A R T S A N D C U LT U R E
Starting Anew
Pittance unveils 2022 season of opera chamber music
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By Bridgette M. Redman
The upcoming season is: Theresa Dimond and Friends: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, January 22 The first concert of the year takes a deep dive into the pit — landing in the percussion section. Hosted by the LA Opera Orchestra’s principal percussionist and UCLA lecturer Theresa Dimond, the program features a wide-ranging repertoire performed by musicians from the percussion, woodwind and string sections of the orchestra. Ingolf Dahl: “Concerto a Tre for Clarinet, Violin and Cello” Arvo Pärt: “Spiegel Im Spiegel (Cello and Marimba)” Nathan Daugherty: “Burn 3 for Flute, Clarinet and Marimba” Barbara Kolb: “Homage to Keith Jarrett and Gary Burton (Flute and Marimba)” Gerard Lecointe: “Point Bak (Mallet Ensemble)” Los Angeles Opera Conductor Grant Gershon will lead the Pittance Orchestra’s third concert of the season.
Photo by David Johnston
pera, by its very nature, is typically done on a grand scale. Singers command large stages supported by choruses spread out behind them. Full orchestras perform hidden away in pits while providing sweeping music. The Pittance Chamber Music seeks to bring a more focused look at opera by scaling its music down to chamber-size performances. Since 2013, artistic director Lisa Sutton — who is also the assistant concertmaster of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra — has been arranging small concerts featuring musicians from the orchestra and vocalists from the LA Opera Chorus and the LA Opera Young Artists Program. Now, after more than a year of pandemic silence, they have announced a new season in a new venue, bringing concerts designed to personalize opera and give audiences a more intimate view of the artists who create it. While their seasons normally begin with concerts in the fall, this season was delayed by COVID-19 issues so their first show will be in January. “We are all part of the Los Angeles Opera, we’re a group that is bound together by that common thread,” Sutton says. “I like to shine the spotlight on the orchestra. During the opera, they’re down in the pit. They’re heard, but not seen.” Two of the three concerts in the 2022 season were planned for 2021 and had to be canceled. “The artists were so disappointed that we couldn’t do them, so I said we’d do them when we come back,” Sutton says.
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