[photo credit: Norton Simon Museum]
“Golden Hour: Music in the Garden,” as the Friday-evening series is called, launched its 2026 season on May 29 and runs through August on four select dates, each from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Programmed by musician Masatoshi Sato, a bass player and composer who studied at the California Institute of the Arts, each installment pairs live music with the 79,000-square-foot garden’s sculptures, complimentary drawing supplies, and food and drink from the Garden Café. The series is free with museum admission.
The four dates — May 29, June 26, July 31, and August 28 — fall at roughly monthly intervals. There is no early-June installment; the June 26 performance is the next on the calendar.
Sato has programmed a different ensemble for each evening. The May 29 opener featured a jazz quartet with Joe Santa Maria on saxophone, Jamie Rosenn on guitar, Sato on bass, and Trevor Anderies on drums. June 26 brings the Verbena Quartet — violinists Ji Young An and Mona Tian, violist Carson Rick, and cellist Mia Barcia-Colombo. A North Indian ensemble with Indradeep Ghosh, Chris Votek, and Neelamjit Dhillon follows on July 31, and a jazz trio with David Tranchina, Santa Maria, and Anderies closes the season on August 28.
The garden is part of the draw. Designed by landscape architect Nancy Goslee Power and unveiled in 1999 to evoke Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny, France, it was refreshed during the renovation, which was completed last year for the museum’s 50th anniversary. The project added new resin-bound gravel pathways and refurbished the landscape framing works by Moore, Aristide Maillol, Barbara Hepworth, Jacques Lipchitz, and Rodin. The work also addressed the museum building’s distinctive facade — 115,000 hand-crafted ceramic tiles created by ceramicist Edith Heath in 1969.
“I think people drive by this museum all the time and have no idea that it’s clad with Edith Heath tile,” Liz MacLean, a principal at Architectural Resources Group and lead architect on the renovation, told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s a strong, but mighty collection — still it’s a special experience,” Leslie Denk, the museum’s vice president of external affairs, said of the Norton Simon, according to the South Pasadena Review.
The museum is open Fridays from noon to 7 p.m. The Norton Simon Museum is at 411 W. Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena. Admission is $20 for adults, $15 for visitors 62 and older, and free for museum members, students with identification, everyone 18 and under, active military personnel with identification, and EBT cardholders. The Garden Café, operated by the Patina Restaurant Group, will serve light bites, wine, and nonalcoholic beverages; no outside food or drink is permitted. Seating in the café is first come, first served. The museum recommends bringing blankets to sit on the grass; personal chairs and wagons are not allowed except for guests with disabilities. Parking is free but limited. Pasadena Transit lines 10 and 33 and Metro bus line 180 stop in front of the museum. For information, call (626) 449-6840, email educate@nortonsimon.org, or visit nortonsimon.org.
The garden was designed to evoke Monet’s Giverny. On four Friday evenings this summer, it will have a soundtrack.
Norton Simon Museum — Golden Hour: Music in the Garden ( June 26) Where: Norton Simon Museum, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena Link: https://www.nortonsimon.org/
