Songs from Taiwan Concert.  Dr. Cheng Chi-Jen with Edgar Macapili, Pei-Ying Wang and TACC senior Choir.

UCSD's resident percussion ensemble performs music by early UCSD music faculty member Kenneth Gaburo (Maladetto), as well as Aldo Clementi (L'Orologio di Arcevia) and Guo Wenjing (Drama). The fish are Leah Bowden, Eric Derr, Louise Devenish, Dustin Donahue, Jonathan Hepfer, Kjell Nordeson, Steven Schick, Stephen Solook, and Bonnie Whiting Smith. They are joined by guest artists Aleck Karis, Leslie Leytham, Brendan Nguyen, Alice Teyssier, and Jeffrey Treviño.

Rare San Diego performance by renowned flutist and composer Nicole Mitchell, the first female president of Chicago's AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). Like others associated with AACM, Mitchell focusses on new and experimental works. She has collaborated with Lori Freedman, Muhal Richard Abrams, California flutist James Newton, and former UCSD music faculty member George Lewis (now on the faculty at Columbia University), among many others.

Internationally acclaimed contemporary music performers Matteo Cesari (flute) and Lucy Shelton (soprano) are in residence at UCSD from May 9 to May 16 to premiere and record a collection of new works written for them by emerging and established composers. The residency is produced by UCSD graduate composer Brian Griffeath-Loeb in association with New Music at UCSD, and is made possible through the generous support of the UCSD Graduate Student Association, Associated Students, Triton Community Fund, and Department of Music. Events include two concerts--May 11 and May 16, both at 8 pm, both free and open to the public. The May 16 concert includes new works written for the duo by Brian Griffeath-Loeb, Paul Hembree, Sam Pluta, Bruno Ruviaro, Alex Sigman, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, Erik Ulman, and Charlie Wilmoth.

Undergraduate violist Jasmine Yu (6:30 pm) and soprano Jennifer Wu (8 pm) give their Honors Recitals. Yu's program includes Bach's Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009, Brahms' Sonata in f minor, Op. 120, and Vieuxtemps' Elegie Op. 30. Her accompanists are undergraduate pianists Danny Kim and Claude Fan. Meanwhile, in her 8 pm concert, Wu will sing the parts of Thaïs (Massenet), Juliette (Gounod), Musetta (Puccini's La Boheme), Pamina (Mozart's The Magic Flute), Cleopatra (Handel's Giulio Cesare), and Anne Trulove (Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress). Wu's program also includes art songs by Wolf, Webern, Debussy, and Hageman. Pianist Todd Moellenberg will accompany her.

Ken Anderson, San Diego's leading proponent of gospel, directs UCSD's gospel choir in a concert of African-American spirituals, blues, and traditional songs.

Visiting Australian percussionist Louise Devenish presents a concert of percussion works composed between 1975 and 1989. Guests Kjell Nordeson, Bonnie Whiting Smith, Steve Solook and Dustin Donohue will join Louise in performing a program featuring Xenakis’s Rebonds a and b and Okho, Reich’s Electric Counterpoint (a guitar piece re-arranged by Devenish for vibraphone and marimba), Cage’s Child of Tree, Alvarez’s Temazcal and Takemitsu’s Rain Tree. 

Note: Three performances: May 30, June 1-2

Viktor Ullmann's powerful chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, written in 1943, while the composer was interred in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. When the opera's obvious references to the Nazi regime were discovered during rehearsal, the work was banned; it had tragic consequences for the composer and his family. Miraculously, the work survived.

Note: Three performances: May 30, June 1-2

Viktor Ullmann's powerful chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, written in 1943, while the composer was interred in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. When the opera's obvious references to the Nazi regime were discovered during rehearsal, the work was banned; it had tragic consequences for the composer and his family. Miraculously, the work survived.

The story is a type of fable. After a protracted and violent war, Death discovers that his job has been taken away from him by the Der Kaiser von Atlantis. Death decides to go on strike; all of a sudden the concept of war, victory and defeat becomes irrelevant. The result is moving and heartbreaking.
 

Note: Three performances: May 30, June 1-2.

Viktor Ullmann's powerful chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, written in 1943, while the composer was interred in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. When the opera's obvious references to the Nazi regime were discovered during rehearsal, the work was banned; it had tragic consequences for the composer and his family.  Miraculously, the work survived.

The story is a type of fable. After a protracted and violent war, Death discovers that his job has been taken away from him by the Der Kaiser von Atlantis. Death decides to go on strike; all of a sudden the concept of war, victory and defeat becomes irrelevant. The result is moving and heartbreaking.
 

La Jolla Symphony & Chorus's yearlong survey of Stravinsky closes the 2011-2012 season with his most popular work, The Firebird. The concert opens with the premiere of Tintinnabulation by Igor Korneitchouk, professor of music at Mesa College, UCSD music alumnus, and longtime La Jolla Symphony violinist. UCSD faculty pianist Aleck Karis is the featured soloist in Barber's magnificent Piano Concerto, which won the Pulitzer Prize exactly fifty years ago.

San Diego's unique chamber series closes the 2011-2012 season with an edgy program including Richard Rodney Bennett's Sonata after Syrinx, Sofia Gubaidulina's The Garden of Joys and Sorrows, Jacques Ibert's Trio, plus former UCSD faculty member Bernard Rands' Trio "sans voix parmi les voix...". Concerts are broadcast on KPBS-FM public radio at 8 p.m. on the second Saturday following each concert. Camera Lucida is made possible through the generous support of Sam Ersan.