A musical salon for the 21st century.

Our Salastina "home" is an opulent, joyful place of beauty, splendor, and living tradition.

By day, we’re world-class performers and studio musicians who’ve played on your favorite films.
By night, we’re on a mission to broaden the definition of what classical music was, is, and can be.

Salastina is a visionary chamber ensemble and presenting organization:

Winner of San Francisco Classical Voice’s Audience Choice Award for “Best Chamber Ensemble” and “Best Streaming Series,” Salastina is a 21st-century reimagining of the chamber music salon: a place where musicians and audience members gather to share in the beauty of the art form through performance and conversation, whether in-person for intimate, local audiences or online for tens of thousands around the world.

Salastina presents up to 25 public performances per year, most of which are live-streamed online. Integral to Salastina’s live concerts: context and storytelling, dynamically provided by Resident Host and Artistic Partner Brian Lauritzen, as well as ample opportunities for audience members and musicians to engage in conversation.

As one audience member put it:

“Where else can audiences have a personal conversation with a 'famous musician' who might have been a role model and inspiration? People oftentimes can't even pay money to talk to their favorite performers backstage. Yet Salastina has created an arena where musicians and audiences can connect.”

In keeping with Gustav Mahler’s definition of tradition as “not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire,” Salastina invests equally in the Classics and the generation of new music. Salastina’s work in this area has been broadcast dozens of times nationally on Performance Today. Its tuition-free, highly-competitive Sounds Promising Young Composers Program has provided dozens of composers from New York to New Zealand with mentorship and world-class audio-video recordings of their work. Armed with these recordings in their portfolio, alumni have gone on to secure professional commissions. Salastina has also given presentations on career development to students at USC’s Thornton School of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

In May of 2020, Salastina partnered with Project: Music Heals Us and UCLA Medical Center to create Vital Sounds, a program bringing the healing power of music to patients in UCLA’s Intensive Care Unit. Since then, Salastina has provided over 60,000 minutes of music to over 3,500 patients one-on-one at UCLA Medical Center’s ICU. Vital Sounds is currently expanding to Huntington Health in Pasadena.

Salastina was founded in 2010 by violinists Kevin Kumar and Maia Jasper White, who continue to direct the series. Its roster consists of Resident Artists and special guests.

Why We’re Here

Salastina’s Vision:

“Making Classical Music relevant to a forward-looking society.”

We work towards this vision through our mission:

“Salastina invites listeners to join with composers, musicians, and artists to celebrate the beauty of the past and present,
and to carry it into the future with a spirit of inclusiveness.”

What We Do

Salastina currently offers three areas of programming. All three serve our mission of connecting others to our art form in areas where we, as musicians, see a distinct need:

• In-person and virtual performances (learn more about our approach below!)

• Vital Sounds: private, virtual bedside concerts three days each week for patients in UCLA’s ICU and Huntington Health’s End-of-Life Care

• Sounds Promising: our tuition-free Young Artist program

Live Performances

Join us in Pasadena, Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Orange County, mid-Wilshire, or online.

What We Play

With an eye towards modernizing the culture around classical music, Salastina presents both Happy Hour salons and an ever-so-slightly-more-traditional Main Series Concerts.

Salastina’s popular Happy Hour series began in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For 107 straight weeks, Salastina presented free online events featuring live performances by and intimate conversation with a diverse array of guest artists. Thousands of audience members delighted in the opportunity to personally interact with guest artists like Hilary Hahn, Caroline Shaw, Eric Whitacre, Alan Menken, and many, many more.

In June of 2022, the series underwent a revamp. Our goal: to keep everything that made Happy Hour great while evolving to our post-COVID reality. Happy Hours now take place in-person with a live, online broadcast viewable for 3 days from ticket purchase. The events take place at 11 AM on either Saturdays or Sundays, with mimosa and pastry receptions to follow. Happy Hour remains all about getting to know fabulous, diverse guest artists musically and personally in a fun, sociable, and completely unpretentious setting. Now we can perform live alongside them — and hang out with you in the process!

Meanwhile, our Main Series Concerts feature a handful of proprietary concert formats. These include:

• Sounds Genius: a deep-dive into a beloved masterwork

• Sounds Unknown: an exploration of the many reasons some pieces and composers haven’t gained the recognition they deserve

• Sounds Mysterious: the musical equivalent of a blind wine-tasting

• Sounds Delicious: our contemporary take on the Salon tradition — pairing gourmet food and live music in an intimate setting

• Sounds Local: a celebration of the best chamber music currently being composed in the creative capitol of the world

Where We Play

True to the spirit of chamber music, Salastina performs in intimate, comfortable venues of acoustic and aesthetic beauty. 

Click here to learn more about our venues.

You can also hear us online — via live stream, your favorite streaming music platforms (like Spotify), and YouTube.

If you’re old school, we also have several physical CDs. We’re recording more music all the time.

When We Play

Salastina presents 5 to 8 pairs of concerts annually, plus additional special events.

View our concert calendar and buy tickets here.  

Why We Play

Chamber music is like the indie rock band of the classical music world. With only one to a part, personal and musical chemistry are as invigorating for us as they are imperative to the art form.

Many of us earn our bread and butter recording for major motion pictures (like this one). This affords us both a sense of relevance to popular culture and respectable quality of life.

But chamber music is what we do for fun. Salastina has been, and will always be, artist-driven. Having control over what we play, when we play it, where we play it, with whom we play it, and how we play it is the most fulfilling aspect of each of our artistic lives.

But our Why extends beyond artistic self-realization. We all believe in the power of music to bring others together; to inspire, enrich, and entertain; and to connect our cultural past, present, and future.

In this way, Salastina serves not only our own self-expression, but ultimately the society in which we live and work.

How You Can Help

Make a tax-deducible donation in any amount here.

Consider becoming a Member. Membership begins at $20 per month, comes with a host of benefits expanding your personal access to our music and musicians, and is fully tax-deductible.