Chorale Cancels Spring Concerts

The Los Angeles Master Chorale has canceled the remaining concerts in its first outreach series at the Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles and at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach.

“It was an experimental program . . . and we were disappointed with audience response in both places,” Robert Willoughby Jones, executive director of the chorale, said Thursday. “We were having audiences of about 300 in both places, and economically that was really not enough to sustain the series.”

The chorale had given two concerts in the five-concert series--with programs duplicated in Los Angeles and Newport Beach--in October and January.

Remaining dates were Feb. 12, March 11 and April 29 in Newport Beach, and Feb. 13, March 12 and April 30 in Los Angeles.

The series, led by music director John Currie, was underwritten in part by a grant from the E. Nakamichi Foundation.

Jones said that subscribers and single-ticket buyers have been notified.

“We were very sorry about it,” Jones said. “It was a nice venture, and we would like to do it again. But it is not likely that (the new concerts) would take place next year.”