Eric Whitacre's New Work About LA Wildfires to be Premiered by Anne Akiko Meyers

Composed for Meyers, Whitacre’s concerto “The Pacific Has No Memory” is inspired by the LA wildfires 

This spring, the GRAMMY Award-winning violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra will premiere “The Pacific Has No Memory"by composer Eric Whitacre. 

Written for solo violin and string orchestra, the piece is composed specifically for Meyers and was co-commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Colorado Music Festival. 

Around eight minutes long, “The Pacific Has No Memory” was inspired by the devastating wildfires that swept through Los Angeles and surrounding areas in January 2025. 

Meyers, a resident of Pacific Palisades, was among those forced to evacuate; Whitacre, who is currently based in Belgium, was visiting his longtime home in LA when the fires broke out — this experience was the catalyst for his new work and shaped the expressive world of the concerto.  

“Over that week we had our own scares with evacuations, felt the fear and surreal dread that was everywhere in the city,” Whitacre reflected. “We spent time with friends, hearing their hushed stories of how they had lost everything. I will never forget the look in their eyes — shocked, untethered. I think there is something truly unique about losing one’s world to a fire: it burns everything, completely and utterly. There is literally nothing left to mourn.

“‘The Pacific Has No Memory’ takes its title from a line in one of my favorite films, The Shawshank Redemption,” he added. “In it, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) dreams of a life near the ocean where his past is a memory of a memory, distant and liquid — a place where the blue of the Pacific will give him a chance to start new, reborn. I hope the same for all who lost so much in those terrible fires.”

Meyers will join Orpheus for the world premiere tour, with performances at the Morris Museum (May 16), Carnegie Hall (May 17), and the Reformed Church of Bronxville (May 18). She will also perform the concerto at the Colorado Music Festival on July 17 and 18 and with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra next year on April 11, 2026 with conductor Jaime Martín.