Motivated by the sociocultural and economic impacts that the Palisades and Altadena fires of January 2025 had on the greater Los Angeles (LA) area, Firebirth: Kindling the Sounds of Resilience in Los Angeles will offer a community-oriented space for UCLA students, faculty, staff, and residents of the surrounding area to critically reflect on the sounds of LA after such fires. The event will also act as a site of education and healing prompted by hearing from those who study and engage with fire ecology. This event will center around a new composition for violin and piano, Firebirth, composed by Will Rand (b. 1999). Firebirth is a part of a commission project entitled “Resilience Sounds” intended to explore the relationship between music, the natural world, and communities within it. Composer Will Rand and violinist Grace M. Alexander will offer this work as a performance and be present to discuss their experiences and perspectives on this composition. Alongside the performance will be a discussion of fire ecology, safety and community (re)building after the devastation of the LA fires framed by perspectives solicited from government employees for the City of Los Angeles and graduate students from UCLA in musicology and environmental science or ecology, including a talk by Michele Yamamoto who recently gave a paper on this at the 2025 American Musicological Society Annual Meeting. This event will also be taped live for a podcast episode for the organization, EarthStory, which seeks to raise awareness of the interconnections between living beings through ecologically-inspired storytelling, song and communal gathering. Ultimately, it is the goal of this project to incorporate interdisciplinary modes of thinking, visual and performing arts, and multiple modalities of presentation and community-based teaching in order to foster a space of action, healing, and reflection for the broader Los Angeles community.
This program offers a forum for a public discussion/engagement surrounding the recent wildfires in Los Angeles that centers creative practice at all levels. “Firebirth” itself was inspired by indigenous cultural fire practices, and through this event, also serves as a point of inspiration for living composers and artists. The piece invites the audience to consider their own relationship with fire and offers a study on how music can be a conduit between ecological understandings of fire and humankind’s lived experience with fire that threatens life. Music offers a way for people to gather to reflect on their shared experiences and process difficult moments in life. It also offers audiences a chance to reconsider how they want to relate with these difficult experiences moving forward. Ultimately, this offers a space for listening, reflection, and new sounding practices for a community deeply impacted by wildfire.
Visit the website for the latest information about the event schedule: https://www.firebirthla.com/
Presenting Partners
This event is made possible by our generous presenting partners, the UCLA Walter H. Rubsamen Music Library, Davise Fund; the Center for Musical Humanities at UCLA; and the Society for American Music (SAM) as part of their Sounding the Nation at 250 initiative.
This program is made possible by the Joyce S. and Robert U. Nelson Fund. Robert Uriel Nelson was a revered musicologist and music professor at UCLA, who, together with his wife, established a generous endowment for the university to make programs like this possible.
Photo credit: Mural by wemok_art // Photo by Michele Yamamoto