Southwest Chamber Music
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Founded in 1987, Southwest Chamber Music is one of the most active chamber music ensembles in the United States, presenting concert series at the Norton Simon Museum, Armory Center for the Arts, and Boston Court in Pasadena,Colburn School of Performing Arts in Los Angeles and a celebrated summer festival at The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. The ensemble also offers Blendings: Music and Wine, one of the few regularly scheduled open rehearsal series in the nation, at the Armory Center for the Arts in Old Pasadena. The ensemble provides weekly music education programs in the Los Angeles and Pasadena Unified School Districts through Project Muse in-school concerts and a Mentorship Program, as well as Music Unwrapped Family Series for students of all ages. Southwest Chamber Music takes its name from the Southwest Museum, the oldest cultural institution in Southern California.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary last season, Southwest Chamber Music announced Expanding Horizons artistic initiatives. These international projects have created significant and long-term cultural exchanges for the ensemble in Asia, Latin America and Europe. Expanding Horzions projects began in December 2006 with cultural exchange programs with the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, the World Culture Expo at the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the Hanoi Conservatory of Music in Vietnam. This tour to Southeast Asia featured the music of Grawemeyer Award winning Cambodian American composer Chinary Ung. Southwest Chamber Music also performed in May 2007 at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City with a cycle of five concerts of the complete chamber works of Carlos Chávez.
The ensemble has also been presented by the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Cooper Union in New York City, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Getty Center, Orange County Performing Arts Center, Ojai Festival, and Luckman Fine Arts Center. Guest conductors appearing with the ensemble have included Oliver Knussen, Stephen L. Mosko, and Charles Wuorinen. In March 2003 Southwest Chamber Music became the first American ensemble to perform at the Arnold Schoenberg Center in Vienna in a three-concert residency including the complete Los Angeles chamber works of Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire with soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson, and a program of works by American composers including Carter, Babbitt, Cage, and Harrison.
Southwest Chamber Music has one of the most impressive recorded discographies of any American chamber ensemble. The group has received five consecutive GRAMMY nominations for its four volume cycle of the Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez on Cambria Master Recordings. This recognition from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences includes 2003 and 2004 Grammy Awards in the Best Small Ensemble category for Volumes 1 and 2. Three further nominations for Volume 3 are shared with the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble of Mexico City, including Best Classical Album and Best Small Ensemble nominations in 2005, and a Latin Grammy Best Classical Album nomination in 2006. Southwest Chamber Music’s Composer Portrait Series on Cambria Master Recordings received a 2002 ASCAP-Chamber Music America Award for a “landmark set of 12 compact discs featuring American music of our time.” The ensemble has also recorded works of Prokofiev and Poulenc on Cambria, as well as the late works of Krenek for[Orfeo Records in Munich.
