Nonprofit’s goal to help children

Charities that help children at risk, terminally ill children and children with few opportunities to experience the arts will themselves be helped by a newly formed nonprofit group, Chamber Music Los Angeles.

The group was the brainchild of Stephen Erdody, founding cellist of the highly regarded Angeles String Quartet, which disbanded in 2001 after playing 13 years, and Sheryl Myerson, a former TV and film executive and a concerned parent. It will give its inaugural concert Sept. 28 in Zipper Hall at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in downtown Los Angeles. The beneficiary will be Discovery Arts, a Tustin-based organization that works with seriously ill children in hospitals in Orange County and Long Beach.

“They want to come up to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles, but they don’t have the funding to do that,” Erdody said. “We hope we’ll be able to raise enough money for them to help them come up here and make a difference in the L.A. community.”

The goal is to sell out all 417 seats at Zipper Hall at $100 apiece. All the money will go to the charity. “I told the musicians, ‘I can’t ask you to do this for free,’ ” Erdody said. “ ‘I will pay you an honorarium. If you want to donate it back to us, great, but I’m not going to ask you to do that.’ But pretty much everyone is doing that.”

The first concert -- which will include a reunion of the Angeles String Quartet -- will feature music by Haydn, Ravel and Mendelsson. A second concert to benefit a different charity is being planned for the spring, Erdody said. Information: (323) 669-5227.

-- Chris Pasles