Nearly twenty years after Los Angeles-based composer Charles-Henri Avelange first set out to honor firefighters in music, his long-unfinished score is moving closer to a recording. The renewed momentum follows last year's wildfires in Los Angeles, according to NPR, which featured the story on its All Things Considered program on September 27, 2026.
The segment, reported by Karl T Wright, aired at 5:14 PM ET on Sunday, September 27, 2026. Audio from the broadcast was not immediately available at the time of publication.
Avelange's composition was conceived as a tribute to firefighters almost two decades ago, but the project remained unrecorded for years. The catastrophic fires that swept through Los Angeles last year gave the work what NPR describes as new life, prompting the composer to push forward on finally committing the score to tape.
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