Department of Music Concert and Event Listing

Graduate students from UC San Diego's Department of Music kick off the 2014-2015 concert seaon with a welcome concert for incoming grads and the public.  All are welcome!

Midori and pianist Özgür Aydin return to San Diego to present an evening of pieces from comtemporary composers.

PROGRAM:

XENAKIS: Dikhthas for violin and piano (1979)
SCHNITTKE: Sonata No. 3 for violin and piano (1994)
SAARIAHO: Calices (2009)
HARTKE: Netsuke (2011)
DAVIDOVSKY: Synchronisms #9 (1988)
ADAMS: Road Movies (1995)

SCHUBERT AND BEETHOVEN
Monday, October 6, 7:30pm
SCHUBERT: Quartettsatz in C minor, D. 703
BEETHOVEN: String Trio in D Major, Op. 9 No. 2
BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127

A note from Camera Lucida Artistic Director Charles Curtis about this program:

"You will find here a new kind of voice-leading, and, as to imagination [Phantasie], it will, God willing, be less lacking than ever before!" (- Ludwig van Beethoven, ca. 1825, on the late string quartets, in conversation with violinist Karl Holz)

Camera Lucida is proud to present the final installment of our five-year project surveying the last string quartets of Beethoven. "So that the last shall be first, and the first last" - our survey began in 2010 with Opus 135, and ends now with Opus 127. This quartet, invoking the august, ritualistic tonality of E-flat major, beckons the listener into the final and deepest chamber of Beethoven's creative life, a period in which he worked almost exclusively in the medium of the string quartet. The result is a set of six quartets that have baffled and overwhelmed listeners up to the present day - from our standpoint, Beethoven's remark above seems an "understatement to leave us all speechless" (Joseph Kerman). The "new kind of voice-leading" heralds a new kind of listening, and potentially even a new kind of feeling and thinking - fragmented and compressed, elliptical, ambiguous, yet deeply, even violently expressive - perhaps more akin to the flows of meaning in Joyce than to Haydn or Schubert. Adorno refers to "quasi-allegorical, formulaic moments..." – for him, Beethoven does not seek to "cleanse music of the formulaic, but to make the formulaic transparent, to let it speak on its own"; and he claims for these aphoristic formulae "the uncanny utterance of a magical spell." One seeks in vain for an analog, in any art form, to the strange beauty of the late quartets.

Our program opens with another sort of fragment: the orphaned Quartettsatz in c-minor of Franz Schubert, composed in 1820 as Beethoven embarked on the initial works of the late period; seven years later, Schubert would carry a torch at Beethoven's funeral. And we perform as well the String Trio in D major, Opus 9 Nr. 2, a perfect example of Beethoven's gallant early style, predating all of the extraordinary string quartets which would map his later creative journey.

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Autoduplicity is an exploration of music for bodies and speech - our shared instruments - and investigates how these ordinary sounds can be transformed into powerful musical ideas reflective of the human experience. The program also probes themes of blurred identities and realities, questions of sanity, the movements of our bodies, and the rhythms of our speech.

Featuring:
Peter Ablinger’s Das Wirkliche als Vorgestelltes (The real is imaginary)
Jackson MacLow’s Asymmetries 94 and 259
Mayke Nas’s  Digit No. 2
Vinko Globokar’s ?Corporel
Samuel Beckett’s Footfalls

Performed by Jennifer Bewerse and Rachel Beetz.

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

Kontakte - Karlheinz Stockhausen
Komboï - Iannis Xenakis
----With Todd Mollenberg, harpsichord/piano and Scott Worthington, electronics

Percussionist Ryan Nestor (1985) is a percussionist specializing in classical music of the 20th century. Currently a candidate for the Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance at UC San Diego, Nestor is active with the percussion group red fish blue fish and was recently the principal percussionist of the La Jolla Symphony Orchestra. Nestor has performed at the Sweet Thunder Festival, Monday Evening Concert Series, Ojai Music Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, and Bang on a Can Marathon. He was an adjunct lecturer in music at Queensborough Community College in New York City and has presented master classes and performances at universities around the country. Nestor earned his Master’s degree in Percussion Performance at Stony Brook University and his Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from University of Kentucky. Nestor is originally from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Ensemble et cetera is Curt Miller, clarinets, Dustin Donahue, percussion, and Scott Worthington, double bass. http://ens-etc.org

• works from Ensemble et cetera's 2013 composition competition
• Joseph Andrew Lake: Vyssan Lull (premiere)
• Timothy McCormack: KILN II (premiere)
• Dimitri Papageorgiou: Intrascalings (premiere)

MARK DRESSER, bass: At the core of his music is an artistic obsession and commitment to expanding the sonic and musical possibilities of the double bass through the use of unconventional amplification and extended techniques. His solo works include the DVD/CD/booklet triptich Guts: Bass Explorations, Investigations, and Explanations (2010) and CDs UNVEIL (2006) and Invocation (1994) feature the music evolving out of this research. A chapter on his extended techniques, “A Personal Pedogogy,” appears in the book, ARCANA (Granary Press). Dresser has written two articles on extended techniques for The Strad magazine: “Double Bass Harmonics” (October 2008) and an “Introduction to Multiphonics” (October 2009). Dresser presented a lecture/demonstration titled “Discover, Develop, Integrate: Techniques Revealed” at the 2009 International Society of Bassists convention, where he curated a New Music Summit featuring lectures, performances, and panel discussions on improvisation and contemporary music performance.  

JOEY BARON, drums: is an American avant-garde jazz drummer probably best known for his work with Bill Frisell, Stan Getz, Steve Kuhn, and John Zorn. He has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, David Bowie, Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae, Laurie Anderson, John Scofield, Al Jarreau, Michael Jackson, Jim Hall, Eric Vloeimans, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Pepper, John Abercrombie, Tim Berne, Pat Martino and Eliane Elias. His own groups he has led include the Down Home Group, Barondown, Killer Joey. 

Violist Amy Cimini and bassoonist Katherine Young have been performing together as Architeuthis Walks on Land since 2003. The duo developed its approach to improvisation in Chicago and New York City's rich experimental music communities, and have collaborated with artists like Anthony Braxton and the Tri-Centric Orchestra, Peter Evans, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jessica Pavone, and Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust. In 2011, Cimini and Young were each invited to the High Zero Festival of Experimental Improvised Music. Reviews of their second album, Natura Naturans released on Carrier Records in 2010, describe this intensity as "raw, yet refined improvisational sophistication" (Free Jazz Stef) and "manifest improvisational bravura, of the ruthless variety, depending on close intervallic buzzing, pipe-like droning and the rusty fencing of inhospitable harmonic territories." Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes). The duo recently completed two artist residencies at the Rensing Center for the Arts and EMPAC at Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute, where they developed and recorded their third album. Cimini and Young have been evolving their live-electronics set-ups for a number of years - in this collaboration, as well as in other rock and experimental music projects such as Pretty Monsters, Starring, and Till by Turning. The Surveyors marks the first documentation of these efforts.

The Talea Ensemble with Susan Narucki

Charles Wuorinen: Fast Fantasy (1977)
Aaron Helgeson: Poems of Sheer Nothingness (2012-2013)
Oscar Bettison: An Automated Sunrise (for Joseph Cornell) (2014)
Rand Steiger: A Menacing Plume (2011)

Susan Narucki, soprano
James Baker, conductor

The Talea Ensemble is committed to promoting new, groundbreaking music through innovative programming thereby communicating the distinctive voices of composers that deserve to be heard. By commissioning and programming these progressive works alongside the established literature of modern and contemporary repertoire, the ensemble creates a dialogue that challenges the boundaries of music and fosters a greater understanding of the works of today. Additionally, the Talea Ensemble wishes to support and advance familiarity with contemporary American works by bringing it to concert halls and venues not only in New York but also abroad. By developing an interactive relationship between the composers, performers and audience, the Talea Ensemble builds an environment of reciprocal inspiration that sparks the imagination of all.

One of Europe’s most sought-after quartets, the Minguet Quartet takes its name from Pablo Minguet, an eighteenth-century Spanish philosopher who tried in his writings to make the fine arts accessible to the masses. The Quartet aspires to do the same through chamber music. Performing in the most prestigious concert halls and music festivals, such as the Salzburg Festival and the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, the Quartet has impressed audiences with their precision. “They possess a refinement and polish that commands attention and effortlessly pleases” (Calgary Herald). In 2010, the ensemble received one of the most prestigious prizes in Germany, the "Echo Klassik."

Ulrich Isfort, violin; Annette Reisinger, violin; Aroa Sorin, viola; Matthias Diener, cello.

PROGRAM

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421 (K. 417b)
Glenn Gould: String Quartet, Op. 1
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80

SPONSORS Patricia and Christopher Weil

The Talea Ensemble joins UC San Diego grads to present the Fall Composition Juries, an evening of world premiere presentations by graduate composers: James Bean, Fernanda Aoki Navarro, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Felipe Rossi, Tina Tallon, and Bradley Scott Rosen.

The public is welcome to observe discussion and jury observations by UC San Diego's distinguished composition faculty in response to Friday evening's Fall Composition concert of premieres.

Improvisation : blank corridors
Bonnie Lander

I want to tell a story that cancels itself as it goes I replied
Ben Isaacs
Tyler Borden, cello

Quoq
Robert Erickson
Michael Matsuno, flute

Jungles: Revision
Caroline Louise Miller
Elliot Patros & Caroline Louise Miller, performers

Grad Forums and Mondays@Noon Concerts provide an outlet for Department of Music graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

Threads
Carolyn Chen, composer
Christopher Clarino, performer

In Space and Time
Dina Apple – Emily Aust – Angelica Bell
Kris Apple – Ryan Welsh

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

Steven Schick conducts

Our second annual Young People’s Concert is tailored for young audiences and enjoyable for the entire family. Conductor Steven Schick takes the audience through an enlightening and entertaining performance of Mahler’s famous Fifth Symphony, with commentary from the podium.

The Saint Lawrence String Quartet continues to build its reputation for imaginative and spontaneous music making - through an energetic commitment to the great, established quartet literature, as well as the championing of new works. “Here is an ensemble that projects an irresistible exuberance in performances,” writes the Boston Globe, “and links that sense of joy with artistry of subtlety and finesse.” Among the world-class chamber ensembles of its generation, the Saint Lawrence String Quartet returns to ArtPower! to convey every piece of music to the audience in vivid color!

Geoff Nuttall, violin; Mark Fewer, violin; Lesley Robertson, viola; Christopher Costanza, cello. 

PROGRAM

Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No. 3 (“Emperor”)
Erwin Schulhoff: Five Pieces for String Quartet
Antonín Dvorák: String Quartet No. 11 in C major, Op. 61, B. 121

SPONSOR  Sam Ersan

Steven Schick and David Chase conduct

Nathan Davis      a Sound, uttered WORLD PREMIERE
Gustav Mahler    Symphony No. 5

Guest Artists: red fish blue fish

Two works of sharp contrast open our 60th anniversary season. The world premiere of Nathan Davis’ a Sound, uttered, scored for chorus and 4 percussionists, draws text from a unique collaboration between composer and the chorus that depicts the origin and meaning of language. We conclude with one of the mightiest of all symphonies. Mahler’s Fifth opens with a grief-stricken funeral march, lifts out of that darkness to dance with cosmic energy, and concludes in a blaze of triumph.

Steven Schick and David Chase conduct

Nathan Davis      a Sound, uttered WORLD PREMIERE
Gustav Mahler    Symphony No. 5

Guest Artists: red fish blue fish

Two works of sharp contrast open our 60th anniversary season. The world premiere of Nathan Davis’ a Sound, uttered, scored for chorus and 4 percussionists, draws text from a unique collaboration between composer and the chorus that depicts the origin and meaning of language. We conclude with one of the mightiest of all symphonies. Mahler’s Fifth opens with a grief-stricken funeral march, lifts out of that darkness to dance with cosmic energy, and concludes in a blaze of triumph.

Robert Zelickman and friends present An Afternoon of Chamber Music.

Schumann: Marchenerzahlungen (Fairy Tales) for clarinet, viola & piano, Op. 132 (1853)
Kalevi Aho: Trio for Clarinet, Viola and Piano (2006)
Gérard Pesson: Nebenstück, filtrage de la Ballade op.10 n°4 de Brahms (1998)
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115 (1891)

Robert Zelickman (clarinets), Päivikki Nykter (viola), Todd Moellenberg (piano), Batya MacAdam-Somer and Joan Zelickman (violins), Cecilia Kim (cello)

Realism merges with symbolic movement when seven dancers conjure agrarian cycles and rural rituals in The Mist. Consisting of seven scenes, this visually arresting piece depicts an emotional story about the simple life of rice farmers. A rustic spectacle of bamboo bridges, spiral incense, and conical hats, will fill the stage and embody all the charms and colors of southern Vietnam. “Masterpieces are rarely simply explicable… instead, they’re the product of rich imagination, and The Mist is in every way undeniably that” (The Saigon Times). In their San Diego debut, Arabesque will awaken all of the senses of ArtPower! dance lovers, drawing them closer to the traditional cultural beauty in rural areas in Vietnam through their exquisite movement. 

K-12 STUDENT MATINEE & MASTER CLASS SPONSORS Jon and Bobbie Gilbert

MARTINU AND BRAHMS
A Camera Lucida Concert

Anna Skálová, violin
Jeff Thayer, violin
Che-Yen Chen, viola
Charles Curtis, cello
Reiko Uchida, piano

MARTINU: Serenade No. 2 for Two Violins and Viola, H. 216
BRAHMS: Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major
MARTINU: Quintet No. 2 for Piano and Strings, H. 298

A note from Camera Lucida Artistic Director Charles Curtis about this program:

The music of Bohuslav Martinu is too often overlooked. Or it is listened to without the close attention it deserves. A childhood spent living in the belltower of a village church left its mark on his harmony, a bracing fusion of open dissonances and church mode-derived chordal sequences. On Monday, November 17, Camera Lucida offers the rarely performed Second Piano Quintet, composed in New York City in 1944. One hears the assimilation of New World elements - racy jazz rhythms and hints of Broadway musicals, the clamor and energy of the big city, the scope of 1940's cinema; one is reminded of other austere European modernists reveling in their new environment, Mondrian and his "Broadway Boogie Woogie" among many others. But the darkness of the war years and the pain of exile keep returning in Martinu's music as ghostly echoes; a genuine grief finally overwhelms the Quintet.

Martinu contributed striking qualities to the music of the mid-century. Long stretches of roiling timbres with only minuscule harmonic changes are typical; a music that teems below a static surface. Formally the music is simple, but up close it is densely figured and sonically detailed. Rhythmic ambiguity adds to a sense of vastness, and there are moments of pure atmosphere that are unequalled among his contemporaries. Like other emigrés, he brought to American music as much as he took from it, and with his many exiled European colleagues in all of the arts and sciences he participated in huge and lasting changes to the American cultural landscape.

Our program opens with Martinu's more modest Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, and also includes Brahms' late A-major Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 100, the first installment in our survey of Brahms' sonatas for string instrument and piano.

UC San Diego's premiere chamber ensemble: Palimpsest, performs Donald Martino's Triple Clarinet Concerto, Lei Liang's Harp Concerto, and the premiere of Yvonne Wu's Piano Concerto, with new music from Japan; curated and conducted by faculty member Aleck Karis.

Concerti by UC San Diego Department of Music composers take the spotlight in November 19's WEDNESDAYS@7 performance by Palimpsest, the department's resident chamber ensemble, curated by Aleck Karis. Lei Liang's Harp Concerto, included on his 2011 CD Milou, will be performed at the Conrad Prebys Music Center by Los Angeles harpist Alison Bjorkedal, a member of Southwest Chamber Music, the Golden State Pops Orchestra and MUSE/IQUE, and whose recordings include Southwest Chamber Music's Complete Chamber Music of Carlos Chavez, Volume 4 and William Kraft's Encounters, both nominated for Latin Grammies. Karis has also invited Yiheng Yvonne Wu, a Ph.D. Candidate in Music Composition studying with Katharina Rosenberger, to write a small piano concerto for this concert. Scored for solo piano (Kyle Adam Blair), two percussionists (Jonathan Hepfer and Ryan Nestor), and a nine-piece ensemble of winds, brass, and strings, Dreams of a Young Piano explores the contradictory percussive and lyrical properties of the piano, especially in relation to other instruments. The piano and percussion, which form a wide triangle across the stage, initially exchange pointed attacks, while the ensemble's intermittent appearances come from a separate temporal and harmonic world. The percussion and piano gradually elongate their sounds and enlist the forces of the ensemble. Ultimately, the ensemble becomes an extension of the piano, and all resonate together as a single body. In addition to the pieces by UC San Diego composers Liang and Wu, Karis has selected Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Donald Martino's rarely heard Triple Concerto for clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabass clarinet (1977), considered by many to be the composer's masterpiece. Martino's provenance reaches back to his work with composers Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt as well as his studies with Luigi Dallapiccola in Italy as a Fulbright scholar. November 19's concert will also feature Akira Kobayashi's Glass swan, Naoyuki Terai's Colors in the Forest, and Hiroyuki Yamamoto's Contour-ism mini.

Program:

Donald Martino – Triple Concerto
Lei Liang – Harp Concerto
Yvonne Wu – Dreams of a Young Piano
Tomoyuki Hisatome – Un luogo sulla terra
Akira Kobayashi – Glass swan
Naoyuki Terai – Colors in the Forest
Hiroyuki Yamamoto – Contour-ism mini

performance and sonic obstruction of sounds 4(a)
Gust Burns
Tyler Borden, cello

Quartet for Clarinet, Horn, Cello, and Snare Drum
Bohuslav Martinu
Michiko Ogawa, clarinet
Nicolee Kuester, horn
Eric Moore, cello
Fiona Digney, snare drum

Improvisation
Steven Leffue, saxophone
Kyle Motl, bass
Kjell Nordeson, percussion

The One With Joey's Dirty Day
Todd Moellenberg

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

MATTHEW KLINE, DOUBLE BASS GRADUATE RECITAL

Program:

Fernanda Aoki Navarro - Too Big for the Door
Roger Reynolds - imAge/imagE
Chinary Ung - Gliding Wind
Kenneth Gaburo - Inside
Krzysztof Penderecki - Capriccio Per Siegfried Palm
John Dorhauer - Inarritu (World Premier)

Also featuring:
Michael Matsuno - Flute
Kyle Adam Blair - Piano

Matt Kline is equally at home as a double bassist, composer and improviser. His music often combines all three of these areas and has provided him a very diverse musical career. As a double bassist, he writes extensively for the instrument using new and original techniques. In 2010, his piece Fragments for solo bass was awarded the grand prize in the International Society of Bassist’s composition competition. Recently, he performed as principal double bassist under the conductor and composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Upon the composer’s request, Matt performed his own adaptation of Penderecki’s Capriccio for Sigfried Palm. He previously was a member of the Renew ensemble, a group that specialized in contemporary improvisation.

He has received commissions and/or performances from Sandor Ostlund, Todd Meehan, Dennis Whittaker, Maggie Hasspacher, Rodolfo Morales, Thomas Bacon, Alicia Lawyer, members of the Czech Philharmonic and others. In 2008 he was a winner in the Robert Avalon composition competition. He has participated in the Academy Westfalen in Germany, CASMI program in Prague, Domaine Forget, Fresh Inc and Texas music festivals. Matt received his undergraduate in composition from Baylor University where he studied with Scott McAllister and Sandor Ostlund. In 2011, he lived in Paris, France where he studied with international bass soloist and pedagogue Francois Rabbath. He holds both performing and teaching diplomas from his institute. He studies double bass performance with Mark Dresser.

Under the direction of Stephanie Richards, the MUS 201B Improvisation Ensemble presents their course concert.

Under the direction of Ken Anderson, the UC San Diego Gospel Choir performs spirituals as well as traditional and contemporary Gospel music.

Students from Aleck Karis' piano studio perform selected works.

Inside Voices

D.M.A candidate Bonnie Lander presents a somatic aural understanding of the inner world of sound that we all experience in our day to day lives.  Combined with live improvisation, this work could be considered a concerto for improvising soprano and black box theater. The music has been spatialized in the theater by composer James Bean and gives the listener the uncanny sense of being inside someone else's head.  Lighting by Lily Bartenstein.  Additional musicians include cellist Judith Hamann and saxophonist Drew Ceccato.

Under the direction of Anthony Davis, the MUS 201A Improvisation Ensemble focused on the music of Wadada Leo Smith presents their course concert.

Kyle Adam Blair and Todd Moellenberg present a duo recital. The program includes two-piano works by Claude Debussy, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti, a world premiere by Hunjoo Jung for piano and prepared piano, and Stockhausen's Refrain, for piano, celesta, and percussion, with Ryan Nestor.

Under the direction of Mark Dresser,  MUS 131 Advanced Improvisation Techniques presents their course concert.

Pianist Michael Mizrahi, a guest of Aleck Karis, performs works by Beethoven as well as several newly composed works from the 21^st century.

Mr. Mizrahi has won acclaim for his compelling performances of a wide-ranging repertoire and his ability to connect with audiences of all ages. He has appeared as concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and teaching artist across the United States and abroad.  Mr. Mizrahi has performed in the world’s leading concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Toyko’s Suntory Hall, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Jordan Hall and the Gardner Museum in Boston, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Chicago Cultural Center and Houston’s Jones Hall. He has performed as soloist with major orchestras including the Houston Symphony, National Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Sioux City Symphony, and Prince Georges Philharmonic. He has given solo recitals at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC and has made repeated appearances on the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago. His chamber music festival appearances include Music@Menlo, Verbier, the Yellow Barn Music Festival, and the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. Mr. Mizrahi won First Prize and the Audience Choice Award in the Ima Hogg International Competition, as well as first prizes in the International Bartók-Kabalevsky Competition and the Iowa International Piano Competition. He won third prize in the San Antonio International Piano Competition in 2006. Mr. Mizrahi appeared for many years on the active roster of Astral Artists.

Michael Mizrahi received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia, where his concentrations were in music, religion and physics. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank. After his Philadelphia debut recital, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that “…the performance had transparency, revealing a forward-moving logic and chord voices you didn’t previously realize were there…textures were sumptuous.”

He is currently Assistant Professor of Piano at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Watch more on Mizrahi here:

The Bright Motion from New Amsterdam Records on Vimeo.

Graduate computer music students perform original works in a concert featuring experimental music, performance art, and visual music.

With her "wonted skill and poise", soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest presents her first recital-in-residence toward fulfillment of her Doctorate of Musical Arts degree. Lyrical settings of emotionally-charged poetry juxtapose fragmented musical offerings of Sylvia Plath and text of utter nonsense in this magical music of the past century.

Program:
Gabriel Faure: L'horizon chimérique, Op. 118
   Kyle Adam Blair, piano
Kaija Saariaho: From the Grammar of Dreams
   Sara Perez, soprano
Wolfgang Rihm: Drei Hölderlin-Gedichte
   Kyle Adam Blair, piano
Per Nørgård: Fons Laetitiae
   Tasha Smith Godinez, harp
György Ligeti: Mysteries of the Macabre
   Siu Hei Lee, piano

Soprano Kirsten Ashley Wiest is “a new music natural” committed to the continuous evolution of classical vocal music. Her “wonted skill and poise” has captured the attention of many composers, resulting in several world premiere performances and close collaborations. Kirsten has worked with Ben Johnston, Jeffrey Holmes, Denis Kolokol, Ellen Reid, and Christopher Rountree, among others.
Kirsten has sung as a soloist with wild Up new music collective, the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, UCLA John Cage Symposium, kallisti chamber opera, UCSD's Palimpsest, CalArts New Century Players Ensemble, and Chapman University’s New Music Ensemble. She has also performed with The Industry - LA’s home for experimental opera, San Diego Pro Arte Voices, the Metroplex Opera Company in Dallas, and the Texas 'Lone Star' Ambassadors of Music.
Currently a DMA student at UCSD under the instruction of Grammy award-winning soprano Susan Narucki, Kirsten holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a BM cum laude from Chapman University’s Conservatory of Music, where she was awarded the New Music Award for her outstanding commitment to the performance of contemporary works.

Under the direction of Kamau Kenyatta, the students of 95JC present jazz in concert.

Under the direction of Jonathan Hepfer, the UCSD Chamber Orchestra performs.

An inter-campus concert presentation of collaborative work between graduate students at UC San Diego and UC Irvine, under the direction of Mark Dresser and Michael Dessen, respectively.  Musicians in remote locations perform together through a medium of telepresence enabled by high speed internet.

International Contemporary Ensemble performs the Coalescence Cycle, six works for instruments and electronics by Rand Steiger, developed during his composer residency at Calit2.

Cyclone (2013) - clarinet and electronics
Joshua Rubin, clarinet

Concatenation (2012) – bassoon and electronics
Rebekah Heller, bassoon

Light on Water (2012) – flute, piano and electronics
Claire Chase, flute; Jacob Greenberg, piano

Template for Improvising Trumpeter and Ensemble (2013)
Peter Evans, trumpet; Steven Schick conductor

Mourning Fog (2012) – cello and electronics
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello

Coalescence (2013) – thirteen soloists and electronics
Steven Schick, conductor

ICE is dedicated to reshaping the way music is created and experienced.

International Contemporary Ensemble
Claire Chase, flute
Alice Teyssier, flute
Nick Masterson, oboe
Campbell MacDonald, clarinet
Rebekah Heller, bassoon
David Byrd-Marrow, horn
Peter Evans, trumpet
Jacob Greenberg, piano
Nathan Davis, percussion
Ross Karre, percussion
Jennifer Curtis, violin
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cello
Randall Zigler, bass

This program is sponsored by CalIt2 and the UC San Diego Department of Music.

UCSD WIND ENSEMBLE

Under the direction of Robert Zelickman, the 95L Wind Ensemble performs at Mandeville Auditorium.

CHAMBER ENSEMBLES

Under the direction of Takae Ohnishi, undergraduate chamber ensembles perform.

Dustin Donahue, percussion and Matt Barbier, trombone

Richard Barrett, EARTH
John Cage, Variations II for four snare drums
Nicholas Deyoe, facesplitter
John Cage, Ryoanji
Roger Reynolds, From Behind the Unreasoning Mask

Steven Schick conducts

William Grant Still             Afro-American Symphony
Ludwig van Beethoven    Symphony No. 9

Guest artist: Natalie Mann soprano; Peabody Southwell, mezzo-soprano; Enrique Toral, tenor; Ron Banks, bass

In December 1989 Leonard Bernstein led an international orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, which had just been demolished. We mark the 25th anniversary of that historic concert with a performance of the same music. The concert opens with a different declaration of freedom: William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony of 1930 was the first significant symphony by an African-American composer. Nearly a century later, it remains a compelling piece of music.

Steven Schick conducts

William Grant Still             Afro-American Symphony
Ludwig van Beethoven    Symphony No. 9

Guest artist: Natalie Mann soprano; Peabody Southwell, mezzo-soprano; Enrique Toral, tenor; Ron Banks, bass

In December 1989 Leonard Bernstein led an international orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, which had just been demolished. We mark the 25th anniversary of that historic concert with a performance of the same music. The concert opens with a different declaration of freedom: William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony of 1930 was the first significant symphony by an African-American composer. Nearly a century later, it remains a compelling piece of music.

Lawrence Lee Concert at UC San Diego
Featuring the works of:
J.S. Bach
F. Chopin
L.V. Beethoven
and
Original Compositions

Steven Schick conducts

William Grant Still             Afro-American Symphony
Ludwig van Beethoven    Symphony No. 9

Guest artist: Natalie Mann soprano; Peabody Southwell, mezzo-soprano; Enrique Toral, tenor; Ron Banks, bass

In December 1989 Leonard Bernstein led an international orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, which had just been demolished. We mark the 25th anniversary of that historic concert with a performance of the same music. The concert opens with a different declaration of freedom: William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony of 1930 was the first significant symphony by an African-American composer. Nearly a century later, it remains a compelling piece of music.

Frank Gratkowski - Chris Brown - William Winant

California meets Germany happens to be the headline of this trio of Frank Gratkowski, William Winant, and Chris Brown. Maybe the story-behind-the-story here is that great minds think alike and great improvisers improvise, well...greatly.

German composer/reed musician Frank Gratkowski has been active on the European scene for the last 20 years. He has an affinity for strong pianist like George Graewe, Misha Mengelberg and Achim Kaufmann, and drummers including Gerry Hemingway and Tony Oxley. It seems natural that he would connect with pianist Chris Brown and percussionist William Winant. Both West Coast artists have been associated with Glenn Spearman and Larry Ochs of ROVA fame.

-Mark Corroto, allaboutjazz.com

SCHUBERT, MOZART AND CHAUSSON
A Camera Lucida Concert

Jeff Thayer, violin
Che-Yen Chen, viola
Charles Curtis, cello
Reiko Uchida, piano

SCHUBERT: String Trio Fragment in B-flat Major
MOZART: Duo for Violin and Viola in G Major, K. 423
CHAUSSON: Piano Quartet in A Major, Op. 30

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Recognized for its virtuosity, exuberant performance style, and often-daring repertory choices, during the past two decades the Pacifica Quartet has gained international stature as one of the finest chamber ensembles performing today. From its early days as winner of the Naumburg and Avery Fisher Awards to its Grammy-honored recordings, chamber music lovers have been following the impressive rise of the Pacifica Quartet for years. Fresh and daring, their strikingly personal interpretations of classical and contemporary composers are performed with “remarkable unanimity of vibrato, attack, and volume” (The New York Times). The ensemble returns to ArtPower! with a program displaying its members’ deep musical instincts.

Simin Ganatra, violin; Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Brandon Vamos, cello.

SPONSORS Eric Lasley and Judith Bachner, Amnon and Lee Ben-Yehuda

Pure Intuitive Act, Robert Jedrzejewski (cello)
Video Score Project, Robert Jedrzejewski (cello/video)
Business Music, Tobin Chodos (piano) / Robert Jedrzejewski (cello)
Lubrication, Tobin Chodos (piano) / Kyle Motl (bass) / Robert Jedrzejewski (cello)
Trance, Tobin Chodos (piano) / Drew Ceccato (sax) / Kyle Motl (bass) / Robert Jedrzejewski (cello)
12 Strings, Judith Hamann / Tyler Borden / Robert Jedrzejewski (cellos)

Supported by Culture.pl

New compositions written for Ensemble Etcetera.  Performed in support of the Music 103A composition final.

Undergraduate composers advised by Distinguished Professor of Music Chinary Ung.

A Concert of Premieres: Six world premiere performances of pieces written by 1st year graduate students in composition: Anahita Abbasi, Tobin Chodos, Caroline Miller, Justin Murphy-Mancini, Celeste Oram, and Theocharis Papatrechas.  Performances will feature: Tyler Borden (cello), Christopher Clarino (percussion), Fiona Digney (percussion), Jonathan Nussman (baritone), Michiko Ogawa (clarinets), and Hillary Young (soprano).

All pieces will be juried by the distinguished members of the Composition and Performance faculty for discussion on the following day. Jury response and discussion session with faculty, composers and performers is open to the public and will begin Saturday, January 17th at 10:00am in CPMC 231.

Discussion session for A Concert of Premieres: Six pieces written by 1st year graduate students in composition: Anahita Abbasi, Tobin Chodos, Caroline Miller, Justin Murphy-Mancini, Celeste Oram, and Theocharis Papatrechas. 

Renowned composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith makes a rare West Coast appearance for a concert featuring his Ten Freedom Summers: Defining Moments in the History of the United States of America. Premiered at REDCAT in Los Angeles in 2012 and performed in Brooklyn the following year for the 50th anniversary of The March on Washington, D.C., the work was inspired by the civil rights movement. Joining Smith onstage at UCSD are pianist Anthony Davis of the music faculty, bassist John Lindberg, harpist Alison Bjorkedal and music department video artist Jesse Gilbert. Davis performs with Smith on the 4-CD box set of Ten Freedom Summers. Last year the pair played concerts in Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Wroclaw, Poland, where they recorded Smith's latest composition, on the theme of solidarity, with the Golden Quartet and the Wroclaw Philharmonic. Davis and Smith have made music together for something like 45 years, beginning when Davis was teenage wiz in a trio including Smith as well as trombonist George Lewis.

ODC is known worldwide for its athleticism, passion and intellectual depth. The San Francisco-based dance company has been widely recognized for its seamless fusion of ballet and modern techniques, all made more thrilling by the visceral physicality of its dancers. The company of eleven world-class artists will perform the imaginative repertory of Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kate Weare in an evening of dance that will take ArtPower! audiences on an unexpected journey with each work. Of Triangulating Euclid, the San Francisco Chronicle writes: “There's a point-to-point logic to the piece that seems as irresistible and inevitable as those ancient mathematical theorems. The new work flows, twirls and regroups with utter confidence.” 

MASTER CLASS SPONSOR Renita Greenberg

***PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CONCERT WILL BEGIN AT 7:00 P.M.***

gegenwhallaby | four little infinite lullabies & a point

gnarwhallaby presents a concert of works spanning the 40 year history of it's instrumentation. Music written for Poland's warsztat muzyczny [the instrumentation's originators] by Wlodzimierz Kotonski, Henryk Gorecki, and Hans-Joachim Hespos are paired with Mathias Spahlinger's expansive gegen unendlich, written for Germany's Quartett Avance.  The program is rounded out with Lullaby 4 by UCSD Alum, Nicholas Deyoe.

gnarwhallaby is Brian Walsh [Clarinets], Matt Barbier [trombones], Derek Stein [cello], and Richard Valitutto [piano].

Hans-Joachim Hespos- Point [1971]
Wlodzimierz Kotonski- Pour Quatre [1968]
Mathias Spahlinger- gegen unendlich [1995]
Henryk Mikolaj Górecki- Muzyczka IV [Koncert Puzonowy], op. 28. [1970]
Nicholas Deyoe- Lullaby 4 [2013]

947   - Alvin Lucier  (2001)
Density 21. 5 – Edgard Var­­èse (1946)
Septet – Alvin Lucier  (1985)
Unanswered Questions – Tristan Murail (1995)
The Bronze Age – Tristan Murail (2012)

with
MATT BARBIER, trombone - ERIC KM CLARK, violin & viola
ORIN HILDESTAD, violin – JONATHAN STEHNEY, bassoon
DEREK STEIN, cello – RICHARD VALITUTTO, piano
BRIAN WALSH, clarinet  - SCOTT WORTHINGTON, bass

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

Bonnie Lander, improvisation

Tiene Duende - Xavier Beteta

           Xavier Beteta, piano (7)

Toucher - Vinko Globokar

          Jonathan Hepfer, percussion (10)

Improv - Tommy Babin, bass and Kyle Blair, piano

As musical access evolves alongside technology and ever-shifting culture, the performing artist is confronted with a question:  is live performance essential? This concert offers five pieces and their various answers to this question.

Nota Bene (Installation) - Jennifer Bewerse
Study No.30 - Ryan Ross Smith
Asymmetries - Jackson Mac Low
Failing - Tom Johnson
Weather Music - Monte Weber
She Was A Visitor - Robert Ashley

Focusing on the many interactions that take place in a concert space, the full realizations of these works are only available in the moments they are exchanged between the performer and audience. A case for live performance is made with compositional ideas that live fully only within the moment of performance.

Michael Finnissy: Same as We
Thomas Ades: Five Eliot Landscapes
Gyorgy Ligeti: Három Weöres-dal
Beat Furrer: Lotofagos I
Kaija Saariaho: From the Grammar of Dreams
 
Featuring performers: Todd Moellenberg, Matt Kline, Kirsten Wiest

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 5-8PM
the newest sound installation and performance art pieces will go up
@ CPMC's Experimental Theatre - CPMC 365 - south staircase - ground level hallway

featuring works of
Fernanda Aoki Navarro / Jennifer Bewerse / Kyle Blair / Stefani Byrd /
Judith Hamann / Kevin Haywood / Annie Hsieh / Tina Tallon /
Ine Vanoeveren /  Kevin Zhang

with special performances at the Experimental Theatre
7pm Fernanda Aoki Navarro
6pm / 7.30pm Kyle Blair

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

Le Corps à Corps - Georges Aperghis

           Jonathan Hepfer, percussion (10)

L's GA - Salvatore Martirano

          Christopher Clarino, poet/performer (24)

Bone Alphabet - Brian Ferneyhough

           Jonathan Hepfer, percussion (12)

Kyle Motl presents a recital of music for solo contrabass:

Ana-Maria Avram: Axe VII
Anthony Braxton: Compositions 110A/69Q/23O/69B
Hans-Werner Henze: S. Biagio 9 Agosto ore 12.07
György Kurtág: Signs, Games and Messages
Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata K. 34
Stefano Scodanibbio: Due pezzi brillanti

Tuesday, February 3rd - Installation hours: 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

4:00 p.m. - Opening: Public conversation with Ross Karre and Katharina Rosenberger

An open installation featuring Roger Reynolds’s intermedia pieces:
george WASHINGTON, PING, MARKed MUSIC, and Sanctuary.

Curated by Ross Karre

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds' 80th birthday will be celebrated with a symposium, (Feb. 3), concert (Feb. 4) and multimedia exhibit (Feb. 3-5). Reynolds has mentored many generations of composers since he joined UCSD's music faculty in 1969. The concert will feature the Arditti Quartet, which has premiered and recorded several works by Reynolds. Along with music for string quartet and electronics by Reynolds, the program includes compositions by Chaya Czernowin (UCSD alumna and former music faculty, now on the Harvard faculty) and Ben Hackbarth (music alumnus, now head of composition at the University of Liverpool). The three-day installation is curated by percussionist, video artist, and UCSD alumnus Ross Karre, now a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. It will highlight the works PING (1968), Sanctuary (2007), and george WASHINGTON (2013), as well as elements of other works by Reynolds. The symposium is titled The Interaction of Scientific and Artistic Imagination: Perceptual Studies and the Making of Music. Speakers will include Stephen McAdams (Canada), Philippe Lalitte (France), and Aniruddh Patel (Tufts University, Boston). Following their talks, they will be joined Reynolds, Karre and composer Katharina Rosenberger (UCSD music faculty) for a round table discussion moderated by composer and percussionist Steven Schick of the music faculty. Reynolds' life and work are extensively documented online in the Library of Congress's Roger Reynolds Collection.
 

Wednesday, February 4th - Installation hours: 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

An open installation featuring Roger Reynolds’s intermedia pieces:
george WASHINGTON, PING, MARKed MUSIC, and Sanctuary.

Curated by Ross Karre

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds' 80th birthday will be celebrated with a symposium, (Feb. 3), concert (Feb. 4) and multimedia exhibit (Feb. 3-5). Reynolds has mentored many generations of composers since he joined UCSD's music faculty in 1969. The concert will feature the Arditti Quartet, which has premiered and recorded several works by Reynolds. Along with music for string quartet and electronics by Reynolds, the program includes compositions by Chaya Czernowin (UCSD alumna and former music faculty, now on the Harvard faculty) and Ben Hackbarth (music alumnus, now head of composition at the University of Liverpool). The three-day installation is curated by percussionist, video artist, and UCSD alumnus Ross Karre, now a member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. It will highlight the works PING (1968), Sanctuary (2007), and george WASHINGTON (2013), as well as elements of other works by Reynolds. The symposium is titled The Interaction of Scientific and Artistic Imagination: Perceptual Studies and the Making of Music. Speakers will include Stephen McAdams (Canada), Philippe Lalitte (France), and Aniruddh Patel (Tufts University, Boston). Following their talks, they will be joined Reynolds, Karre and composer Katharina Rosenberger (UCSD music faculty) for a round table discussion moderated by composer and percussionist Steven Schick of the music faculty. Reynolds' life and work are extensively documented online in the Library of Congress's Roger Reynolds Collection.

Thursday, February 5th - Installation hours: 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

An open installation featuring Roger Reynolds’s intermedia pieces:
george WASHINGTON, PING, MARKed MUSIC, and Sanctuary

Curated by Ross Karre

Transcripture

Curt Miller presents experiments in the transcription of machine
performance, recorded performance and spiritual performance.

(Solo For Wounded CD)
    I. 133 (trans. CDM)
    II. 141 (trans. fiddle~, arr. CDM)

Performance Practice (for JPR and DL)

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Third Appearing
    I. Manifestations
    II. Holy Ghost People

Curt Dallace Miller, clarinets + electronics
with:
Dustin Donahue, percussion
Scott Worthington, double bass

Steven Schick conducts

Osvaldo Golijov Azul
Chinary Ung Khse Buon
Carl Nielsen Symphony No. 4

Guest Artist: Maya Beiser, cello

Local audiences will recall Maya Beiser’s splendid performances of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the La Jolla Symphony in 2007. She returns to play two works: Golijov’s Azul, a cello concerto written for Yo-Yo Ma, and Khse Buon by UCSD composer Chinary Ung, a piece for unaccompanied cello written in response to tragic events in the composer’s native Cambodia. The concert concludes with Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable” Symphony, an earthshaking statement of faith in life composed during the darkest days of World War I.

Steven Schick conducts

Osvaldo Golijov Azul
Chinary Ung Khse Buon
Carl Nielsen Symphony No. 4

Guest Artist: Maya Beiser, cello

Local audiences will recall Maya Beiser’s splendid performances of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the La Jolla Symphony in 2007. She returns to play two works: Golijov’s Azul, a cello concerto written for Yo-Yo Ma, and Khse Buon by UCSD composer Chinary Ung, a piece for unaccompanied cello written in response to tragic events in the composer’s native Cambodia. The concert concludes with Nielsen’s “Inextinguishable” Symphony, an earthshaking statement of faith in life composed during the darkest days of World War I.

Flutist Rachel Beetz presents “A Life of Many Hats” a recital based on works which explore idiomatic techniques of specific performers as well as the life cycle. In performing these works, Rachel attempts to transform herself into these performers and characters.

Peter Ablinger – Parker Notch
Salvatore Sciarrino – Morte tamburo
Vinko Globokar – Monolith
John Fonville – Music for Sarah
Roger Reynolds – imAge/flute (US premiere)
Peter Ablinger – A California Score

The New York Times calls red fish blue fish a "dynamic percussion ensemble from the University of California." Founded twenty years ago by Steven Schick, the San Diego-based ensemble performs, records, and premieres works from the last 85 years of western percussion's rich history.

red fish blue fish performs Michael Gordon's Timber.

Michael Gordon's Timber, is scored for six wooden 2x4s, each cut into different sizes, giving each one a slightly different pitch. Called a "simantra", this percussion instrument was first devised by composer Iannis Xenakis. Far from a gimmick, the instrumentation allows Gordon to create the impression that the sound is traveling around and through the room by subtly shifting the accent of sound from one player to another. The result is a meditation on sound and rhythm, bringing the physicality, endurance and technique of percussion performance to a new level.

Josh Charney presents an evening of occult wonder, spontaneous forms, and Persian melodies. This recital will feature compositions by Darvish Khan, Jon Forshee, and Charney himself. Performers include…
Josh Charney - Piano
Jon Forshee - Voice
Kyle Motl - Bass
Andrew Munsey - Drums

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

Dubbed “The Young American String Quartet of the Moment” by The New Yorker, the Dover Quartet is considered one of the most remarkably talented ensembles ever to emerge at such a young age. The Quartet swept the 2013 Banff International String Quartet Competition, winning the Grand Prize as well as all three Special Prizes: the R.S. Williams & Sons Haydn Prize for the best performance of Haydn, the Székely Prize for the best performance of Schubert, and the Canadian Commission Prize for the best performance of a newly commissioned work. ArtPower! audiences are in for an impressive program as The Strad raved that the Quartet is “already pulling away from their peers with their exceptional interpretive maturity, tonal refinement, and taut ensemble.” 

Joel Link, violin; Bryan Lee, violin; Milena Pajaro-ven de Stadt, viola; Camden Shaw, cello.

SPONSOR Sam Ersan

UCSD STUDENT MASTER CLASS SPONSORS Eric Lasley and Judith Bachner

MENDELSSOHN, BRAHMS AND SCHUBERT
A Camera Lucida Concert

MENDELSSOHN: Lied ohne Worte for Cello and Piano in D Major, Op. 109
BRAHMS: Sonata for Cello and Piano in E minor, Op. 38
SCHUBERT: Quintet for Piano and Strings in A Major, D. 667: The Trout

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Michael Nicolas, cello and Aleck Karis, piano

Performing a concert featuring music for cello and piano by New York composers.

Charles Wuorinen - An Orbicle of Jasp (1999)
Earle Brown - Music for Cello and Piano (1955)
Ben Weber - Five Pieces, op. 13 (1941)
Morton Feldman - Durations II (1960)
Elliott Carter - Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948)

With their distinctive dynamism sparked by Pacific Island and Maori heritage, the Black Grace dancers take possession of the stage—and own the audience—from the first moment; and they never let go. Eloquent yet elemental, athletic yet spiritual, they are primed for the physical and artistic rigors of artistic director Neil Ieremia’s choreography. A deeply personal work, Gathering Clouds is a response to controversial claims made in a leading New Zealand newspaper by an economist who warns that Polynesians living in New Zealand display “significant and enduring under-achievement”– a problem he believes immigration is making worse. ArtPower! dance fans will be mesmerized by the highly physical work, rich in the story telling traditions of the South Pacific, and expressed with raw finesse, beauty, and power.

Samuel Dunscombe - DMA Recital II
Music for clarinets and electronics.

Horatiu Radulescu - Capricorn's Nostalgic Crickets
Hunjoo Jung - Gok
Iancu Dumitrescu - Opus 1: Metamorphoses
Ana-Maria Avram - Telesma II

Felipe Rossi presents an evening of recently composed works including solos, duos and chamber pieces with (and without) live electronics. Rossi
will be joined by Kjell Nordeson (percussion), Matt Kline (double bass), Kyle Motl (double bass), Robert Zelickman (clarinet), Tyler Borden (cello)
and other great musicians.

The first of two concerts on Wednesday, March 4th, curated by Steven Schick, honoring composer Brian Ferneyhough.
Featuring the Palimpsest and wasteLAnd ensembles.

Brian Ferneyhough – Superscriptio
Rachel Beetz, piccolo

Kevin Zhang - while twigs make minor adjustments
Kirsten Wiest, soprano
Michael Matsuno, flute
Curt Miller, clarinet
Batya Macadam Somer, violin
Tyler Borden, cello
Todd Moellenberg, piano
Steven Schick, conductor

Brian Ferneyhough - Sisyphus Redux
Ine Vanoeveren, flute

Brian Ferneyhough - Etudes Transcendentales
wasteLAnd, conducted by Nicholas Deyoe

Brian Ferneyhough - La Chute d’Icare
Anthony Burr, clarinet soloist
Batya Macadam-Somer, violin
Judith Hamann, cello
Matthew Kline, bass
Michael Matsuno, flutes
Paul Sherman, oboe
Kyle Blair, piano
Jonathan Hepfer, percussion
Steven Schick, conductor

Brian Ferneyhough - Fanfare for Klaus Huber
Ryan Nestor, Dustin Donahue, Percussion

Hunjoo Jung - La Chute d’Icare
Samuel Dunscombe, clarinet
Batya Macadam-Somer, violin
Judith Hamann, cello
Matthew Kline, bass
Michael Matsuno, flute
Paul Sherman, oboe
Kyle Blair, piano
Jonathan Hepfer, percussion
Steven Schick, conductor

Brian Ferneyhough - Time and Motion Study
Tyler Borden, cello
Paul Hembree, electronics
James Bean, audio technician

Brian Ferneyhough - Terrain
Mark Menzies, violin with wasteLAnd, conducted by Nicholas Deyoe

they banded together under the battle cry of ILLUSION!

Flutist Ine Vanoeveren explores the abstract side of some Greek myths in Brian Ferneyhough’s solo music for flute: optical dungeons in Superscriptio, fruitless predictions in Cassandra’s Dream Song, a satisfied condemned king in Sisyphus Redux and a forgotten muse in Mnemosyne.

Ine will also create 2 new works by UCSD composers James Bean and Fernanda Aoki Navarro.

B. Ferneyhough - Superscriptio
B. Ferneyhough - Cassandra’s Dream Song
J. Bean - ligament at distance (world premiere)
B. Ferneyhough - Sisyphus Redux
F. Aoki Navarro - Through (world premiere)
B. Ferneyhough - Mnemosyne
 
More info: http://www.inevanoeveren.com

The students of Mark Dresser present: BASS ENSEMBLES

Percussionist Dustin Donahue presents a recital of works by John Cage, Morton Feldman, Helmut Lachenmann, and Roger Reynolds. Donahue will also give the premiere performance of Kurt Isaacson’s new solo work, dust that will coat the lobes of her lungs with glittering stillness.

Join us as composer/performer Sam Wells presents an evening of contemporary works for trumpet , electronics, and video.

Per Bloland – Quintet for Solo Trumpet and Electronics (2005)
Samuel Wells – Minong (2012)
Paul Hembree – Blue Sky Catastrophe (rev. 2013)
Christopher Biggs – Decoherence (2014)
Elainie Lillios – November Twilight (2011)
Samuel Wells – (dys)functions (2011)

SCHOENBERG AND TCHAIKOVSKY
Monday, March 9, 2015
SCHOENBERG: Verklärte Nacht
TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Trio in A minor

Jeff Thayer, violin
Wayne Lee, violin
Brian Chen, viola
Chi-Yuan Chen, viola
Charles Curtis, cello
Ru-Pei Yeh, cello
Reiko Uchida, piano

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Under the direction of Kamau Kenyatta, the students of 95JC present jazz in concert.

Graduate piano performance students of Aleck Karis present an informal concert.

Under the direction of Jonathan Hepfer, the UCSD Chamber Orchestra performs works of full orchestras.

Directed by Ken Anderson, the choir combines hundreds of voices to fill the auditorium with the uplifting sound of African American spirituals, blues, traditional songs, and gospel.

The students of Projects in New Music Performance present their end of quarter concert featuring new music and site-specific engagement.

Under the instruction of Phil Larson, the students of Singers & Choirs present their end of quarter recital.

For her DMA II recital, cellist Judith Hamann performs Morton Feldman's Patterns in a Chromatic Field with pianist Todd Moellenberg.

This 80-minute performance will take place in the UCSD CPMC Concert Hall.

UC San Diego's Wind Ensemble presents their end of quarter concert, directed by Robert Zelickman.

Program:

SECOND HUNGARIAN  RHAPSODY- F. LISZT

CONCERTO FOR TROMBONE AND BAND- RIMSKY-KORSAKOV

1.     ALLEGRO VIVACE

2.     ANDANTE CANTABILE

3.     ALLEGRO

ERIC STARR, SOLOIST

THE  TOY TROMBONE- WARREN COVINGTON  TROMBONE QUARTET AND BAND

SYMPHONIC  DANCE NO. 1- RACHMANINOFF

INTERMISSION

TAHITI TROT- D. SHOSTAKOVICH

AFTER TEA FOR TWO- VINCENT YOUMANS

YAKETY SAX- BOOTS RANDOLPH (FEATURING THE SAXOPHONE SECTION)

MIDNIGHT SOLILOQUY- JOHN CACAVAS (FEATURING THE SAXOPHONE SECTION)

ROUMANIAN RHAPSODY NO. 1- GEORGES ENESCO

Under the direction of Takae Ohnishi, the students of Chamber Music Performance present small ensembles of representative instrumental and vocal chamber music literature.

Steven Schick conducts

Hector Berlioz Requiem

Guest artists: John Tiranno, tenor; San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus

Berlioz’s Grand messe des morts is one of the most fabulous pieces of music ever conceived. Berlioz composed it for performance in the vast Les Invalides in Paris, and he conceived it as an example of what he called “architectural music.” It was, in fact, an early example of quadraphonic music, for Berlioz wrote it for an ideal orchestra of 200 players, a chorus of 600, and four brass bands stationed in the corners of the hall surrounding the audience. For all its ear-splitting spectacle, the Requiem also offers some of Berlioz’s most heartfelt music. Added performance: Friday at 7:30 pm

An end of quarter concert presenting computer techniques for desktop audio, including audio editing, MIDI control, and real-time music algorithms.

Steven Schick conducts

Hector Berlioz Requiem

Guest artists: John Tiranno, tenor; San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus

Berlioz’s Grand messe des morts is one of the most fabulous pieces of music ever conceived. Berlioz composed it for performance in the vast Les Invalides in Paris, and he conceived it as an example of what he called “architectural music.” It was, in fact, an early example of quadraphonic music, for Berlioz wrote it for an ideal orchestra of 200 players, a chorus of 600, and four brass bands stationed in the corners of the hall surrounding the audience. For all its ear-splitting spectacle, the Requiem also offers some of Berlioz’s most heartfelt music. Added performance: Friday at 7:30 pm

Steven Schick conducts

Hector Berlioz Requiem

Guest artists: John Tiranno, tenor; San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus

Berlioz’s Grand messe des morts is one of the most fabulous pieces of music ever conceived. Berlioz composed it for performance in the vast Les Invalides in Paris, and he conceived it as an example of what he called “architectural music.” It was, in fact, an early example of quadraphonic music, for Berlioz wrote it for an ideal orchestra of 200 players, a chorus of 600, and four brass bands stationed in the corners of the hall surrounding the audience. For all its ear-splitting spectacle, the Requiem also offers some of Berlioz’s most heartfelt music. Added performance: Friday at 7:30 pm

Wojtek Blecharz presents his PhD dissertation concert:

PART 1.
K'an for steel drum and ca. 130 sticks
Choice to remain silent for contrabass clarinet
The Map of Tenderness for cello solo

PART 2.
September (the next reading)

MYRIAD TRIO I
Johannes Brahms: Sonata for Cello and Piano in F Major, Op. 99
Georg Philipp Telemann, arr. The Myriad Trio: Triosonate in E minor, Twv 42:e6
Gustav Mahler, arr. Phillips – “Adagietto” from Symphony No. 5
Harald Genzmer – Trio for Flute, Viola & Harp

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

MUS 33B presents their course final, under the supervision of composer Ori Talmon. Their works will reflect their studies of notation, calligraphy, instrumentation, orchestration, and twentieth-century music literature.

The Elias String Quartet take their name from Mendelssohn’s oratorio, Elijah, of which Elias is its German form, and have quickly established themselves as one of the most intense and vibrant quartets of their generation. Writes The Scotland Herald: “The Elias String Quartet should not really be called a quartet. Although they are four string players, they don't play as four separate musicians but instead as one musical force to be reckoned with.” The Quartet was chosen to participate in BBC Radio‘s prestigious New Generation Artists’ scheme and is the recipient of a 2010 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. We know ArtPower! chamber music lovers will be swept up in the energy and dynamism of this incredible ensemble.

Sara Bitlloch, violin; Donald Grant, violin; Martin Saving, viola; Marie Bitlloch, cello.

PROGRAM
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 465 ("Dissonance"); Henri Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit, for String Quartet; Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C? minor, Op. 131

Kyle Adam Blair: DAVIDSBUND

In his second DMA recital, pianist Kyle Adam Blair explores the beauty of brevity, highlighting sets of “musical miniatures”. The four maverick composers whose music is presented during this concert could certainly have been frontrunners for membership alongside Florestan and Eusebius in the Davidsbund, Robert Schumann’s imaginary “League of David”, which forever battles against the (musical) Philistines.

Variationen für Klavier, Op. 27 (1936) – Anton Webern
Bagatelles (1985) – Peter Lieberson
Visions fugitives, Op. 22 (1915-1917) – Sergei Prokofiev
Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (1837) – Robert Schumann

The last Monday at noon concert is curated by Stephen Lewis, featuring works by him, Robin Hauffman, and Mark Applebaum.

Grad Forums provide an outlet for Music Department graduate students to present individual and collaborative works on their own terms.

ONGOING EVENT / hidden schedule

What can happen in 60 seconds? The universe expand by 2.760 miles. Data in fibreoptic cables circumnavigates the earth 7.5 times. 300 million of your cells die. A performance.
Microventions.wordpress.com

Tommy Babin & Kyle Motl present improvisations and new compositions for two basses. Followed by the Marks Brothers (Mark Dresser and Mark Helias: basses), and Mark Helias' Open Loose with Tom Rainey and Tony Malaby.

Just because composer, Nicholas Deyoe isn't dead, doesn't mean we can't celebrate his life's work. Yes, Nicholas Deyoe is very much ALIVE! In light of this shocking revelation, we will take pause to reflect upon his generous and visceral oeuvre.   

PROGRAM:

Lied/Lied

Lullaby 2

3 Dickinson Songs

still getting rid of

Join the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography for the third annual Immersion@Birch Aquarium concert. This special evening under the sea features musical performances from UC San Diego music graduate students. On April 19 from 6-8pm, visitors can stroll through the aquarium and encounter live and recorded pieces specifically curated for this unique event. Performances include intimate chamber music in front of the two-story Kelp Forest tank, silent sea-themed film in the Galleria, live Gamelan music on the Tide-Pool Plaza, free jazz near the Elasmo Beach Sharks, and electronic music based on live video tracking of jellyfish in the Hall of Fishes.

Music by: Osvaldo Golijov, Edward Hamel, David Lang, and Steve Reich

An evening of jazz and improvised music in two parts. At 8:30, Chaos Magic - Josh Charney, Andrew Munsey, and Kyle Motl, present new music for trio. At 9:30, a large ensemble improvisation featuring Josh Charney, Tommy Babin, Kyle Motl, Andrew Munsey, Nathan Hubbard, Stephanie Richards, Drew Ceccato, and Peter Kuhn.

"Polyester" is a new installation in a series of works created by collaborators, Curt Miller and Nichole Speciale in which audio transducers are embedded in suspended, unzipped sleeping bags to create an immersive sound environment in an intimate space. This work will explore the close relationships between material and memory, questioning the manner in which sound, touch and experience transfer familiarity and trigger memory with simple, mass-produced objects.

A recital of works for Flute and Clarinet, with world premieres by Ori Talmon and Kevin Zhang.

PROGRAM:
Esprit Rude/Esprit Doux (1985) - Elliott Carter
Untitled (2015) - Ori Talmon  *world premiere
Ko-Lho (1966) - Giacinto Scelsi
our energies propose we meet (2015) - Kevin Zhang *world premiere
All that is including me (1996) - Misato Mochizuki

A celebration of performance works from Shakespeare to Stein to 21st century writers, 400 Years of Sound Texts explores the music of the speaking voice and the grammar of pure sound.

Recent years have seen the expansion of research surrounding neuroplasticity and the ‘emotional brain.’ How is the notion of biological and psychological affect situated among modern health application and practice? What role does emotion play in music’s capacity to heal, and how does the interplay of the empirical and the existential stand to demystify the mind/body problem? This panel seeks to engage the potentialities and limitations of music in health and cognition.

UC San Diego's Graduate Student Association (GSA) hosts a social for Graduate Students with free beer and snacks featuring selected performances from Springfest 2015.

A rite. As the beating heart of the Earth.

The program will include music by Giacinto Scelsi, Pascal Dusapin, György Kurtag, Karlheinz Stockhausen and will feature paintings by Peter Kline.

Music & Motion is an exploration of the experience of motion through music, and music through motion. Musicians and dancers from UCSD’s graduate programs have teamed up for an exciting evening of visual music.

"Polyester" is a new installation in a series of works created by collaborators, Curt Miller and Nichole Speciale in which audio transducers are embedded in suspended, unzipped sleeping bags to create an immersive sound environment in an intimate space. This work will explore the close relationships between material and memory, questioning the manner in which sound, touch and experience transfer familiarity and trigger memory with simple, mass-produced objects.

Get hands on with the Audio Electronics Club’s handmade music hardware and software! Synthesizers, effects processors, control and performance systems, and more!

    Chris Donahue

    Kevin Haywood

    Joe Mariglio

    Colin Zyskowski

    + more!

Wave Energy Series No.3 is the third installment of an annual experimental music event on the UCSD campus. The event highlights often overlooked, but nonetheless important sound production practices and provides a forum for performance and discussion for artists and audiences from local and far-ung locales. This concert will include a new composition from Sam Dunscombe, as well as Joe Cantrell, who will perform Disco Vérité, a piece using three turntables and physical materials from broken sound equipment. 

The performing ensemble Family will host an open workshop Saturday night in the Experimental Theater. We will work with prompts that we have developed throughout the year that investigate our speaking and moving selves, through improvisation, game-playing, writing, and observation. Participants are welcome to join us at 6:30pm, and observers may stop by any time between 7 and 8:30pm. Participants are encouraged to RSVP at tmm884@gmail.com. 

***Please note that only audience members 17 years of age and up will be admitted as there will be brief nudity.***

Music written for and featuring electric guitars and basses. Works by Wolff, Pierzak, Flores, and Rzewski.

BRAHMS: Sonata for Viola and Piano in F minor, Op. 120, No. 2
MESSIAEN: Quartet for the End of Time

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Apparatus is the system of relationships that is established between two elements: the musical instrument and its player. While each element has the capacity to capture, interpret, model, control, or secure the gestures of the other element - it is the interaction and the changing of each element's role that form the concert. It is the mechanics of the physical act of playing guitar and how the body can become the extension of the instrument, its major manipulator, or simply both. 

Nico Couck performs music by Simon Steen-Andersen and Tiziano Manca, and new works by Brigitta Muntendorf, Kai Johannes Polzhofer and Dan Tramte. Integrating guitars, choreography, J.S. Bach, electronics, and even YouTube, Apparatus is a multimedia event in which the physical and mechanical duality is the denominator.

Program

Qualcomm Institute Composer in Residence Lei Liang, collaborating with Falko Kuester, Director of the institute’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), will present a public performance based on work funded by a 2014 Calit2 Strategic Research Opportunities (CSRO) grant to Liang.

The performance will feature new musical compositions by Liang and high-resolution, multispectral scans of 12 rare Chinese landscape paintings by 20th-century artist Huang Binhong (1865-1955). The paintings were on loan from Elna Tsao, with support from the San Francisco-based Mozhai Foundation, for digitization at UC San Diego in late January 2015. Liang, a professor of music at UC San Diego, is developing new concepts of sonic “shadows” and “lights” to craft a musical language for orchestration and sound spatialization. The multispectral imaging led by CISA3’s Kuester will also shed new light on the painter’s creative process by capturing detailed information (big data) about the materials, techniques and artistic processes used by Huang. The April 17 event will end a week of rehearsals, and it will give the campus and broader community an opportunity to experience how composer Liang transforms the big data into new sonic expressions and individualized experiences. He will use the Calit2 Theater's outsized VROOM display system to showcase the never-before-seen multispectral images of the paintings (captured in visible light as well as ultraviolet, infrared and other wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum), annotated by music.

PERSONNEL:
Lei Liang – Composer (Calit2, UCSD)
Falko Kuester – Visual Explorer (CISA3, UCSD)
Zachary Seldess – Principal Collaborator / Audio Software Developer
Greg Surges – Audio Software Developer
Samantha Stout – Cultural Heritage Engineer
Chris McFarland – Software Developer
Eric Hamdan - Audio System Developer
Eric Lo – Robotic Engineer
James Strawson – Robotic Engineer

This free event has limited seats available. Please register at http://hearing-landscapes.eventbrite.com/.

This year’s concert theme is “Harlem Hellfighters: Jazz Goes to War.” The program will feature jazz music brought to Paris from the United States during World War I by the “hellfighters,” a group of African American soldiers who fought valiantly during the war—even when they did not have equal rights at home.  

All proceeds and gifts benefit the Lytle Scholarship Endowment, which provides scholarships for graduates of The Preuss School UCSD attending UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College.  

Music 541 presents: Dustin Donahue, Pablo Gomez Cano, Scott Worthington

New works for percussion, guitar, and double bass by Stanford graduate composers: Constantin Basica, Eoin Callery, Andrew Greenwald, Alexandra Hay, Jessie, Marino, Iván Naranjo, Laura Steenberge

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Original, distinctive, and unconventional, Pablo Gomez's guitar is one of the most remarkable sounds of today's music scene. Decidedly different and away from all conventions, his repertoire includes various aesthetic tendencies: from classics of the twentieth century and contemporary pieces to works written expressly for him by renowned Mexican and international composers. His repertoire includes solo guitar; electro-acoustic music; duets with vocalist, percussion, and violin; and concerts with chamber ensembles and orchestras. This a musical diversity that has taken him to performances in concerts in the United States, Sweden, France, London, Germany, Austria, Spain , Canada, Latin America Chile, Venezuela, Iceland and in several cities in Mexico. He has shared the stage with world class performers, such as Susan Narucki, Christophe Desjardins, Steve Schick, Magnus Andersson, among others. He has been soloist with the Camerata de Las Americas, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Mexico City, the Orchestra of the University of Cincinnati, Carlos Chavez Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Fine Arts in Mexico City to name a few and has participated in various ensembles: The Contemporary Ensemble of Montreal (ECM)and the Kore Ensemble of Canada, the Ibero-American Ensemble of Madrid, the Latin American Quartet, Onix, Palimpsest Ensamble among others. He has performed in the Cervantino Festivals, Festival de México, Festival Internacional de Morelia as well as other dedicated to new music, including the Ferien Kurse für Neue Musik Darmsatadt, Radar, the Manuel Enriquez New Music Forum, the V Search Event in San Diego, and the Festival A Tempo in Caracas and Paris, among others. Pablo Gomez began his musical studies at the (Ollin Yoliztli) School Introduction to Music and Dance with maestro Gerardo Carrillo. He received his professional education at the National School of Music at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) where he graduated with honors. He also had private studies with Federico Bañuelos. With the support of Mexico's National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA), he attended a two-year specialization program in contemporary music in Stockholm, Sweden, with Magnus Andersson. He produced a CD Tañendo Recio, under the Quindecim label and has participated in various other professional recordings. Recently the label World Records produced the CD Miliou that includes a solo work perfumed by Gomez. In 2012 he received the "Interpreters with relevant Career" grant from Mexico's National Fund for the Arts. He currently teaches at UNAM's National School of Music and is pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of California at San Diego.

Scott Worthington (b. 1987) is a double bassist and composer based in Los Angeles. As a chamber musician and soloist he largely focuses on contemporary music and frequently commissions and premieres new works. These commissions have resulted in solos and concertos by Robert Morris, Juan Trigos, and numerous young composers. Upcoming premieres include works with electronics by Clarence Barlow, Brenna Noonan, and Gary Philo. Worthington is a founding member of ensemble et cetera, a trio for clarinet, percussion, and double bass. Since 2010, eleven works have been composed for their unique instrumentation and they have realized many open-score works by composers such as John Cage and Earle Brown. In 2013, &c. held an international composition competition which received over 250 applications and they currently working towards a studio recording of the winners' works. His other engagements span a variety of areas in contemporary music. Worthington’s interest in concert-length music led to many performances of Wolfgang von Schweintz's epic Plainsound Glissando Modulation, an eighty-minute duet in just intonation, with violinist Andrew McIntosh. Through his interest in electronic music, he has worked as a sound engineer for performances of a variety of electro-acoustic works by Boulez, Lucier, Meadowcroft, Reynolds, Sciarrino, and Stockhausen. He is also active in promoting contemporary music as a concert organizer. He served on the board of Ossia New Music for two years helping to expand their concert series and present 20th century repertoire pieces alongside premieres. In 2013 he co-founded wasteLAnd, a concert series in Los Angeles which presents Southern-Californian composers and performers. Worthington has performed around the world at the the Carlsbad Music Festival, the Chihuahua International Festival, June in Buffalo, the Lucerne Festival, Monday Evening Concerts, MicroFest, and the WithOutWalls Festival and spent three summers at the Lucerne Festival Academy working with Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain. His music has been performed around the United States by ensembles and soloists in art galleries, concert halls, and venues such as the Carlsbad Music Festival, the DiMenna Center, The Stone, and Roulette. He can be heard on Albany Records, Bridge Records, Hat Hut, Naxos, Populist Records, and Tzadik. Worthington studied at the Eastman School of Music with James VanDemark and the University of California, San Diego with Mark Dresser. While in San Diego, he also studied the Alexander Technique with Eileen Trobermann. He performs on a copy of a Lorenzo Carcassi bass built for him by Barrie Kolstein.

Dustin Donahue is a percussionist residing in San Diego, California. He is currently a doctoral student at the University of California, San Diego where he studies with Steven Schick and performs with the percussion group red fish blue fish. Prior to his arrival in southern California, Dustin studied with Anthony Di Sanza at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As a chamber musician, Dustin has performed in venues across North America, such as the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, the Ojai Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Aspen Music Festival, and Disney Hall in Los Angeles. With red fish blue fish, he has performed alongside Dawn Upshaw, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Dustin has also appeared as a soloist at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Carlsbad Music Festival, and the soundSCAPE Festival in Pavia, Italy. Dustin has recorded for Populist Records as part of composer Nicholas Deyoe's debut album, with throbbing eyes. He also appears on several upcoming releases from Mode Records, including the late works of Iannis Xenakis and the complete percussion works of John Cage. Devoted to the creation of new art, Dustin enthusiastically seeks collaboration with composers and artists. Recent premieres include works by John Luther Adams, Lewis Nielson, and Michael Pisaro, as well as a multitude of new pieces by young composers across the country.

ArtTalks! at The Loft, 7pm 

An ArtPower! fan favorite, the Emerson String Quartet stands apart in the history of string quartets with an unparalleled list of achievements over three decades: more than thirty acclaimed recordings, nine Grammys (including two for Best Classical Album), three Gramophone Awards, the Avery Fisher Prize, Musical America’s "Ensemble of the Year", and collaborations with many of the greatest artists of our time. With the arrival of cellist Paul Watkins in 2013, the Emerson Quartet has embarked on a remarkable new journey – one filled with freshness, warmth and impressive accolades. 

Eugene Drucker, violin; Philip Setzer, violin; Lawrence Dutton, viola; Paul Watkins, cello.

PROGRAM

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387; Benjamin Britten: String Quartet No.2 in C major, Op. 36; Ludwig van Beethoven: String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132

SPONSORS Joan Jordan Bernstein and Alexa Hirsch, Eric Lasley and Judith Bachner

KARTIK SESHADRI, SITAR MASTER

Sitar master Kartik Seshadri performs classical Indian ragas, accompanied by Pandit Arup Chattopadhyay. Seshadri's CD Sublime Ragas was recently among Songlines magazine's Top 10 "Top of the World" albums. His music has been praised by The Washington Post for its "espressive beauty, rich tonal sensibility, and rhythmic intricacy."

This concert is made possible by Chuan-Lyu Endowment at UC San Diego and the Spotlight Taiwan Project grant from the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan), Taiwan Academy of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, with additional support provided by Special Patron Dr. Samuel Yin. 

World-renowned pianist Pi-hsien Chen will perform works by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and new compositions written by Taiwanese composers Tzyy-Sheng Lee, Tsung-Hsien Yang, and Ying-Ting Lin.

Artist’s Biography
Pi-hsien Chen was born in Taiwan and came to Cologne when she was nine years old. One year later, she was admitted into the class of Hans-Otto Schmidt-Neuhaus. She won the first prizes at the ARD-International Piano Competition in Munich, the A. Schoenberg Competition in Rotterdam, and the J.S.Bach Competition in Washington D.C. She performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw-Orchestra, the Zurich-Tonhalle-Orchestra. Conductors with whom she has worked include Bernhard Haitink, Paul Sacher, Hans Zender, Péter Eötvös. Pi-hsien Chen took part in numerous international music festivals. Her increasing interest and engagement in contemporary music grew in cooperation with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtág and Elliott Carter. Moreover, she performed contemporary music with ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Asko Ensemble. More recently, her complete Mozart's Sonatas are released by Sunrise Records. Her recording of Scarlatti and Beethoven sonatas, along with John Cage and Stockhausen were released by HATnowART (Basel,Switzerland) to critical acclaim. Since 1983, Pi-hsien Chen was professor of piano at the University of Music in Cologne, and since 2004, at the University of Music in Freiburg.

THE MYRIAD TRIO II
A Camera Lucida Special Presentation

Che-Yen Chen, viola
Demarre McGill, flute
Julie Smith Phillips, harp

DEBUSSY: Nuage from “Nocturnes”
Reverie
LIEBERMANN: Sonata for Flute and Harp
SALZEDO: Chanson de la Nuit, arr. Phillips
DELIUS: Florida Suite, arr. Cavaterra

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Chris Rountree conducts

Leonard Bernstein    Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah”
Yeung-ping Chen    The Moon in La Jolla Nee Commission
Charles Ives        Symphony No. 2

Guest artist: Heather Johnson, mezzo-soprano

Special guest conductor Christopher Rountree, artistic director and conductor of wild Up, an adventurous chamber group that blends new music, classical repertoire, performance art and pop, leads a unique American program. Bernstein’s dramatic First Symphony was written while he was still in his twenties, and voted outstanding new classical work its debut year by the New York Music Critics Circle. Yeung-ping Chen will compose what is truly a twenty-first century work, a “tele-concerto” in which the orchestra will be in Mandeville and the soloists will “appear” with the orchestra via the internet. Ives’ popular Second Symphony fuses the great European symphony with popular American tunes.

Chris Rountree conducts

Leonard Bernstein    Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah”
Yeung-ping Chen    The Moon in La Jolla Nee Commission
Charles Ives        Symphony No. 2

Guest artist: Heather Johnson, mezzo-soprano

Special guest conductor Christopher Rountree, artistic director and conductor of wild Up, an adventurous chamber group that blends new music, classical repertoire, performance art and pop, leads a unique American program. Bernstein’s dramatic First Symphony was written while he was still in his twenties, and voted outstanding new classical work its debut year by the New York Music Critics Circle. Yeung-ping Chen will compose what is truly a twenty-first century work, a “tele-concerto” in which the orchestra will be in Mandeville and the soloists will “appear” with the orchestra via the internet. Ives’ popular Second Symphony fuses the great European symphony with popular American tunes.

Alice Teyssier DMA Recital III: (s)he who is never there

The Atelier is a multi-directional collaboration between Alice Teyssier, Michael Weyandt and Bradley Scott Rosen, in which singular, defined roles are abandoned in favor of co-creation and co-performance. For Alice Teyssier's final DMA recital, the Atelier presents '(s)he who is never there", exploring implications of absence and presence, modes of performance and technological reproduction/imitation, and the power of our senses in producing knowledge. Pieces by Gesualdo (16th century), Merula (17th century), Schubert (19th century), Nono, Xenakis and Gubaidulina (20th century) and Rosen (21st century) as well as numerous fragments of literary and philosophical texts are used as source materials to intensify the listening and intellectualization processes.

kallisti presents chamber opera:
THE THREEPENNY OPERA

------------------------------

Since its premiere in 1929, The Threepenny Opera has challenged and captivated audiences worldwide.   It has been performed over 10,000 times and translated into 18 languages. For kallisti's sixth opera project, we turn to this classic work of music theater.

Led by Grammy award winning soprano Susan Narucki, kallisti draws its singers from the graduate program in Contemporary Music Performance at UC San Diego and distinguished guest artists.

------------------------------

Performances: May 6, 8, and 9 at 7:00 p.m.  Sunday, May 10 at 2:00 p.m.

------------------------------

THE THREEPENNY OPERA is presented through special arrangement with R & H Theatricals: www.rnh.com

Space Administration

Space Administration sets a visual presentation of Ken Hunt’s poem "Apollo Spacecraft"  inside music for bass and electronics by Scott Worthington. The poem uses NASA’s voice transcript of the Apollo 11 mission by erasing most of the words and leaving the time stamps. Through the erasure, Hunt creates an ode to the god Apollo and a rumination on space travel. Worthington’s music lets the bass float weightlessly above a galactic electronic background, created mostly with a Moog synthesizer (a company which became popular just a few years before the Apollo 11 mission).

poetrywillbemadebyall.ch/book/space-administration/ (free pdf download of Hunt’s poem)

scottworthington.com

spacecraftpress.wordpress.com (Ken Hunt’s press)

kallisti presents chamber opera:
THE THREEPENNY OPERA

------------------------------

Since its premiere in 1929, The Threepenny Opera has challenged and captivated audiences worldwide.   It has been performed over 10,000 times and translated into 18 languages. For kallisti's sixth opera project, we turn to this classic work of music theater.

Led by Grammy award winning soprano Susan Narucki, kallisti draws its singers from the graduate program in Contemporary Music Performance at UC San Diego and distinguished guest artists.

------------------------------

Performances: May 6, 8, and 9 at 7:00 p.m.  Sunday, May 10 at 2:00 p.m.

------------------------------

THE THREEPENNY OPERA is presented through special arrangement with R & H Theatricals: www.rnh.com

kallisti presents chamber opera:
THE THREEPENNY OPERA

------------------------------

Since its premiere in 1929, The Threepenny Opera has challenged and captivated audiences worldwide.   It has been performed over 10,000 times and translated into 18 languages. For kallisti's sixth opera project, we turn to this classic work of music theater.

Led by Grammy award winning soprano Susan Narucki, kallisti draws its singers from the graduate program in Contemporary Music Performance at UC San Diego and distinguished guest artists.

------------------------------

Performances: May 6, 8, and 9 at 7:00 p.m.  Sunday, May 10 at 2:00 p.m.

------------------------------

THE THREEPENNY OPERA is presented through special arrangement with R & H Theatricals: www.rnh.com

kallisti presents chamber opera:
THE THREEPENNY OPERA

------------------------------

Since its premiere in 1929, The Threepenny Opera has challenged and captivated audiences worldwide.   It has been performed over 10,000 times and translated into 18 languages. For kallisti's sixth opera project, we turn to this classic work of music theater.

Led by Grammy award winning soprano Susan Narucki, kallisti draws its singers from the graduate program in Contemporary Music Performance at UC San Diego and distinguished guest artists.

------------------------------

Performances: May 6, 8, and 9 at 7:00 p.m.  Sunday, May 10 at 2:00 p.m.

------------------------------

THE THREEPENNY OPERA is presented through special arrangement with R & H Theatricals: www.rnh.com

GERNSHEIM AND BRAHMS
A Camera Lucida Concert

BRAHMS: Sonatensatz in C minor, WoO 2 for Violin and Piano
GERNSHEIM: Quintet No. 2 for Piano and Strings in B minor, Op. 63
BRAHMS: Quintet for Piano and Strings in F minor, Op. 34

Camera Lucida, a collaboration between UC San Diego and the San Diego Symphony, presents chamber music masterpieces of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in the acoustically perfect Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at UCSD. Principal musicians from the San Diego Symphony and distinguished performance faculty from UCSD join with guests from the international chamber music world in performances that blend the precision and cohesiveness of a permanent ensemble with widely ranging instrumentation.

Sponsored by the Sam B. Ersan Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Bassist Tommy Babin presents his MA recital.

Lai-Tat Linda Szeto, a student of Robert Zelickman, performs her undergraduate senior recital.

Premiere Rhapsodie - Claude Debussy
Pianist: JinYoung Choi

Improvisation for Solo Clarinet

Brahms Clarinet Trio
Pianist: JinYoung Choi
Cellist: Min-Seok Peter Ko

Flutist Michael Matsuno presents his MA Recital, featuring Pianist Todd Moellenberg.

Robert Erickson, Quoq   
Lei Liang, In Praise of Shadows
Brian Griffeath-Loeb, Aphorisms and Rituals (world premiere)
Brian Ferneyhough, Cassandra's Dream Song
Stefan Wolpe, Piece in Two Parts for Flute and Piano

“Sonic algorithms act, but they do so as part of an ill-defined network of actions upon actions, in which unintended consequences can become critically important. ... They are never an internally closed system, but a catalytic network of relays connecting one analog domain to another. ... Formal logics are inherently incomplete and indiscernibles exist. Machines break down, programs are buggy, projects are abandoned and systems hacked. Humans are literally infected by abstractions. This is no bad thing, because like the virus which produced variegated tulips of a rare beauty, infection can be creative too.” 

– Steve Goodman and Andrew Goffey, in Software Studies

“Now that we've eaten of the tree of knowledge paradise is locked and bolted, and the cherubim stands behind us. We have to go on and make the journey round the world to see if it is perhaps open somewhere at the back. As thought grows dimmer, grace emerges more brilliantly. But grace itself returns when knowledge has gone through an infinity. Grace appears most purely in that form which either has no consciousness, or an infinite consciousness.” 

– Heinrich von Kleist, in On the Marionette Theatre

Integrative Studies creative practice students present original works.

Featuring new compositions by: James Gutierrez, Diana Hereld, Yvette Jackson, Joshua Charney, Juan Rubio, Gust Burns, Joshua Hochman, and Suzanne Thorpe.

Professor David Borgo presents Kronomorfic and KaiBorg in this special Wednesdays@7 concert.

Kronomorfic, co-led by saxophonist David Borgo and drummer Paul Pellegrin, is an ensemble dedicated to the exploration of polymetric time. The music is innovative yet surprisingly approachable. The compositions explore multi-layered rhythmic phrases (e.g., 3:4:5, 3:5:7, 6:7:9, 8:12:15, 7:11, 9:13, 11:18) using interlocking melodies that evolve through rhythmic modulations and individual and collective improvisations, but in the end the music grooves, the melodies linger, and the solos burn. The ensemble’s first album, Micro Temporal Infundibula, was released in 2010 on pfMENTUM Records. The second installment, Entangled, was released in 2014 on OA2 Records.

KaiBorg explores the intersections of cutting-edge computer music and contemporary improvisation. Employing custom signal processing techniques and hardware mapping strategies, the musicians perform on "hybrid instruments" that extend their acoustic sonic palettes and afford new spatialization opportunities, all without sacrificing the sense of intimacy and speed of interaction required in improvised settings.

KaiBorg’s music has been described as "a surging sonic kaleidoscope" (San Diego Union Tribune) filled with "strange sounds and odd surprises" (Babysue) that "alternately overwhelm the senses and gives pause for contemplation" (Gapplegate Review); "quite cosmic, yet never indulgent" (Downtown Music Gallery).  The duo released its first compact disc entitled Harvesting Metadata on the pfMENTUM label, and they have concertized throughout California and in Holland and Sweden.

Bam! Bam! 

Leah Bowden

Percussion and Drums

A D.M.A. Concert featuring works by Erik Griswold, Tristan Perich, Anthony Davis and Glenn Kotche.

Peter Ko presents his undergraduate honors recital, with pianist Daniel Kim.

Johann Sebastian Bach - Cello Suite No.4 in E-flat major, BWV 1010

Gabriel Fauré - Élégie

Sergey Prokofiev - Cello Sonata Op. 119

Distinguished Professor of Music, Steven Schick, will be the Musical Director for the 2015 Ojai Music Festival! He will be presenting a preview of June's festival at the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall. Read more here.

Percussionist, conductor, and author Steven Schick was born in Iowa and raised in a farming family.  For forty years he has championed contemporary music by commissioning or premiering more than one hundred-fifty new works. He was the founding percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars (1992-2002) and served as Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève (2000-2005). Schick is founder and Artistic Director of the percussion group, red fish blue fish.

Currently he is Music Director of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus and Artistic Director of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. In 2012 he became the first Artist-in-Residence with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Schick founded and is currently Artistic Director of “Roots and Rhizomes,” a summer course on contemporary percussion music held at the Banff Centre for the Arts. He maintains a lively schedule of guest conducting including appearances in this season with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Nova Chamber Ensemble and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble. Among his acclaimed publications are a book, “The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams,” and numerous recordings of contemporary percussion music including a 3 CD set of the complete percussion music of Iannis Xenakis (Mode).  Mode will release a companion recording on DVD of the early percussion music of Karlheinz Stockhausen in 2014. Steven Schick is Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego.

Graduate piano performance students of Aleck Karis present an informal concert.

Directed by Ken Anderson, the choir combines hundreds of voices to fill the auditorium with the uplifting sound of African American spirituals, blues, traditional songs, and gospel.

Anderson and the Gospel Choir were recently highlighted in thisweek@ucsandiego, naming it "the most popular music course on campus."

The 95JC concert, under the direction of KAMAU KENYATTA, will feature a small ensemble performing a variety of exciting compositions, including some written and arranged by student musicians. Our instrumentation includes voice, violin, saxophones, rhythm section and afro-latin percussion.

Under the direction of Jonathan Hepfer, the UCSD Chamber Orchestra performs.

Under the direction of Kartik Seshadri, the students of 95W, World Music perform in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Concert Hall.

SINGERS and CHOIRS

Under the direction of Phil Larson, Singers and Choirs of from UCSD's 95D and 95K ensembles perform.

In his final concert as he retires in June, Robert Zelickman directs UC San Diego's Wind Ensemble in The Music of German Composers with works by Brahms, Schubert, Strauss, Wagner, and Weber.

More in News of the Week.

Under the direction of Takae Ohnishi, MUS130 Chamber Ensembles perform in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Concert Hall.

David Chase conducts

Peter Tchaikovsky        Violin Concerto
Jonathan Dove            There Was a Child

Guest artist: Priti Gandhi, soprano; Annelle Gregory, violin; Edward Mout, tenor; North Coast Singers youth choir

Choral Director David Chase leads our season-ending concerts. Annelle Gregory, winner of the 2012 Young Artists Competition, plays Tchaikovsky’s great concerto, one of the most difficult ever written for the violin. There Was a Child, composed by Jonathan Dove in 2009, is a grand cantata in the spirit of Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Composed as a tribute to a young man who had died tragically, rather than dwelling in darkness, Dove’s oratorio inspires and uplifts. Setting texts by English and American poets, it is scored for soprano and tenor soloists, children’s choir, chorus, and orchestra.

David Chase conducts

Peter Tchaikovsky        Violin Concerto
Jonathan Dove            There Was a Child

Guest artist: Priti Gandhi, soprano; Annelle Gregory, violin; Edward Mout, tenor; North Coast Singers youth choir

Choral Director David Chase leads our season-ending concerts. Annelle Gregory, winner of the 2012 Young Artists Competition, plays Tchaikovsky’s great concerto, one of the most difficult ever written for the violin. There Was a Child, composed by Jonathan Dove in 2009, is a grand cantata in the spirit of Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Composed as a tribute to a young man who had died tragically, rather than dwelling in darkness, Dove’s oratorio inspires and uplifts. Setting texts by English and American poets, it is scored for soprano and tenor soloists, children’s choir, chorus, and orchestra.