar-winning Titanic and Elsa Lanchester in Gods and Monsters. She starred in the Cannes Film Festival award-winning Beautiful People, and in Christmas in the Clouds. She has just returned from Tanzania, E. Africa where she has been shooting a new BBC film series Taking the Flak, with her actor/director husband Martin Jarvis. Her many screen appearances in Britain include: The Royal, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Trevor's World of Sport, Heartbeat, Casualty; and in America: Just Shoot Me, Chicago Hope, Profiler, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Country Matters. In the West End she played Lena in Michael Frayn's Exchange, Calpurnia in I Claudius and in Now You Know at Hampstead. She appeared in Peter Brook's legendary production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in New York. Her BBC radio performances include starring roles in Pack of Lies, Inappropriate Behaviour and A Tribute to Finchie. She has also directed many award-winning dramas for BBC, including the world premiere of David Mamet's Keep Your Pantheon and also Glengarry Glen Ross. For LATW Ros has appeared in many productions including Frozen, Wilde's An Ideal Husband and Ayckbourn's trilogy The Norman Conquests. As director: numerous plays including The Real Thing, Mary Stuart, The Cherry Orchard, Breaking the Code, On the Waterfront, The Lion in Winter, Betrayal, Another Time. Her work on audio includes the most recent Twilight Zone, the Audie award-winning Sweeney Todd and Sherlock Holmes, plus (in UK) Stories from the New Testament, Classic Love Stories and even The Highway Code.

For three decades, L.A. Theatre Works has been the leading radio theater company in the United States, committed to using innovative technologies to preserve and promote significant works of dramatic literature and bringing live theater into the homes of millions. LATW's radio theater series, The Play's The Thing, airs weekly on 89.3 FM KPCC Southern California Public Radio, and is streamed on the KPCC website for one week following each broadcast. The series can also be heard on 89.7 WGBH in Boston; 91.5 FM WBEZ in Chicago; 94.9 KUOW in Seattle; 93.5 FM KRTS "Marfa Public Radio" in Texas; 90.5 FM KUT in Austin; 88.9 FM KUNM in Albuquerque; 91.5 FM, Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan; 94.1 KPFA in Northern California; 91.1 FM KRCB in Sonoma County; 89.1 KUOR in Redlands; as well as on many other public radio stations nationwide and Sirius XM Satellite Radio. Selected programs from LATW are also heard internationally over BBC World Service, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Telefis Eirann (Ireland), Radio Hong Kong, and Radio New Zealand.The L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection is available in bookstores, libraries, through their catalog, digitally on itunes, overdrive.com, audible.com, and on the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org.

Performances of Beloved Clara take place on Thursday, December 4 at 8 pm and Saturday, December 6 at 2:30 pm. Performances of Odyssey of Love take place on Wednesday, December 3 at 8 pm; Friday, December 5 at 8 pm; and Sunday, December 7 at 4 pm. Tickets range from $20.00 to $48.00. The Skirball Cultural Center is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd, off the San Diego (405) Freeway in the Santa Monica Mountains (exit Skirball Center Drive). For tickets and information, call the L.A. Theatre Works box office at (310) 827-0889 or go to www.latw.org.