A Time for Reflection, II

Pacific Serenades has been fortunate to have the passionate support of donors and audience members, as well as the inspired commitment of composers and performers. All of these have converged to create our greatest achievement—a rich legacy of new music by composers with strong connections to Southern California—music that continues to touch people across the globe.

Very few ensembles can boast of premiering 111 works, but as far as I know, no other ensemble can beat our track record of commissioning and premiering music that goes on to second, third, fourth performances, and beyond. Virtually all of our pieces have done so, and some have had as many as 50-60 performances—and counting!

This remarkable body of work is a treasure trove, and one of our dearest wishes now is to put effort and money into getting it out into the world even more.

Thanks to generous grants from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Los Angeles County Cultural Affairs Commission, the Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation, and many individual donors, we are able to take move forward with this project, which will include a redesign of our website; creating a print a catalogue of our published works—approximately half of the 111 we have commissioned; posting performance recordings on YouTube with links to those on our website; hiring a music editor and a graphic designer so that we can present our scores with stylistic uniformity; and hiring an Marketing Director who will oversee all of this, as well as actively market our published music to other ensembles, capitalizing on the reputation our commissioned works already have.

A full-fledged concert season is not in store for us until we are able to hire a committed Executive Director, along with appropriate administrative staff, to handle the complex day-to-day and long-term details of running Pacific Serenades. We estimate that we would need to raise $100,000 in advance, in order to have the security of knowing we can launch and sustain a new season.

Since we don’t yet know how and when that will happen, in the meantime, we are creating collaborative alliances with other ensembles and organizations, exploring opportunities to commission new works–both for other ensembles and for our own–so that we might continue our mission. And we will continue to present a concert or two each season.

As we reorganize and shift to a new model of operation, our mission only grows in its commitment to new chamber music.

I invite you to contribute your financial support to Pacific Serenades at this exciting crossroads, helping us to move into a new era of creating great chamber music, here and now, and towards a sustainable future.