Los Angeles Children's Music Foundation Benefit Concert

LA Phil bassist Oscar Meza, and cellist Tao Ni, will be featured performers at a benefit concert with the Los Angeles Children's Orchestra on June 8 at the Aratani/Japan America Theatres in Los Angeles. Money raised will help the orchestra travel to Central Europe to perform at music festivals. A new piece by composer Nick Gianopoulos will also be played. The orchestra children are ages 6-13.

Oscar M Meza, associate principal bassist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Tao Ni, Philharmonic cellist, will perform with the Los Angeles Children’s Orchestra, directed by Susan Pascale, and the Los Angeles Children’s Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Zach Dellinger, at the Aratani/Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles on June 8 at 3 pm.  Valentine Elementary's Natalie Leung, Joshua Yue and Nathaniel Yue will be performing with the Los Angeles Children's Orchestra as well as in their quintet and quartet.

Meza will perform the Vivaldi Concerto for two cellos, with Children’s Orchestra member Sebastian Salazar, age 12. Tao Ni will perform the Hayden Concerto in D, accompanied by the Children’s Chamber Orchestra.

Composer, Nick Gianopoulos will premiere a piece written for and performed by Juilliard student and violist Ariana Solotoff and accompanied by the Los Angeles Children’s Chamber Orchestra. The piece is called “Hatzlacha Rabba,” which means, “To much success,” for viola and string orchestra. Gianopoulos, who lives in Los Angeles, wrote it for Solotoff to wish her luck when she began her studies at Juilliard three years ago. She had previously been concertmaster of the Los Angeles Children’s Orchestra.

The concert is a benefit to raise money for the children’s orchestras’ 2015 Central European tour. The money will go to the Los Angeles Children’s Music Foundation, which was formed to raise money for orchestra travel and other projects. The 2015 tour will include invitation-only performances at summer music festivals in Prague and Vienna.  

The orchestras are part of the Pascale Music Institute, based in South Pasadena, CA, which draws strings students from throughout greater Los Angeles. The school’ s orchestras, featuring children aged 6-13, have participated in many exciting performance opportunities and routinely win top honors at regional and national music festivals, including three trips to New York City’s Carnegie Hall where they won the highest rating of “Gold” in 2005, 2009, and 2013.  “We are excited to take this group to share their talents internationally and to further enrich their musical education,” says Pascale.

Concert tickets are $25 per person and are available for purchase online now, at http://www.jaccc.org  or call/email Pascale Music Institute at marrisha@stringsprogram.com or call (626) 403-4611.

Tickets can also be purchased at the door the day of the concert . Aratani/Japan America Theatre is located at 244 S. San Pedro Street, in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles.