Los Angeles Music Preview: ACADEMY OF ST MARTIN IN THE FIELDS WITH JOSHUA BELL, VIOLIN (Valley Performing Arts Center)

I’LL BE THERE WITH BELL ON

Many know that Academy of St Martin in the Fields is a touring and recording chamber orchestra founded by Sir Neville Marriner in 1958. But did you know that since 2011 the world-renowned virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell has been their Music Director? Next to Marriner, who turns 90 next month, Bell is only the second person to hold the title in the orchestra’s history. While Bell still performs with different orchestras around the world, his tone of rare beauty will be heard with the Academy this Thursday, March 20, at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge.

After witnessing violinist Pinchas Zukerman with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra last January, I can confirm that the acoustics at VPAC easily rival those of Disney Hall. The hall is not only a perfect place to hear classical music live, but it’s also gorgeous. So not only are you guaranteed to be treated to a sophisticated concertgoing experience, you get a superb chamber orchestra and one of the greatest living violinists playing his 300-year-old Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius violin (made in Stradivari’s “Golden Era”). Along with Bell’s spirited rendition of Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D major, Op.77, the program includes Mozart’s Overture to Le nozze di Figaro and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica).

With over 500 recordings to date, the Academy is one of the most recorded chamber orchestras in the world. Four years before Bell became Music Director, he recorded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the orchestra, a recording which reached No.1 on the Billboard Classical Chart; coincidentally, the Academy received its first gold disc for the recording of the same in 1969. The Academy is also known for its soundtrack recordings of both The English Patient and Amadeus, their best-selling recording which won 13 gold discs alone.

I became familiarized with many classical works due to its many recordings, which had on the label the hyphenated name “St. Martin-in-the-Fields,” as the Academy was named after the Trafalgar Square church where the orchestra gave its first concert on November 13, 1959. The orchestra dropped the hyphens from its full name in 1988, but even hyphen-free it remains one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world, celebrated for its polished, sophisticated sound and outstanding musicianship. Originally directed from the leader’s chair by Marriner (who happened to be the first music director of our own Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1969 to 1978), the spirit and flexibility of the conductorless ensemble remains an Academy tradition.

This is a trifecta of great programming, players, and venue which I can’t recommend highly enough.

Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
with Joshua Bell, violin
Mozart: Overture to Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major, Op.77
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op.55 (Eroica)

Valley Performing Arts Center
18111 Nordhoff Street in Northridge
Thursday, March 20, 2014 at 7:30
for tickets, call (818) 677-3000
or visit www.ValleyPerformingArtsCenter.org

upcoming U.S. tour dates (programs vary):
March 21 Santa Barbara, CA
March 22 Davis, CA
March 24 Ft Meyers, FL
March 26 New York, NY
March 27 Charlotte, NC
March 28 Chapel Hill, NC
for tour info, visit www.asmf.org