The Palisades Symphony Orchestra, a community orchestra in Los Angeles, gave a Fire Recovery Benefit Concert at Westwood United Methodist Church on February 16 led by Music Director Maxim Kuzin.
In Saturday’s (2/22) Los Angeles Times, Thomas Curwen writes, “When Denisa Hanna opened the text and saw images of the flames and smoke of the Palisades fire advancing from the highlands, she knew she had to cancel rehearsal… ‘Please stay safe and say prayers for our friends near this horrible disaster,’ Hanna, the president of the Palisades Symphony Orchestra, wrote in an email to its members. They had planned to gather that night [for] their first practice of the new year. For almost 60 years, the all-volunteer orchestra—together with the Brentwood Palisades Chorale—had served the community with a series of annual programs, and their first concert of 2025 was just a few weeks away…. The 70-member orchestra grew from a fledgling adult education program at the local high school into a beloved institution … Now its future had grown dark as… flames ran through neighborhoods to the sea, and the music they loved fell silent…. The scope of the disaster grew clear as the orchestra began to reconnect…. Violinist Helen Bendix was one of the 16 members of the symphony and the chorale who had lost their homes…. When Music Director Maxim Kuzin began to receive emails from orchestra members asking when rehearsals would resume, he wasn’t certain how to answer…. Maybe music could help.” The Palisades Symphony gave a Fire Recovery Benefit Concert on February 16, at which “the musicians delivered a feeling of possibility that maybe one day they may all return to the homes they had lost and to the community that had embraced them.”
