Students dealing with loss from SoCal wildfires find solace, healing through song at the Grammys​on February 6, 2025 at 4:42 am

BURBANK, Calif. (KABC) — High school choir students affected by the recent wildfires are continuing to show they’re SoCal strong — by recently performing at the Grammys!

Students from Pasadena Waldorf School in Altadena and Palisades Charter High School joined together in song at the annual awards ceremony.

Many of the choir members are facing tragedy from the wildfires. On the world stage, they provided back-up to Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock on the song “We Are the World.”

Some of the students, like Pedro Carter, lost everything in the Eaton Fire in Altadena. Students from the Pacific Palisades also performed at the Grammys. Both communities saw parts of their schools torched.

“There’s tears of just like being in front of all this beauty and tears of loss and it’s a lot of different things,” said Carter.

“Looking at these guys and hearing in them the capacity to be full authentic human beings who can enter into uncertainty and draw on their own strength and love for one another is inspiring to me,” said Ted Masur, Waldorf School Choir director.

Masur reflected on the resilience of residents who lost homes in Altadena. He says after members of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities contacted Grammy organizers, he got a call, and the rest is history.

On stage, the students took part in a tribute to the late Quincy Jones, who produced the anthem, “We are the World.”

“Where there was a need to come together to support people who are dealing with what had happened in the fires, the victims whose lives were changed so dramatically and that this would be a song that would hold that feeling brought into now.,” said Masur.

“I got to sing with my closest friends. I realized that it isn’t the items that we have, it is the people that are around us. It is the community that makes the community stronger,” said August Eberle.

“A lot of people saying congratulations, saying you did amazing, like it touched them even like Beyonce,” said Sophia Hamilton-Pollock. “Beyonce if you are watching this you and I made eye contact for like 15 seconds.”

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