News: Pasadena Symphony Helps Community Grieve and Give After Fires

Pasadena Symphony music director Brett Mitchell stands in front of the orchestra’s home, the Ambassador Auditorium, which was undamaged during the recent wildfires in Southern California. (Photo by Tim Sullens)

PASADENA — Violinist.com has published a story about the Pasadena Symphony’s recent subscription concerts—led by music director Brett Mitchell—in the wake of the destructive wildfires that ravaged the community. Half a dozen Pasadena Symphony musicians and two board members lost their homes in the blaze.

The concert was about to begin last Saturday, and I looked across the stage at my colleague Irina Voloshina, sitting right by the audience in the first violins. I could see she was having a hard time holding back the tears.

Pasadena Symphony conductor Brett Mitchell was finishing his opening words, acknowledging that it had been a very difficult few weeks in the community of Pasadena and Altadena, California, where the Eaton Canyon fire had reduced a huge portion of the area to rubble and ash over the course of one night.

Irina's home had burned to the ground during the fire…

Back on stage - Brett was telling the audience that we were about to play one of the most heart-wrenching pieces of music ever written, Barber's "Adagio for Strings." The piece had been added to the program at the last minute, in acknowledgment of the community's devastating losses.

Irina was looking away from the audience, trying to keep it together to play this gut-wrenching music. I confess that I questioned this choice, earlier in the week. How on Earth could we play this music? How could anyone listen to it? To me it felt like too much - too sad for people who have lost too much.

But during the week, Brett did explain the choice: "I never program this piece for a regular concert. It is only when something like this happens," he told us. He gently encouraged us to play the Barber in certain ways - at the beginning, just sneak in, let the sound come from absolutely nothing. Toward the end of the piece is an immense apotheosis, he told us to use as many bows as we wanted, and he would hold that note for as long as he possibly dared. And after that note - a silence, followed by the quietest pianissimo we could manage. Stillness and grief. "I've studied this music for years, put notes in the score," he said during rehearsal. "In this place, I wrote...," he hesitated a little, "'Ashen.' Just devastated."

"Ashen" - ? Part of me was thinking, "Why would you say this to us? How could you even GO THERE?" Three musicians in the orchestra had lost their homes to the fire. Other musicians had been evacuated and displaced. Any of us living in the area were grieving - for our beautiful Altadena and the people who made it that way, now bearing unthinkable hardship.

Then again...wasn't this exactly what this music was saying? How can we NOT go there? Ashen. I had to fight my own tears as we continued to rehearse that day.

As Brett continued his spoken introduction at the concert, Irina was looking away from the audience, she was in fact looking straight in my direction. I felt desperate to send her a sign - I put hand over my heart. I think we were all trying to send strength to her, and to Carrie Kennedy, sitting next to her, and to Joel Pargman, married violinists who also had lost their homes to the fire.

And so we played Barber's Adagio for Strings - we traveled together through that music's numb emptiness and through its wailing grief, back to something still and quiet, a glimmer of hope. The audience seemed to travel with us.

The rest of the program was actually quite upbeat - Jessie Montgomery's "Starburst," Florence Price's jubilant Piano Concerto in One Movement, and Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony. I had wondered about that, too. Was this music too happy for the occasion? Brett had originally programed it to "give everyone a boost" during the dark days of January. "I had no idea, what a boost we would all need," he said at the concert.

It was actually just perfect. Jessie's piece was a burst of energy after the Barber. Florence Price's concerto was so joyful, with pianist Inon Barnatan as our affable and sure-handed soloist. More than a few of us were singing its catchy "juba" dance tune as we exited the stage for intermission. And closing with the Mozart - it's a symphony that feels like a rescue mission for the soul, an infusion of beauty, where spirit triumphs over the dark shadows, every time. I had the sense that we were simply enjoying its humor, cleverness and bright energy. Mozart was familiar territory, in the face of a world that felt so changed.

To read the complete story, please click here.