Featuring

Founded by Jeffrey Bernstein in 2009, the Pasadena Chorale is an auditioned community chorus presenting affordable high-quality choral concerts and educational programs to the greater Pasadena Community.

During its dozen years of service to the community, the Chorale has presented over one hundred performances and enjoyed collaborations with the Pasadena Playhouse, MUSE/IQUE, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Gamble House. In 2017 the Pasadena Chorale was awarded second place in the American Prize in Choral Performance.

The Chorale also offers a robust education program at no cost to participating students. Each year, through its unique Listening To The Future project, the Chorale pairs local high school composers with a professional composer mentor for a year of study. At the end of the year, the Chorale presents a concert of the music composed by these students.

The Pasadena Chorale is the proud recipient of support from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Pasadena Community Foundation and the City of Pasadena. All of the Pasadena Chorale’s regular concerts are offered on a “Listen First, Then Give” basis, ensuring that all are able to attend, and encouraging the generous support of those who are able.

The mission of the Pasadena Chorale is to create choral music that educates, uplifts, and inspires as many people as possible.

Jeff Bernstein, Founding Artistic Director

Jeff Bernstein Biography:

Known for his ability to inspire musicians and audiences alike, Jeffrey Bernstein is one of Southern California's pre-eminent choral conductors. He is the founding Artistic and Executive director of the Pasadena Chorale and artistic director of the Los Angeles Daiku. Trained at Harvard, Yale, and UCLA, Bernstein was Director of Choral Music at Occidental College in Los Angeles for eleven years before founding the Pasadena Chorale. 

He has led choirs on fourteen tours of four continents and traveled extensively as a guest conductor, leading choirs and orchestras in Europe, Japan, and throughout the United States. Highlights include conducting the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Life of Mozart, an concert he created for young people, becoming the first American to lead the annual concert of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Naruto, Japan, the city where the work was first heard in Asia, and conducting over 300 performers in an all-Beethoven program in the Walt Disney Concert Hall. 

An active composer Bernstein was awarded second place in the American Prize in Choral Composition for 21st Century 23rd Psalm and honorable mention for The Human Journey. The symphonic poem Dreams of Japan, composed for the Tokushima Symphony, was premiered by that orchestra and subsequently performed in Los Angeles. Fukushima Requiem, composed in response to the Tohoku tsunami disaster has been performed several times in America and Japan. Bernstein has composed and premiered dozens of other concert works including orchestra pieces, choral-orchestral works, solo songs, chamber music, and over thirty works for chorus. Bernstein has released four albums of improvised piano music, PianoJournals, Clear Mind Calm Water, The Desert House, and Pianoasis. He is the songwriter for the PBS Kids show “Let’s Go Luna” starring Judy Greer.

A committed educator and advocate for children, Bernstein teaches at the Pasadena Waldorf School. He makes his home in Altadena, California.

MONA LITZA

JAZZ, POP, R&B, POP, and Gospel musician
I am an artist and composer. I enjoy the challenge of telling stories through music in all its forms.

MONA LITZA Biography:


Natalie Cadet AKA “Mona Litza” began her music career early on at age 4 in the heart of the church. She was a child prodigy discovering her gifts and love for music. She started playing piano by ear and singing publicly with her family of five sisters, billed as the Cadet Sisters. Mona Litza's illustrious musical growth and development began there and would eventually catapult to where she is today, being a songwriter, singer, producer, and musical arrangers' degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Oakwood University in Alabama and then later earn her Master's degree in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory in Massachusetts.

Mona Litza has since applied her formal education and training to the professional world of music. Her consummate ability and talent in performance and creativity have opened doors to the unimaginable. In 2016, she recorded and released an album entitled My Journey. In the following years, Mona Litza recorded an additional six singles. Mona Litza has been consumed in various projects that have provided experience and music credits by working with artists such as Juan Gabriel on the album, Los Dios. She also did the musical arrangement and the vocal performance on Lisa Dondlinger’s album Movies & Masters. Other credits to note are Mona Litza’s work as an instructor at Musician’s Institute, and her budding role as composer for TV and Film.

Mona Litza continuously works to explore opportunities that expand and develop her music experience. Her talent has been recognized and garnered the attention from producers such as Carl Gustafson, of Blinddog Smokin, who's behind the upcoming epic Moja, a Music Saga. Mona Litza thrived in her role as one of the principal songwriters, co-producer, and arranger, demonstrating her skills by collaborating and writing over 50 songs for over 500 musicians worldwide, including many Grammy winners and nominees. The genres represented in her arrangements were diverse which comprise of Negro spirituals, blues, jazz, R&B, funk, and Hip Hop, blue grass, and many more. With a variety of songs being recorded, it was the universal language being represented as a coalition of influences from Africa, Cuba, and England and the USA. Celebrities and artists on this gigantic international project involved Basekou Kouyate, Tata Vega, Take 6, Bobby Rush, Darius and DJ McCrary, Mark Kibble, Pedrito Martinez, Shelea, Weedie Braimah, Safi, Magatte Sow, and many more. Also, worth noting that among thirty-one engineers on this project were New York’s Grammy winning engineer, David Kahne and LA’s Tony Shepperd.

Mona Litza continues to be active in the music community as she has established membership with Alliance for Women Film Composers (AWFC) in L.A. Her ability to compose original lyrics and music makes Mona Litza a talent with the options to be the creative singer, songwriter, and arranger as she develops a business model for success. Natalie "Mona Litza" Cadet is destined for greatness.

Cadét holds a Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Oakwood University and a Master’s degree in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory of Music. Cadét's vocal artistry and songwriting skills transitioned from Gospel Christian into jazz and pop compositions with a hint of R&B. Cadét is a soprano, and her vocal range spans three octaves. Cadét's vocal dexterity is displayed in the 5 to 6-part background vocals that she performs.

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