The Topanga Symphony, the Santa Monica Mountains only community orchestra, announces a free concert performance on March 8, 2026, at 3:00 P.M. at the Topanga Community Center 1440 North Topanga Canyon Blvd. The concert will feature cello soloist Benny Yi-Bing Chu and Zev Yaroslavsky, Narrator. Yi-Bing Chu will perform the World Premiere of Burlesca by Jerome Kessler. Zev Yaroslavsky will be the Narrator for Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait. Symphony #1 in C by Ludwig van Beethoven and Petite Suite by Claude Debussy are also on the program.
Yi-Bing Chu was appointed as cello professor and head of the cello department at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he taught between 2004 and 2018. He founded the Yi-Bing Chu Cello Ensemble with his students, the first Cello Ensemble in China, playing more than 600 charity concerts in a number of diverse cities and provinces, schools, colleges, and universities. Three Cello Ensemble Recordings, the first chamber music recording in China since 1960. Yi-Bing Chu founded the SuperCello festival in Beijing, 2016. SuperCello is the premier cello festival in China and biggest of this kind in Asia. Every year it is attended by hundreds of cellists including a number of world leading performers. www.TopangaSymphony.org
