Andrea Lagun

Daren Fuster has been appointed Director of Operations and Artistic Administration for the acclaimed Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), announced Executive Director Rachel Fine, who added that Fuster will oversee artistic administration, production, general operations, as well as education and community programs. Fuster replaces long-time LACO administrator Andrea Laguni, who is stepping down after 19 years at LACO to serve as an arts consultant.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), continuing a long-established relationship with the Oregon Bach Festival, welcomes the Festival's new Artistic Director Matthew Halls as guest conductor in his California debut, leading a program that spans the centuries and spotlights LACO Concertmaster Margaret Batjer, Principal Cello Andrew Shulman, Principal Oboe Allan Vogel and Principal Bassoon Kenneth Munday, on Saturday, January 25, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, January 26, 2014, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Halls, "a fresh and forceful talent" whose "music-making is strongly and clearly sculpted" (The Times, London), leads Mozart's Ballet Music from Idomeneo, K. 367, Haydn's Sinfonia concertante in B-flat major, and Beethoven's playful Symphony No. 1 in C major, which was instantly hailed as a masterpiece. Providing a dramatic counterpoint to the program is Aaron Jay Kernis' solemn Musica Celestis, a string-orchestra transcription of one of his string quartets that has been likened to Barber's famous Adagio.

Distinguished international conductor and acclaimed Mozart interpreter Hans Graf, recently named Music Director Laureate of the Houston Symphony after serving as its music director for 12 years, makes his Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra debut conducting the highly anticipated Los Angeles debut of Italian piano sensation Alessio Bax, whose artistry "quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity" (Gramophone), in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 on Saturday, November 16, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale and Sunday, November 17, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Also featured is Beethoven's vivid Symphony No. 6 in F major, "Pastoral," considered among Beethoven's most exquisitely beautiful and popular works. The program begins with Henri Dutilleux' Mystere de l'instant for strings, cimbalom (a hammered dulcimer) and percussion, which premiered in 1989.