Classical music festivals feature premieres, training residencies and milestone seasons

Australian Festival of Chamber Music opens in Cairns-Gimuy

The Australian Festival of Chamber Music opened in Cairns-Gimuy with a program centered on world premieres, including a tribute by composer-in-residence Sam Wu, originally from Melbourne and now based in Los Angeles. The opening concert paired Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, led by violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, with Piazzolla's Libertango arranged by Jeff Scott and ended with Czerny's Variations on Mozart's Arias for six hands by pianists Piers Lane, Qian Wu and Kristian Chong. Festival programming also features a premiere of Alex Turley's "Substratum" and a piano quintet by Lee Bradshaw completing an unfinished work by a Czech composer lost to the Holocaust, alongside appearances by cellist Charlotte Miles.

UCLA VEM String Quartet completes six-city Tekeyan Cultural Association tour

The UCLA VEM String Quartet, in residence at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, completed a spring tour sponsored by the Tekeyan Cultural Association and the UCLA Armenian Music Program, performing in Philadelphia, Cambridge (Mass.), Montreal, Ann Arbor, Southfield (Mich.) and Altadena (Calif.). The quartet performed works by Khachaturian, Komitas, Toumajan, Suni, Gazarossian, Saryan and Schubert. The tour is likely the final Tekeyan-sponsored VEM appearance with founder and violinist Movses Pogossian, who retired in June as Distinguished Professor of Violin at UCLA; the tour members were Ally Cho, Niall Tarō Ferguson, Pogossian and violist Damon Zavala.

Berkshire Opera launches paid Resident Artist Program

Berkshire Opera Festival launched its inaugural eight-week Resident Artist Program after receiving more than 350 applications for the four vocal and one pianist slot. The selected cohort — soprano Ethel Trujillo, pianist Dakota Perez, mezzo-soprano Christina Grohowski, baritone Will Kim and tenor Scott Rubén La Marca — will perform leading roles in a fully staged production of "Zémire et Azor," a late-Baroque adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast," opening July 31 at PS21: Center for Contemporary Performance in Chatham, Mass. The artists, who receive a weekly stipend along with housing and transportation, will then take on supporting roles and serve as understudies in "Lucia di Lammermoor" at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington later in August.

La Jolla SummerFest opens 40th anniversary season

La Jolla SummerFest opened its 40th anniversary season under music director Inon Barnatan at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, with a four-week program billed as "Making History." The initial lineup includes cellists Alisa Weilerstein and Paul Wiancko, violinist Stefan Jackiw, countertenor Reginald Mobley, and violinists Tessa Lark and Randall Goosby. Goosby is playing the festival's first three concerts, while Lark's SummerFest appearances begin Aug. 7.

Los Angeles Philharmonic continues Hollywood Bowl summer series

The Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra continued their summer season at the Hollywood Bowl, with the KCRW World Festival date on July 26 forming part of the orchestra's classical and Weekend Spectaculars programming alongside a recent collaboration with composer Joe Hisaishi at Walt Disney Concert Hall.