[photo credit: Sierra Madre Playhouse]
Mia Barcia-Colombo, a member of the Grammy-nominated ensemble Wild Up and regular substitute cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will present world premieres by Patrick Shiroinski and Thomas Kotscheff alongside works by Ted Hearne, M.A. Tiesenga, Alyssa Weinberg, and J.S. Bach.
The concert is part of the LA Composer Series presented by Wild Up, the Los Angeles-based new-music collective founded by Christopher Rountree. The organization’s mission is “to tell stories and make projects that live somewhere between new music and theater and performance art and pop.”
“She is a beastly cellist, comfortable in every possible style of playing, and we’d trust her to lead us directly out of a forest, or brazenly toward a cantina,” Wild Up notes of Barcia-Colombo on its website.
Barcia-Colombo’s career spans an extraordinary range. Beyond her pop collaborations with The Beatles, Billie Eilish, and Ariana Grande, she has performed on film soundtracks including “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Disney’s “Encanto,” and Steven Spielberg’s 2021 “West Side Story” remake.
The program centers on living composers while including Bach’s Courante from “Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor.” Among contemporary works, Alyssa Weinberg’s “Prayer,” inspired by Iraq War veteran Kevin Powers’ novel “The Yellow Birds,” explores how instrumental music engages with literary narratives and political realities.
The Sierra Madre Playhouse’s 99-seat capacity creates an intimate environment ideal for exploring contemporary compositional techniques.
LA Composer Series: Wild Up — Mia Barcia-Colombo will run on Saturday, Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. For more information, call (626) 355-4318 or visit https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org/event/wildup2025-2. Ticket prices: $12-$35.
