LA Chamber Orchestra’s Baroque Series Features an All-Bach Program with Celebrated Bass Thomas Bauer

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Concertmaster and Director of Chamber Music Margaret Batjer leads an all-Bach performance featuring bass Thomas Bauer as part of the Orchestra’s engaging Baroque series. Bauer, who sings with “sheer virile force” and “emotional intensity” (Opernglas), performs Bach’s Ich Habe Genug, a reflection on gratitude and the power of perspective. The program includes three other inventive gems by the towering composer –  Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 1; Concerto for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord; and Concerto for Three Violins.  

LACO’s Baroque series features smaller groups of the Orchestra’s musicians and guest artists on chamber masterworks from the Baroque Era (1600 to 1750). The music is characterized by expressive and soaring melodies, distinctive harmonies, musical flourishes, and stylistic diversity.

Bach Bauer at The Huntington is presented in memory of Warner Henry with the generous support from The Henry Family. 

Bach Bauer is made possible, in part, with the generous support from Anne Jeffrey Grausam and Eric W. Sigg Michael Mackness. 

LACO recognizes the generous support of the Colburn Foundation. The Orchestra also receives public funding via grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; State of California; California Arts Council; the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. LACO gratefully acknowledges Hogan Lovells US LLP for generous pro bono support. Steinway is the official piano of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.  

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is located at 9390 N Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. For The Wallis engagement, Classical California KUSC’s Brian Lauritzen will host a pre-concert talk with the artists at 6:30 pm.  

The Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall is located at 1151 Oxford Rd, San Marino, CA 91108

For tickets ($46-$58, The Huntington; $19-$69, The Wallis) and information, please visit www.laco.org or call 213 221 3920.

As a concert vocalist, Thomas Bauer made recent guest appearances at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, at Beethovenfest Bonn, singing Beethoven’s cycle An die ferne Geliebte, with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Musik Podium Festival in Stuttgart in Mendelssohn’s Paulus, with Chorwerk Ruhr, Ensemble Pygmalion, and Anima Eterna. The Palais des Beaux-Arts BOZAR in Brussels featured Bauer as Artist-in-Residence for a series of concerts and he has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink, Concentus Musicus under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Filarmonica della Scala under Zubin Mehta, Leipzig Gewandhaus under Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly and Philippe Herreweghe, the National Symphony in Washington, D.C., and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. He has collaborated with Sir Roger Norrington, Iván Fischer, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, among other eminent conductors. Under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher, he appeared in Schubert’s Lazarus at the Salzburg Festival as well as in Schoenberg’s Jakobsleiter at the Berlin Philharmonie, and sang the world première of Jörg Widmann’s oratorio ARCHE conducted by Kent Nagano for the inauguration of Hamburg’s spectacular new Elbphilharmonie (released in 2018 on ECM). Bauer also enjoys considerable success in the Lied genre, including performing frequently with fortepiano specialist Jos van Immerseel. He has sung several opera world premières, and was awarded the prestigious Schneider-Schott Music Prize. He also collaborated closely with the renowned Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who wrote a number of works specifically for Bauer’s bass voice. Bauer’s CD productions have received numerous prestigious awards. His latest award-winning releases include Jörg Widmann’s ARCHE (Nagano/Hamburg Philharmonic, on ECM, 2018) and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Otto/Mainz Bach Orchestra, on Naxos, 2018). He also recorded Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge with Philippe Herreweghe conducting Collegium Vocale Gent and Orchestre des Champs-Élysées (Outhere Music 2022). Bauer received his earliest musical training as a member of the legendary Regensburg Domspatzen (Cathedral Choir) and studied voice at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich. He is also launched the award-winning Konzerthaus project in the Bavarian Forest village of Blaibach, which opened in 2014 and has garnered international attention for its outstanding architecture and the stunning quality of concerts presented in this remote region of Bavaria.

Margaret Batjer has served as LACO Concertmaster since 1998. She is also renowned as a violin soloist, chamber musician and teacher, and has established herself as a versatile and respected artist worldwide. Batjer has appeared as a soloist with America’s leading orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Batjer has also performed with leading European ensembles such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the RT. National Symphony Orchestra (of Ireland), and Berlin Symphony Orchestra. An esteemed chamber musician, Batjer has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, and Sarasota Music as well as the Naples and Salzburg Festivals in Europe. In 2020, she formed the Los Angeles Piano Trio with colleagues Fabio Bidini and Andrew Shulman. Batjer has had an extensive recording career over the last several decades. Her most recent recording with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra includes the live premiere of the Pierre Jalbert Violin Concerto, and works by Bach, Pärt and Vasks released on the BIS label. She recorded the Bach Concerto for Two Violins with Salvatore Accardo and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for the Philips label and is also featured on a 2003 Deutsche Grammophon recording pairing Batjer and Hilary Hahn as soloists with Jeffrey Kahane conducting Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She has also made numerous chamber music recordings on the EMI, Nuova Era, and BMG labels. Batjer is Adjunct Professor of Violin at the USC Thornton School of Music and on the violin faculty at the Colburn School.

LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (LACO) ranks among the world’s top musical ensembles. Beloved by audiences and praised by critics, the Orchestra is a preeminent interpreter of historical masterworks and, with eight ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, a champion of contemporary composers. Headquartered in the heart of the country's cultural capital, LACO has been proclaimed “America’s finest chamber orchestra” (Public Radio International), “LA’s most unintimidating chamber music experience” (Los Angeles magazine), “resplendent” (Los Angeles Times), and “one of the world's great chamber orchestras"(KUSC Classical FM). Performing throughout greater Los Angeles, the Orchestra has made 32 recordings, including, most recently, a 2019 BIS Records release of works for violin and chamber orchestra that features Concertmaster Margaret Batjer and the world premiere recording of Pierre Jalbert’s Violin Concerto (a LACO co-commission). LACO, with offices located in downtown Los Angeles, has toured Europe, South America and Japan, and performed across North America. www.laco.org.