Wild Up continues its “L.A. Composer Series” with Grammy-winning cellist Mia Barcia-Colombo featured on a solo program that celebrates the contemporary music of the cello next month at the Sierra Madre Playhouse.
The concert is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15 at the at the playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd.
Los Angeles-based Barcia-Colombo has a performance credits that span multiple musical realms. She performs contemporary and commissioned music as a member of the Grammy-nominated ensemble Wild Up, in addition to Brightwork New Music and the LA Philharmonic “Green Umbrella” series.
World premieres by Patrick Shiroishi and Thomas Kotscheff anchor the evening’s program, event organizers said.
Shiroishi, a Japanese American multi-instrumentalist and composer, ‘approaches sound as a living archive, a vessel that captures fragments of time and lived histories,’ according to The Line of Best Fit.
Kotscheff “merges musical worlds,” San Francisco Classical Voice wrote. He is a composer and pianist whose works have been performed by the Seattle Symphony, The Riot Ensemble, Sandbox Percussion, Lyris Quartet, HOCKET and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, among others.
In addition to the two world premieres, Barcia-Colombo performs Ted Hearne’s “Lobby Music” for solo cello and electronics and “Solar Winds” by M.A. Tiesenga, “a composer, visual artist, sound artist and multi-instrumentalist who uses expanded notation systems as inquiries into new sonic and relational possibilities,” according to organizers.
Also featured are Alyssa Weinberg’s “Prayer,” inspired by Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers’ debut novel “Yellow Birds,” and “Courante,” the third movement from J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor.
Barcia-Colombo also is a regular substitute cellist with the LA Philharmonic, where she has performed numerous concerts under the batons of renowned conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Thomas Ades, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas and Zubin Mehta.
Her multifaceted career as a freelance orchestral, chamber, pit and studio cellist includes recording and performances with Bjork, The Beatles, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Bad Bunny. Barcia-Colombo’s work is also on the soundtracks for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Disney’s Oscar-winning animated feature “Encanto” and the 2021 remake of “West Side Story.”
Barcia-Colombo is also a principal cellist of the “genre-bending” Nu Deco Ensemble in Miami, Florida, concert organizers said.
The sonic adventure next month is part of Wild Up’s series spotlighting living composers who work in the Los Angeles area.
Tickets cost $12-$35. For information, call 626-355-4318 or visit sierramadreplayhouse.org.
