Da Camera Society Announces New Season

Announcing the 1988-89 season of chamber music concerts by the Da Camera Society, producing director MaryAnn Bonino promised more than 50 events of chamber music, beginning Oct. 7, including a ninth season of Chamber Music in Historic Sites.

Of the 31 concert locales, 17 will be new sites for the series, including private homes by Greene and Greene, Wallace Neff and Cedric Gibbons, plus landmark ballrooms, lobbies, private clubs and churches by John Parkinson, John C. Austin, Myron Hunt, Arthur Benton and Morgan, Walls & Clements.

Subscribers choose from six sets of concerts in the Historic Sites Series or two sets of concerts in the Doheny Soirees series that take place in the Doheny Mansion on the downtown campus of Mount St. Mary’s College, sponsor of the Da Camera concerts, where these events have been given since 1973.

Ensembles making their Los Angeles debuts as part of the series will be the Chicago Symphony Chamber Ensemble, the Festival Winds and Brass from New York, the Trio d’Amsterdam, the John Gibbons Ensemble, the Ames Piano Quartet, the Smithson Quartet and, from London and Paris, John Holloway and Davitt Moroney. Other visiting ensembles include the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra from Hungary, the Tokyo String Quartet, I Fiamminghi from Belgium, the Haydn Trio from Vienna, the Fresk Quartet from Sweden and the Panocha and Talich quartets from Czechoslovakia.

Two bonus events occur during the holidays. In November, a Baroque Discotheque takes place in Hollywood to raise funds for the Da Camera Society’s outreach program. In December, Iona Brown and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra perform a Christmas concert at the Doheny Mansion.

Also, the organization will produce two minifestivals, in Riverside and Orange counties. In February, the opening of the Omni Mission Inn in downtown Riverside includes a weekend of festivities with the Franciscan String Quartet and the male vocal ensemble, Chanticleer. In March, to note the centennial celebration of Orange County, the society will present a day of concerts, one by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and an evening of Hispanic music by I Cantori.

Concluding the series will be a third Catalina Festival of Chamber Music, June 2-4.

Information: (213) 747-9085.