The Arts

Abstract

As a young postgraduate on her Marshall Scholarship, Odaline “Chachi” de la Martinez (’72), along with a contemporary music ensemble she co-founded at the Royal Academy of Music, performed regular showcases on BBC radio. Over the following 5 years, she collected a Danforth Fellowship, a Watson Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She went on to conduct every BBC Orchestra in the country. In 1984, The Financial Times called Martinez and her group, Lontano, “indispensable features of London’s contemporary music scene,” and that same year, she made British history at the Royal Albert Hall by becoming the first woman to conduct a full prom. Martinez has since started her own record label and has toured extensively around the world as a conductor. For the past 10 years, she has organized the biennial London Festival of American Music, a series of concerts dedicated to spreading contemporary American music to the UK.