SOUTHWEST CHAMBER MUSIC celebrated a transformative season in 2009-2010 as international cultural ambassadors for the United States in Asia and Latin America. The U.S. State Department selected our ensemble from a highly competitive field to produce the Ascending Dragon Festival and Cultural Exchange. Held from March to May 2010, Ascending Dragon was most significant musical cultural exchange between Vietnam and the United States in the history of the two nations. Ascending Dragon involved six weeks of performances in Hanoi, Saigon, Pasadena and Los Angeles with performances at the Hanoi Opera House, Vietnam National Academy of Music, Ho Chi Minh City Conservatory in Saigon, Colburn School and the Armory Center for the Arts.
Ascending Dragon received significant media attention in both Vietnam and the United States. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times traveled with the ensemble to Vietnam, posting numerous articles from Hanoi and Saigon as well as in Los Angeles. Wall Street Journal-Asia, the Harvard Business Review, Voice of America, CNN International, Pasadena Star News, and the American Record Guide all created important stories. Over 25 print and online media outlets in Vietnam covered the project, including all national television stations. Summing up the impact of Ascending Dragon between Vietnam and the United States, Mr. Swed wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Good can only come out of this exchange.”
In December 2009, Southwest Chamber Music toured to Mexico, representing the United States at the Guadalajara FIL Arts Festival, an arts festival produced alongside the world’s largest Spanish book fair. Guadalajara invites one host country each year, which in 2009 featured 16 arts organizations from Los Angeles. Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the ensemble reunited with the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble of Mexico City performing music by William Kraft, John Adams, Carlos Chávez and Aaron Copland.
Southwest Chamber Music is the first ensemble in the nation to begin focusing attention onthe centennial of John Cage, who was born in Los Angeles in 1912. In January and February 2010 the ensemble inaugurated Cage 2012. In collaboration with the Armory Center for the Arts, a series of Cage concerts were performed inside an Amory Gallery retrospective exhibition devoted to artist Robert Rauschenberg. Cage 2012 concerts will continue throughout the next two seasons supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of its American Masterpiece series.
The ensemble’s ability to energize classical music includes past projects of international cultural significance. In December 2006 the ensemble produced cultural exchange programs with Cambodia’s Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, the 2006 World Culture Expo at the temples of Angkor Wat, and the Vietnam National Academy of Music. The 2006 tour to Southeast Asia featured the music of Grawemeyer Award-winning, Cambodian-American composer Chinary Ung. These were the first residencies by an American ensemble since the end of the Vietnam War and Khmer Rouge era in Southeast Asia. In May 2007 Southwest Chamber Music performed at the UNAM Center in Mexico City with a cycle of five concerts of the complete chamber works of Carlos Chávez, joined by the Tambuco Percussion Ensemble. This was the first complete retrospective of Chávez’s output in Mexico.
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.
As a two-time Grammy Award-winner, Southwest Chamber Music has one of the most important recorded discographies of any American chamber ensemble with the release of their 25th recording in 2009, a 3 CD set surveying the world of percussion with the Encounters by William Kraft. The ensemble has received six 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. Volume 4 was honored with a 2007 Latin Grammy Best Classical Album nomination. An additional Latin Grammy nomination for Best Classical Album was received in 2010 for the Encounters of William Kraft.
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. The ensemble’s 25 recordings are available from Cambria Master Recordings, with world-wide distribution by Naxos (Classics Online).
The ensemble will celebrate its 25th anniversary during the 2011-2012 season.
