La Musica Chamber Music has more than a milestone to celebrate this 40th anniversary season. Its leadership can also be happy that the venerable festival has succeeded in attracting new and wider audiences, thanks in large part to the extension of its season, presenting more frequent concerts for patrons. 

That extension—moving from presenting concerts only in April to a total of six throughout the winter and spring—began when noted pianist Wu Han, now in her fourth season here, joined the organization as artistic director, complemented by the arrival of Joan Sussman as executive director. Sussman, who previously worked with the Charlotte Symphony and other musical groups up north, had “retired” to Sarasota when Han asked if she might help with La Musica. A big part of their collaboration involved adding those new concerts and new audiences.

“We need to be a little bigger,” is the way Sussman puts it. “By adding concerts in March, then February, then January and now starting in December, it’s working 100 percent. This season every single concert is sponsored, every musician is sponsored, and then there are the season sponsors. La Musica never had that. We’ve done it slowly, by making good friends and being aware of our audience.”

They’ve also accomplished much of their success due to Han’s connections in the wider music world. As co-director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Music@Menlo Chamber Music Festival in California, Han says, “I have a really good Rolodex and know all the best chamber musicians in the country—who’s playing the best, who’s up and coming, who are the superstars.” She also works on the principle of designing the programs first, then choosing the musicians “who can serve the music, not the other way around,” as she explains. “I find the musicians most suitable to maximize the program’s design. That’s my secret sauce. And they also are musicians willing to work and rehearse until we can really conquer the top level of performance. We’re not at the beach at all in Sarasota; we’re working 9 to 6 nonstop.”

Han also has a history of involvement with premieres and commissions, like the new piece that will close the La Musica season in April, by Michael Stephen Brown, a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant who has also had residencies at both the Yaddo and McDowell artist retreats. Inspired by Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals, Brown has been creating The Carnival of Endangered Wonders: A Zoological Fantasy, centered on 14 endangered species (including orangutans, blue whales, Javan rhinos and, whimsically, pianists). The work will debut in partnership with Mote SEA, and La Musica is planning a performance at the new aquarium as well as at the Sarasota Opera House.

Brown says the composition has given him the chance “to bring together all the things I love most—traveling and encountering creatures that feel worthy of being captured in music, the joy of playing at the piano, the challenge of composing, my love of musical homage and the art of storytelling through sound.” Scored for two pianos, strings, flute, clarinet and percussion (including a musical saw and a shofar), Carnival’s endangered species also feature manatees, sea turtles and coral, all of which are housed at Mote.

The premiere and the Mote partnership are big news, but the rest of La Musica’s season deserves attention, too. It opens Dec. 3 with a rare, complete presentation of Bach’s six Brandenburg Concertos, performed by artists from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. That’s followed by an all-Beethoven program Jan. 20; an “American Celebration” featuring Gershwin, John Adams, Amy Beach and Sousa to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, on Feb. 9; a showcase for wind instruments featuring works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Strauss and more, March 2; and “La Musica Surprises,” offering Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D Major, Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony, Brahms’ Hungarian Dances and Mendelssohn’s Sextet in D Major, April 6.

For more information on concert times and locations, and for tickets, call the La Musica box office at (941) 347-9656 or visit lamusicafestival.org.