About
Culver City Chamber Orchestra
Mission
The Orchestra’s mission is to enrich the culture and music life of our and nearby communities, presenting world-renowned, as well as young aspiring musicians as soloists, educational, outreach and family concerts.
History
The Culver City Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1997 as a non-profit organization by the Cárdenes family with three of their children, Andrés, Arlette, and Alys who all grew up in Culver City and began their music lessons at El Marino Elementary School. Andrés and Arlette continued on to become professional musicians and educators each in their prospective fields.
The Orchestra’s mission is to Enright the culture and music life of our community and our surrounding communities by presenting world-renowned musicians, as well as aspiring young musicians as soloists, educational outreach and family concerts and Cello Mania concerts. Many Internationally acclaimed musicians have appeared in our concerts such as: Roberto Diaz, violist and President of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; Anne Williams, principal cellist of Pittsburgh Symphony and member of the Carnegie Mellon Trio and Professor of cello at Carnegie Mellon University; Mark Nuccio, co-principal of New York Philharmonic and currently Principal of Houston Symphony; Arturo Delmoni, violinist, concertmaster of New York City Ballet; David Deveau, pianist, Music Director of Rockport Music Festival, Professor of Piano and former member of the Carnegie Mellon Trio; Martin Chalfour, concertmaster Los Angeles Philharmonic; Allan Vogel, former principal oboe of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Andrés Diaz, cellist, member of the Diaz Trio, winner of the Naumberg International Cello Competition, and Díaz holds The Koerner Chair in Cello at The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Caroline McKenzie, soprano from Los Angeles Master Chorale; Catherine Card, soprano from Vox Femina Los Angeles and Adjunct Professor at Glendale College. These are just a few spectacular names of world-renowned soloists.
The orchestra is deeply dedicated to performing music of our times, premiering compositions by Dr. Aurelio de la Vega, Marylou Newmark, dr. Sylvia Mann and Dr. Gwyneth Walker.
For our outreach programs, the Orchestra has featured actors in period costumes (i.e. Mozart, Grieg, Bach, Haydn etc.) as narrators throughout the concert depicting these composers. The Orchestra often collaborates with other arts organizations such as Creative Planet School for the Arts presenting Peter and the Wolf, Carnival of the Animals, and Carmen. Several artistic endeavors of recent season were the presentation of our 4th of July concert highlighting a brass choir of young musicians and a Family Concert with four outstand young soloists, from ages 9-18. Another young musicians’ concert, presented at the Moss Theatre in Santa Monica, featured 4 winners of the Music Teachers’ Association West Los Angeles Branch. Each winner was afforded an opportunity to perform their final piece with a live orchestra on stage.
In 2005 “Cello Mania” was formed with eight outstanding local cellists performing classical, contemporary and pop music arranged for cellos bringing together a diverse audience. Cello Mania has evolved from eight cellos to as many as twelve cellos. This has been a wonderful success and has been increased over the last several years for the exception of the pandemic.
In the past 27 seasons the orchestra has presented 70 concerts and performed 50 family concerts. We are proud of our accomplishments and we hope to do more in the up coming years.
During the COVID pandemic we were unable to perform live concerts, however, we did perform a livestream video concert of our “Cello Mania” entitled “Salute to the Frontline Workers”. Cello Mania was composed of 8 fabulous cellists from the Los Angeles area and the video is still available on our YouTube channel.
Founders
Arlette Cárdenes
“I really want Culver City to shine and be noticed by the quality and professionalism Culver City Chamber Orchestra has to offer. With all that said, I think we do a real good job of bringing the top stars of musicians to Culver City.” – Arlette
Arlette Cárdenes conductor and cellist grew up in Culver City and began her cello studies at the age of 10 at El Marino Elementary School. Following public school and private school, she went on to college in the field of music, and received a Bachelor of Music degree in cello performance from the California State University of Northridge on a partial scholarship and received the Margaret Aue Award for outstanding cellist. She graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a Master of Music degree in cello performance on a full scholarship.
Andrés Cárdenes
Recognized worldwide as a musical phenomenon, Grammy-nominated Andrés Cárdenes parlays his myriad talents into one of classical music’s most versatile careers. A ferocious, passionate and personally charismatic artist, Cuban-born Cárdenes has garnered international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for his compelling solo violin, conducting, viola, chamber music, concertmaster and recorded performances.
Since capturing the Second Prize in the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow, Mr. Cárdenes has appeared as soloist with over one hundred orchestras on four continents, including those of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Moscow, Bavarian Radio, Dallas, Helsinki, Shanghai, Caracas and Barcelona. He has collaborated with many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir André Previn, Leonard Slatkin, Jaap van Zweden, David Zinman and Manfred Honeck.
Contact Us
Address
P.O. Box 2504
Culver City,
CA 90234
Phone & Email:
310-397-2490
cccoac@verizon.net
Help Us:
Our programs are dedicated to discovering young local talents. The artists and musicians in our group are dedicated to conducting rigourous training for our team. Your support can help us host professional orchestra concerts for our community.
Our Sponsors
With our sponsors’ help, we are able to bring great music to our community. Thank you to each and every one of you for being a part of our team.
