Camerata Pacifica Launches Season with 2 Landmark Works, Oct. 11-15

Camerata Pacifica, named 2026 Ensemble of the Year by the national organization Chamber Music America, launches its 2026-27 season with landmark works by Rachmaninoff and Schubert at four Southern California locations on Sunday, October 11, 3:00 pm, at Thousand Oaks’ Janet and Ray Scherr Forum; Tuesday, October,13, 7:30 pm, at The Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall in San Marino; Wednesday, October 14, 8:00 pm, Zipper Hall, at Zipper Hall in Downtown Los Angeles; and Thursday, October 15, 2026, 7:00 pm, at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West.

The ensemble’s 37th season opens with pianist Irina Zahharenkova bringing her unique artistic sensibility to Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Chopin, Op. 22, a collection of 22 variations on Chopin’s Prelude in C that arc from melancholy to exultant. Rachmaninov’s first large-scale piece for solo piano, the virtuosic and demanding work is filled with inventiveness and emotional intensity that showcases the composer’s distinctive musical style.

For the finale, violinist Grace Park and cellist Santiago Cañón-Valencia join Zahharenkova, to perform Schubert's B-Flat Major Trio, considered among the most celebrated chamber works in the classical repertoire. Composed at the end of Schubert’s life and published posthumously, the radiant masterwork displays the composer’s command of sonority.

“We are delighted to welcome new and returning audiences to the concert hall with this compelling season-opening program, brought to life by some of the most talented and characterful chamber musicians from around the globe,” says Camerata Pacifica Founder/Artistic Director Adrian Spence. “Filled with beauty and striking virtuosity, it’s music at its most intimate and uplifting.” Spence, who founded Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara in 1990, was named to Musical America’s prestigious list of Top 30 Professionals in Classical Music in January 2026.

The three featured artists have also garnered tremendous acclaim. Zahharenkova is praised for delivering performances with “impressive…musical colour” (Bachtrack). Park is lauded for her “intensely wrought and burnished” sound” (Strings Magazine). Cañón-Valencia, hailed as “technically flawless” (The Strad), was named a 2022 BBC New Generation Artist, and Silver Medalist and “Audience Favorite” at the 2019 XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition.

For tickets ($85 at The Huntington, Music Academy of the West, and Zipper Hall; $75, at Janet and Ray Scherr Forum) and information, visit cameratapacifica.org.