When Denisa Hanna opened the text and saw images of the flames and smoke from the Palisade fire moving forward from the Highlands, she knew she had to cancel the rehearsal.
She was safe in her middle city in her home, but the photos came from the secretary of the Parisa des Lutheran Church, where she had been evacuated. The road was blocked and the wind was gushing.
“Look safe and say prayers for our friends near this horrific disaster,” Hannah, president of the Palisades Symphony Orchestra, wrote in an email to its members.
They were planning to gather that night at the church on Sunset Boulevard, the first practice of the New Year. For almost 60 years, the entire volunteer orchestra, along with the Brentwood Palisades Chorale, served the community in a series of annual programs, with the first concert of 2025 just weeks away.
Debbie Lahuy embraces her cousin, Palisades Symphony violinist Douglas Green.
The 70 orchestra grew from an unlikely, inspirational, local high school fledgling adult education program to a beloved institution through the hard work of founders Joel Reish and Eva Holberg. Lisch passed away in 2024, and Holberg passed away two years ago, but the symphony was still performed.
But now the future was dark, the embers turned to flames, flames flowing through the neighbours into seas, and the music they loved became silent.
The next day, Hannah, who was performing with the bass orchestra, sent me another email. The Palisadeur Roeter Church was not burned out, but their community and members’ homes went to ashes.
“For the devastation,” she wrote. “I’m not sure about rehearsals. We may not even be able to enter the Palisade for quite some time.”
The extent of the disaster has become clear as the orchestras begin to reconnect.
“We’ve lost our home,” first violinist Helen Bendix wrote in a brief email to music director and conductor Maxim Kuzin.
Helen Bendix, a violinist of the Palisades Symphony Orchestra, lost her home in the Parisades fire, is blessed by Linda Jackson after a symphony performance.
The Bendix was one of the 16 members of the Symphony Orchestra and one of the homeless choirs. Over 16,000 structures were lost between the Palisade and Eaton cinders that week, killing at least 29 people.
In the aftermath of such a tragedy, the musicians wondered if they could continue, no matter how they liked it.
They needed to save the violin and the viola. On the morning of the fire, Bendix grabbed them and headed to the car with her husband. The instrument was a connection to my mother. His mother played the cello and passed away in 2020.
The impulse was as close to instinct as she had ever felt, despite her thoughts in their homes to be safe. All left was a portrait of her grandmother, photographs of her family, jewelry, wardrobe, and sentimental essentials of life, music, tax records, medicines, passports and glasses to read the car.
Ingemar Fulsurge was not seven miles west of where the Perisade fire began at Temescal Canyon. As the fire progressed, he and his partner Melinda singer caged the cat, loaded it into a car, and kicked it out of the house in the dead end west of Topanga.
Stan Hecht, a member of the Palisade Symphony Orchestra, rolls his bass drum to the Westwood United Methodist Church before the Benefits concert.
He also didn’t expect the flame to travel as long as they could. He lost his home in the Malibu fire in 1993 along with his most precious fagnora violin, but he returned and rebuilt, installed a sprinkler system and purchased another violin.
Taken by a friend of Van Nuis, Furtago hopes that history will not be repeated. However, a video from a neighbor, filmed a day later, confirmed the loss. The sprinklers had no water.
Just as hundreds of Los Angeles families had lost everything in one night, Hulthage and Bendix quickly tallied their losses, looking for a place to live, a few places of stability.
Music director Maxim Kuzin, the center and the Parisades Symphony Orchestra acknowledge their applause after their performance.
When Maxim Kuzin began receiving emails from orchestra members asking when rehearsals would resume, he wasn’t sure how to answer. He spent only a year in the orchestra and was always empowered by the dedication of his members.
He lived in Gardena, far from the devastation, but knew how disorienting the loss was. He emigrated from Ukraine in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, but it felt like he had never really left. So, last year, when news came when Kiev’s childhood home had been attacked by a missile, he was unsure.
Maybe music would help. He thought of the program he planned for December: Taras Bulba’s overture is a concerto of Mykola Lysenko, Edvard Grieg and César Franck’s Symphony in D Minor. Maybe like the musicians who endured the siege of Sarajevo in 1992 and still played on the frontlines, they were able to swing their fists with the power of space, chaos and destruction.
“Recognizing the power of music for comfort and healing, we decided to resume rehearsals on Tuesday, January 14th,” he wrote in an email to the orchestra.
When Bendix read these words, she felt a sense of security. To move forward means not looking back at times.
“We need to get together,” she replied.
Ingemer Furtago, a violinist of the Parisades Symphony Orchestra, who lost his home in the Parisades fire, runs the piano with the violent David Quinn during a break.
Without his violin, Furutago wondered if he could even play. He joined the orchestra almost 25 years ago. As the second violin, he considered himself an amateur, but he always felt at home in a musician’s company.
Hannah knew she could help.
Many other musicians kept their instruments. My friend, who played bass, owned several electric basses and lost his home, joked about it. “There’s more base in this motel room than you have underwear,” he said.
As a stool skilled at repairing string instruments, Hanna had a violin that could be handed over to Hortago. She presented it to him when the orchestras gathered on January 14th to rehearse in a small meeting room at Westwood’s senior facility. He was overcome.
“This was the most normal thing I’ve felt since the fire,” he said.
Now they had a moon to prepare.
Four weeks later, on the day of the concert, Hulthage purchased a Tuxedo, but it hadn’t changed yet as he helped set up the string chairs for the Transept at Westwood United Methodist Church. Their performance space, the Lutheran Church in Pallisard in the Pacific, was still intact, but for a few months it was before cleaning soot and removing the smell of smoke.
Guest soloist Alexander Wasserman practiced chords like Thunder Craps, which resonated from the grand piano.
Two men took three large timpani drums up the stairs to the space in front of the altar. Another man piloted the harp into the choir. In the front yard, Katie Rudner folded the program to arrive guests, handed out envelopes for checks, and helped with Venmo’s fees. Donations are placed aside to help musicians and community members.
At 7pm, Bendix arrived and her children presented her after the fire, wearing a black sequin skirt, jacket, scarf and earrings. She found a seat in the second row and began warming up with the violin her mother gave her 25 years ago.
Maxim Kuzin will conduct the Parisades Symphony Orchestra. He lived in Gardena, far from the devastation of the fire, but knew how disorienting the loss was. He emigrated from Ukraine in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea.
Kujin, wearing an embroidered Ukrainian shirt, greeted his friends and well-little people. Over 200 visitors slowly filled the sanctuary, and at 7:30 Hannah closed in thanks to the audience for their use of the church and the many people who made the evening possible. She then descended and walked to where her base was standing.
Kujin lifted the baton.
Two ascending notes, as well as two orchestras, began the heroic overtures of Lisenko. Its lyrical grandeur led to the strings and horns gathering strength, and its momentum quickly swaying.
As applause faded, Kujin took a little time to talk to the audience. Works by Ukrainian composers, rarely performed in the United States, brought out the pride of the conductor.
Participants praise the performance of the Parisades Symphony Orchestra.
“I hope that we can understand why Ukrainians cannot lose war. A country with such music simply cannot lose,” he said, Wasserman, who provided a dramatic and sweet interpretation of the Grieg Concerto. I said before welcoming you.
After the break, Kujin appealed to the audience for financial support and briefly spoke about the fire and those who lost everything.
“I hope that some of us will get the idea that during this period, we live in a different world than all of us,” he said. In the aftermath of this tragedy, “In the end, hopefully some meaning will be revealed to your suffering people.”
The Frank Symphony Orchestra’s D-Minor Key set a calm mood as the violin tried to lift the melody from the darker, deeper notes. . The Crescendo broke like an overwhelming force against both the musicians and the audience.
The second movement was rest, open with harp and pull strings. English Horn issued a miserable, simple melody, as if trying to evoke old memories of forgotten time.
Westwood United Methodist Church. The Palisade Symphony Orchestra’s performance space, the Lutheran Church in Pallisard, in the Pacific, was still unharmed, and it was before cleaning soot for months and removing the smell of smoke.
The third movement was regeneration. On the spot, the musicians brought a sense that they could return to their homes they had probably lost one day, returning to the community that they had accepted them almost sixty years ago.
The audience clapped and cheered. Kujin wiped his forehead and the rest of the Orchestra stood and bowed.
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