[photo credit: Pasadena Village]
The hour-long performance, “Concert in the Park: Serenade Under the Sycamores,” pairs Los Angeles singer-songwriter Brighton Thomas with guitarist Louis Cheong. It is free and open to all. Pasadena Village, a Pasadena nonprofit that supports older adults aging in place, is presenting it with Clazzical Notes, a Pasadena nonprofit that stages music programs, the latest in a run of concerts the two have held at the park for Eaton Fire survivors.
Pasadena Village’s event listing states that the wildfire recovery project was funded in part by a grant from the American Red Cross. The listing describes the purpose as gathering those affected and the wider community to create “a sense of belonging, healing and mindfulness through music.”
The concert runs from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 6, at Washington Park, 700 East Washington Boulevard in Pasadena.
Pasadena Village says that on January 8, 2025, the morning after the fire ignited in Eaton Canyon, it began check-in calls to more than 230 older adults. It identified more than 90 in its network who evacuated or sheltered elsewhere. Twenty-two of them lost their homes and almost all of their possessions, the organization says.
The fire burned 14,021 acres, destroyed 9,414 structures, damaged 1,074 more and killed 19 people before it was contained on January 31, 2025, according to a Los Angeles County fact sheet citing Cal Fire records. Altadena, the unincorporated community immediately north of Pasadena, sits below Eaton Canyon. Pasadena Village says every older adult in the area was affected and that demand for its help doubled after January.
The organization says it distributed more than $140,000 in gift cards during 2025 to residents who lost homes or were displaced, and $450,000 in early 2026 to 61 people aged 55 and older in Altadena and Pasadena still displaced, in amounts from $5,000 to $8,175 drawn from a November 2025 California Community Foundation grant. The Red Cross is among the funders it lists for its Eaton Fire Relief Fund.
Clazzical Notes engaged both musicians, according to the listing. Thomas was named Youth Ambassador at Michael Feinstein’s Great American Songbook Academy in 2016 and a Grand Prize Finalist for the Music Center Spotlight Program the following year. Cheong works in jazz, R&B, pop and indie music and has an audio engineering background.
The two organizations opened a park series called “Centering Sounds” on the same lawn on September 10, 2025, with the Earthseed Band, and returned on September 17 with blues artist Preston Smith, in what the organizers’ listing called the series’ third installment. Clazzical Notes first performed in Pasadena in 2004 and is led by Jerri Price-Gaines, listed on its website as founder and executive director.
The listing names Jim Hendrick as the event’s organizer and credits Clifford Swan, a Pasadena investment advisory firm, as a sponsor. Chair seating is provided on the grass; lot parking is limited, with street parking nearby. Registration is free on the event page at pasadena.helpfulvillage.com/events/4947-concert-in-the-park:-serenade-under-the-sycamores, where attendees may also request a ride. Questions go to Program Manager Pablo Ortiz-Morales at (626) 765-1040, or to Pasadena Village at (626) 765-6037 or info@pasadenavillage.org.
Pasadena Village’s own account of the fire’s first night describes older adults phoning one another in the dark, evacuating together, taking each other in. The concert falls nineteen months, almost to the day, after that night. The chairs go out on the grass, and the invitation is to sit down together again.
