Wild Up’s L.A. Composer Series Brings Bold Musical Collaboration to Sierra Madre Playhouse

Wild Up, in partnership with Sierra Madre Playhouse, will bring its adventurous L.A. Composer Series to the historic theater on Oct. 10, enlisting four leading composer-performers to create a genre-defying, concert-length work onstage, in real time.

The program, devised as a collaboration between violinist Andrew Tholl, pianist Vicki Ray, bassist Marlon Martinez and clarinetist-saxophonist Brian Walsh, will combine traditional notation with improvisation, building a piece that promises to hover between form and freedom.

Each artist arrives with a distinct profile. Tholl’s work explores “the passage of time, the physicality of performance, noise, nostalgia, and memory,” often blurring the lines between experimental rock and the avant-garde.

Ray, a Grammy-nominated pianist and a pillar of the Los Angeles new-music scene, co-founded the Piano Spheres series, chairs keyboard studies at the California Institute of the Arts, and regularly appears at international festivals including the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at MASS MoCA.

Martinez, described as a “young virtuoso bassist and composer emerging at the center of the resurgent Los Angeles jazz scene,” was mentored by Stanley Clarke and Ron Carter and leads the Marlonius Jazz Orchestra. Walsh, whose fluency ranges from klezmer to contemporary classical, leads the Walsh Set Trio and performs with several of Los Angeles’s most adventurous ensembles.

Wild Up itself is praised as “L.A.’s transformative new music chamber orchestra and collective…founded 15 years ago by Christopher Rountree with a seemingly limitless collection of inventive ideas for bringing classical music into the 21st century and beyond,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Playhouse, a landmark in Sierra Madre’s cultural life, frames the project within its broader mission: to “foster creativity that aspires to bridge divides and spark dialogue, all while celebrating the rich tapestry of the American experience,” according to venue materials. The Los Angeles Times has described the Playhouse as “theater from the heart,” while Pasadena Weekly has called it a “jewel” and ABC7 Los Angeles a “landmark theater.”

The concert, part of an ongoing series spotlighting living Los Angeles composers, offers audiences not just a performance but a glimpse into the act of creation itself.

The event begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are priced from $12 to $35. Sierra Madre Playhouse is at 87 West Sierra Madre Boulevard. Information: 626-355-4318 or sierramadreplayhouse.org.