Sitarist Anoushka Shankar will make her LACO debut on May 20 and 21. (photo by Laura Lewis)

Family and tradition figure prominently in Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s season finale when sitarist Anoushka Shankar makes her LACO debut, under music director Jaime Martín’s baton, with a performance of Concerto No. 3 for Sitar composed by her legendary father, the late Ravi Shankar, who brought the sitar into the mainstream through his pop music collaborations with The Beatles and others. The concerts are Saturday, May 20 at 8 p.m. at Glendale’s Alex Theatre and Sunday, May 21 at 7 p.m. at UCLA’s Royce Hall.

The orchestra also performs the world premiere of HaZ’màn HaZèh (translation: “this present time”) by 2022-23 LACO Sound Investment composer Marc Lowenstein, the founding music director of The Industry, Los Angeles’ groundbreaking and widely acclaimed experimental opera company, whose music is infused with a searching sense of narrative and mysticism. LACO Sound Investment is a groundbreaking program the orchestra established in 2001 that engages audience members in developing new classical works. De Falla’s colorful “The Three-Cornered Hat Suite No.1,” opens the program, which wraps with Bizet’s “Symphony No. 1 in C major,” written when the composer was just 17 years old.

Shankar’s list of accomplishments reads as many life stories in one: masterful sitarist; film composer; impassioned activist; the youngest and first female recipient of a British House of Commons Shield; the first Indian musician to perform live or to serve as presenter at the Grammy Awards with seven nominations under her belt, and the first Indian woman to be nominated; one of the first five female composers to have been added onto the U.K. A-level music syllabus. She is a singular, genre-defying artist across realms – classical and contemporary, acoustic and electronic.

The appearance of Anoushka Shankar is made possible, in part, with support from Shaheen + Anil Nanji.

The Alex Theatre is located at 216 North Brand Blvd., Glendale. Royce Hall is located at 340 Royce Dr. For tickets ($32 – $142) and information, visit laco.org or call (213)221-3920.