RenArts Orchestra Regales World Diplomats (Update)

In the end, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not show up for the State Department-sponsored event at the Getty Center on Tuesday night. But Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was there, along with more than 100 foreign diplomats and their spouses, as the top string orchestra of the played two welcoming symphonies and a fugue.

“The kids played and people came and took their pictures,” said RenArts Executive Director PK Candaux, lamenting her own inability to take any decent photos because of a belated realization that her camera didn’t have a flash.

Click here to read our previous story about the exclusive Getty event.

The diplomats, from all over the world, had traveled to Los Angeles as part the State Department’s “Experience America” program, which is designed to “build relationships, encourage business investment and trade, provide a forum for dialogue and create opportunities for interchange between chiefs of diplomatic missions and American leaders in a wide array of fields," according to a statement by the State Department’s protocol office.

The RenArts’ “Orchestra A” comprised eight students on violin, three on cello, two on viola and one on base. They played a symphony each by Joseph Haydn and Benjamin Britten, plus a Fuga con Pajarillo by the Venezuelan pianist Aldemaro Romero.

“It was not as exciting as we wanted it to be, but playing at the Getty is beautiful,” Candaux said. “The diplomats were definitely appreciative.”

Next week, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, all four of the RenArts’ string orchestras will give separate performances at the public charter school’s much-anticipated annual “Winter Show.”