LA Chamber Orchestra Collaborates with Four Larks and Derrick Spiva Jr for SESSION, an Innovative Performance Experience

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), in collaboration with Four Larks, presents SESSION, an innovative performance experience curated by composer and LACO Artist Educator Derrick Spiva Jr and designed to explore classical music's cutting-edge sounds and challenge traditional concert-going expectations, on Thursday, October 4, 2018, 8 pm (doors open at 7:30 pm), at Hauser & Wirth in Downtown LA’s Arts District. The evening of music, linked by sonic metaphors, composed by an array of national and international composers, and performed by LACO musicians and others, also offers a "hang" with the artists and a drink ticket for ticketholders, plus food available for purchase. The program features a world premiere by Spiva, a rising African-American composer long associated with LACO. Titled The Body Overcome, it is a peaceful meditation for string quartet, wind quartet, percussion, voice and oud (a pear shaped Middle Eastern lute with West African, Indian and Eastern European influences. Also performed are Conor Brown’s Hirvi (“The Elk”), a jubilant work for double quintet and voice influenced by Norwegian and Eastern European music traditions; Reena Esmail’s String Quartet (Ragamala), which blends Indian and Western classical music styles; selections from Salina Fisher’s abstract Torino, a string quartet inspired by Maori putorino (traditional flute of New Zealand); and movements from Juan Pablo Contreras’ celebratory Angel Mestizo for harp, double quintet and percussion. Acclaimed Hindustani vocalist Saili Oak demonstrates her tremendous versatility, performing in Hindustani classical style on Spiva's and Esmail's works and in Finnish on Brown’s.

SESSION continues in Winter 2019 with conductor/composer Matthias Pintscher and in spring 2019 with conductor/composer and wild Up director Christopher Rountree, whose work stands at the intersection of classical music, new music, performance art and pop. Programs fit the unique properties of unconventional spaces and test ideas about the relationship between performers and audience. (Dates and details to be announced.)

Tickets are $35 (includes drink ticket) and may be purchased online at laco.org or by calling LACO at 213 622 7001 x 1. Hauser & Wirth is located at 901 E. 3^rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013.