LA Chamber Orchestra Names New Board Member

Ruth L. Eliel, a leading Southland arts administrator, has been appointed to the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s (LACO) Board of Directors for a three-year term, announces LACO President Dana Newman. Eliel, executive director of the prestigious Colburn Foundation since 2008, is committed to building and sustaining a strong infrastructure for the arts in Southern California, spending significant time coaching leaders of young organizations and Colburn grantees. A long-time LACO supporter, Eliel served as executive director of the Orchestra from 1997 to 2006 before assuming the title of associate executive director for two years to focus solely on fundraising.

Prior to working with LACO, she was managing director of the Lewitzky Dance Company, then Los Angeles’ premier modern dance ensemble, and she also spent 14 years in the private sector as a management consultant with both Deloitte & Touche and McKinsey & Company. Previously she was an independent consultant for the World Bank, drawing on her nine years as a commercial banker for the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York and Hong Kong, and later started up and ran MG Finance in Hong Kong. Eliel has mentored cultural leaders through the League of American Orchestras and the Kennedy Center’s Arts in Crisis program. A guest lecturer on arts management at numerous Southland universities, she has also served as a grant panelist for the California Community Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the California Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is on the board of councilors of the USC Thornton School of Music and was a founding member of the board of Arts for LA.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), proclaimed "America's finest chamber orchestra" by Public Radio International and "resplendent" by the Los Angeles Times, has established itself among the world's top musical ensembles. Since 1997, LACO has performed under the baton of acclaimed conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane, hailed by critics as "visionary" and "a conductor of uncommon intellect, insight and musical integrity" with "undeniable charisma," "effortless musicality and extraordinary communicative gifts." Under Kahane’s leadership, the Orchestra maintains its status as a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and a champion of contemporary composers. During its 47-year history, the Orchestra has made 31 recordings, toured Europe, South America and Japan, performed across North America and garnered eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming. Headquartered in downtown Los Angeles, LACO presents its Orchestral Series on Saturdays at Glendale’s Alex Theatre and on Sundays at UCLA’s Royce Hall; Baroque Conversations at downtown Los Angeles’ Zipper Concert Hall and USC’s Bovard Auditorium; Westside Connections chamber music series, designed to illustrate the relationship between music and other artistic disciplines, at the Moss Theater in Santa Monica; and an annual Discover concert, which features an in-depth examination that sheds new light on a single piece of music, at Pasadena’s Ambassador Auditorium. LACO also presents a Concert Gala, an annual film event, featuring the Orchestra performing the score live, and several fundraising salons each year. Additionally, LACO outreach programs, Meet the Music, Community Partners, Campus to Concert Hall and the LACO/USC Thornton Strings Mentorship Program, reach thousands of young people annually, nurturing future musicians and composers as well as inspiring a love of classical music.