Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra is saying goodbye to Glendale and good day to Gehry.
Starting next season, 2025–2026, the ensemble will be moving its concerts at the Alex Theatre in Glendale to the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles. The group’s performances at Colburn will initially take place in the 430-seat Zipper Hall but will then transfer to the Frank Gehry-designed Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall, which is expected to open in 2027.
The new 1,000-seat concert hall, part of the already-underway expansion of the school’s campus, will have an in-the-round design.
“With their intimate size, both Zipper and Kohl Halls are the perfect venues to experience the caliber of LACO’s performances,” said Sel Kardan, Colburn’s president and CEO. He added that he is “thrilled to welcome” the ensemble to the school’s facilities.
“This partnership was inevitable — a natural evolution of a shared history and shared commitment to excellence, community, and preserving the timeless tradition of classical music,” said LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader. “We are thrilled to perform in our new home at the exceptional Zipper Hall and be a part of the thriving cultural corridor along Grand Avenue.”
LACO has been performing at the Alex Theatre for more than three decades. Its final concert there, scheduled for May 10 of this year, will feature Nemanja Radulović in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
The ensemble’s Westside concerts will remain at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, where LACO relocated last year after 30 years at UCLA’s Royce Hall. The orchestra’s Baroque series will still take place at The Wallis and The Huntington in San Marino.
In addition, next season will see two jazz-oriented programs at Cicada Restaurant and Lounge in downtown Los Angeles, led by pianist and LACO Creative Partner Lara Downes. The first, on Oct. 4, will feature countertenor John Holiday and include music of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, plus Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night. The follow-up, on March 28, 2026, with a guest artist to be named, will feature jazz-inflected interpretations of J.S. Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–801.
The orchestral programming for 2025–2026 will include world premieres by Juhi Bansal, Christopher Cerrone, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels. Two West Coast premieres will also be heard: Huang Ruo’s Tipping Point and Eric Whitacre’s The Pacific Has No Memory.
The season will get underway on Sept. 13 at Zipper Hall and Sept. 14 at The Wallis with Music Director Jaime Martín conducting symphonies by Beethoven and Haydn and Nicolas Altstaedt soloing in Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto. On Oct. 25 and 26, Marc-André Hamelin will join Martín and the orchestra for Brahms’s First Piano Concerto.
Fazil Say will be the soloist in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto on Feb. 14 and 15, 2026, in a program that will also feature Abels’s world premiere. Isabelle Faust will join LACO and guest conductor Dinis Sousa for Schumann’s Violin Concerto on March 14 and 15, 2026.
Two more world-class violinists will follow. Anne Akiko Meyers will be featured April 11 and 12, 2026, in an ambitious program featuring a world premiere, a West Coast premiere, and music of Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. Then Anthony Marwood will join cellist Coleman Itzkoff for the world premiere of Cerrone’s Double Concerto on May 16 and 17, 2026.
Two chamber programs are scheduled: an all-Brahms concert (Nov. 22 and 23) and a program of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann that will feature renowned pianist Richard Goode (Dec. 14 and 16). In addition, there will be two Baroque concerts: one on Jan. 17 and 18 and another on May 30 and 31, the latter featuring soprano Amanda Forsythe.
Renewals and new subscriptions go on sale today, March 4; single tickets will be available at a later date. For more information, visit LACO’s website.
