Origins and History

In 1958 the noted violinist and conductor Henri Temianka

Henri Temianka

Henri Temianka was a virtuoso violinist, conductor, author and music educator.-Early years:Henri Temianka was born in Scotland of Polish-Jewish parents...

 founded the Beverly Hills Concerts for Youth. Works such as ‘’Peter and the Wolf’’ and Saint-Saëns’ ‘’Carnival of the Animals’’ were performed, with celebrity participants including Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...

, Victor Borge

Victor Borge

Victor Borge ,born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,The Unmelancholy Dane,and The Great Dane.-Early life and career:...

, Hans Conreid, Peter Ustinov

Peter Ustinov

Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...

 and Sam Jaffe

Sam Jaffe

Sam Jaffe may refer to:*Sam Jaffe , American actor*Sam Jaffe , Hollywood talent agent, studio executive and film producer...

 donating their services as narrators. In Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

’s opera ‘’Noye’s Fludde’’, children from the audience participated. The orchestra also gave special concerts at Juvenile Hall and for the disabled.

Initially called “The Temianka Little Symphony,” in 1961 the orchestra became the California Chamber Symphony (CCS). It was the first true chamber orchestra in Los Angeles. While based at Royce Hall, UCLA, the group toured the United States and Canada extensively, and was featured in special television programs on KCET and KNBC.

The orchestra gave over 100 concerts during a span of more than three decades. In addition to the baroque and classical literature, the CCS performed major works by such famous modern composers as Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

, Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

, Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

, Malcolm Arnold

Malcolm Arnold

Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE was an English composer and symphonist.Malcolm Arnold began his career playing trumpet professionally, but by age thirty his life was devoted to composition. He was ranked with Benjamin Britten as one of the most sought-after composers in Britain...

 and Carlos Chavez

Carlos Chávez

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...

; many of these were West Coast premieres. In 1965 the great violinist David Oistrakh

David Oistrakh

David Fyodorovich Oistrakh , , David Fiodorović Ojstrakh, ; – October 24, 1974, was a Soviet violinist....

 performed the Beethoven, the Brahms and the Bach E Major concertos with the CCS, and as an encore joined Temianka to play the Bach ‘’Double Concerto’’. Other soloists who appeared with the CCS under Temianka’s direction included Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. He has been personally "credited with returning to the flute the popularity as a solo classical instrument it had not held since the 18th century."-Early years:...

, Henryk Szeryng

Henryk Szeryng

Henryk Szeryng was a Polish violinist.-Early years:He was born in Żelazowa Wola, Poland on 22 September 1918 into a wealthy family....

, Leonard Pennario

Leonard Pennario

Leonard Pennario was an American classical pianist and composer.He was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in Los Angeles, attending Los Angeles High School remaining in L.A. for his entire career. He first came to notice when he performed Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto at age 12, with the...

 and Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

. Temianka once joined violist William Primrose

William Primrose

William Primrose CBE was a Scottish violist and teacher.-Biography:Primrose was born in Glasgow and studied violin initially. In 1919 he moved to study at the then Guildhall School of Music in London. On the urging of the accompanist Ivor Newton, Primrose moved to Belgium to study under Eugène...

 to perform Mozart’s ‘’Sinfonia Concertante’’, and on another occasion played viola in that piece with Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...

.

Temianka broke tradition by speaking to his audiences from the stage about the music and composers. For this reason the concert series was titled “Let’s Talk Music” for some years. He was responsible for the first appearances of many rising musicians such as Christopher Parkening

Christopher Parkening

Christopher Parkening is an American classical guitarist.Parkening was born in Los Angeles, California, and pursued music in part because of his cousin Jack Marshall, a studio musician in the 1960s. Marshall first introduced Parkening to the recordings of Andrés Segovia when he was 11, and...

, Jeffrey Kahane

Jeffrey Kahane

Jeffrey Alan Kahane is an American classical music pianist and conductor. He is music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.-Personal history:...

, Nathaniel Rosen

Nathaniel Rosen

Nathaniel "Nick" Rosen is an American cellist, former gold prize winner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, and former faculty member at the USC Thornton School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music....

, Timothy Landauer and Daniel Heifetz, and sponsored the Romero family of four guitarists from Spain (The Romero Guitar Quartet).
In later years the California Chamber Virtuosi, an offshoot of the CCS in 1976, gave concerts at the J. Paul Getty museum in Malibu, at Pepperdine University, and at the Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
The City and County of Los Angeles repeatedly issued proclamations honoring the CCS. Its last performance was given on Sunday, December 9, 1990.

Unique Concerts

• A “Monster Concert,” produced in collaboration with Eugene List

Eugene List

Eugene List was an American concert pianist and teacher.-Early life:Eugene List was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He spent his formative years in Los Angeles, California where his father Louis List was a language teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and his mother, Rose, a...

, in which 12 Steinway pianos and 36 pianists were brought onstage to perform pieces by Louis M. Gottschalk and others;
• ‘’Christus Apollo’’, a cantata written by Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith

Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....

, based on a text by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...

 and narrated by Charlton Heston;

• Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...

’s ‘’Triple Concerto’’ (with Menotti in the audience);

• Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Ginastera

Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important Latin American classical composers.- Biography :...

’s ‘’Cantata para America Magica’’, an extraordinary work based on pre-Columbian Latin American songs and scored for soprano singer and 53 percussion instruments;

• the West Coast premiere of Shostakovich’s ‘’Fourteenth Symphony’’ in 1971;

• all six of Bach’s ‘’Brandenburg Concerti’’, under the baton of Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...

, while Temianka played violin, viola and violino piccolo; and

• a concert in honor of Martin Luther King at which Bill Cosby was emcee.