The Pasadena Chorale Will Celebrate 10th Annual Listening to the Future Concert

The Pasadena Chorale will present the 10th annual Listening to the Future concert on Saturday, June 20 at 5 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, a new venue for the program's milestone concert. The free performance showcases original choral works by emerging composers and celebrates a decade of Pasadena Chorale's acclaimed young composers program.

Since 2016, Listening to the Future has provided Pasadena-area high school students with the rare opportunity to work alongside professional composer mentors, compose original works for choir, and hear their music performed live by the award-winning Pasadena Chorale. This year's Pasadena-area student composers include Esme Gregoropoulos (Renaissance Arts Academy), Verona Hofer (Pasadena Waldorf High School), Marlene Jimenez (Renaissance Arts Academy), Alexis Salazar (California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley), and Zach Vasko (Blair High School). The students were mentored from November through May by Los Angeles composer and Pasadena City College music professor David García Saldaña.

For the first time ever, the concert will also feature world premieres by collegiate composers from across the nation through Pasadena Chorale's new partnership with The Collegiate Choral Composition Community (The CCCC). Earlier this year, The CCCC issued a national call for scores to its membership, resulting in 45 submissions. A panel of judges representing both The CCCC and the Pasadena Chorale selected four works to be performed in concert. The selected collegiate composers are Brayden Allen (Dallas Baptist University), Taleya Jordan (Louisiana State University), Corbin Montenegro (Kansas State University), and Maria Tartaglia (Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam).

In recognition of the program's 10th anniversary, the Pasadena Chorale will perform two pieces composed during the early years of Listening to the Future by Katherine Beggs and Avo Roberts, alumni of the program who have pursued careers as composers.

Over the course of a decade, Listening to the Future has premiered more than 70 original choral works by 29 student composers, many of whom have gone on to study music composition at universities including USC, UCLA, CalArts, Stanford, Brown, Columbia, and Yale.

Listening to the Future is made possible in part by the Pasadena Arts & Culture Commission and the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, whose support helps Pasadena Chorale continue providing free music education opportunities to young composers in the community.

The June 20 concert is free and open to the public. However, a ticket reservation is required for entry. Pasadena Presbyterian Church is located at 585 E. Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena.