Name: Sacredness
Start: 2026-01-31T14:00:00
Location: Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts

Michael Mayo

Josette Wiggan

Christie Dashiell

The Soraya

Yuja Wang makes a long-anticipated return to The Soraya, following her 2016 debut. Since, she has secured her reputation as one of the most celebrated artists around the world. Consistent with Wang’s recent focus on Frédéric Chopin, she chose the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Wang is joined by her regular partner, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a pan-European ensemble created to tour globally, having performed in over 40 nations. The orchestra will also perform Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, often called the “Classical Symphony” for Prokofiev’s intent to model his early work after Mozart and Haydn.

Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts

The Soraya has assembled an entire company of musicians who are 2026 Grammy nominees: pianist and music director Gerald Clayton, Los Angeles-based gospel choir Tonality, and jazz vocalists Christie Dashiell, and Michael Mayo. Opening The Soraya’s fifth annual Jazz at Naz festival, Clayton brings us Sacredness, his rendering of the work Duke Ellington considered his most important, the three Sacred Concerts that were performed between 1965 and 1973 in cathedrals and churches in San Francisco and New York City. Ellington evoked a Cotton Club revue meets the African American Church that has endured as nondenominational and universal. Clayton brings Ellington’s daring masterpiece into the present day with original arrangements, four dancers led by tapper and choreographer Josette Wiggan, an all-star jazz big band, and new spoken word creations.