Thursday, September 22 11:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Matthews Quad

Info booth, givesaways & free ice cream!

Stop by to learn about arts on campus. Talk to representatives from campus art departments, academic departments and student orgs and learn how you can be involved in the arts at UC San Diego!

Learn more at celebratearts.ucsd.edu 

VÍDDIR is a piece for nine flutes, electric bass, double bass, and three percussionists. The work has a special soundscape where texture and dimensions play a fundamental role. The main idea behind the composition is to merge different elements into a single organism. This piece is a collaboration between current UC San Diego alumni, students, and faculty, joined by musicians from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and Island. 

Double bass and composition: Bára Gísladóttir

Electric Bass: Skúli Sverrisson

Flutes: Björg Brjánsdóttir, Berglind Tómasdóttir, Wilfrido Terrazas, Michael Matsuno, Rachel Beetz, Alexander Ishov, Teresa Díaz de Cossio, Marco Romano, Salvador Lara

Percussions: M. Ángel Cuevas, Elian Sánchez

Sasha Berliner is an award winning vibraphonist and composer based in NYC. Named Downbeat Critics' Poll's Rising Star Vibraphonist winner in 2021, Sasha has notably shared the stage for recent projects with Christian McBride, Tyshawn Sorey, and Nicholas Payton, and leads her own group for international touring. She recently released “Onyx”(2022), her “vigorous, unabashedly avant garde sophomore recording […] finding the budding, San Francisco-born vibraphonist and composer in a fiery, dense and genre-bending posture.” Glide Magazine urges listeners to “add Berliner to the new vanguard of contemporary artists that are reshaping jazz with unconventional compositional approaches”. 

“A young mallet master” - JazzTimes Magazine
“Despite her tender age of 23, Berliner plays, composes and leads her band with maturity and artistic presence rarely attained. […] Berliner is
 in the firmament of the here and now in modern jazz, and appears likely to occupy that upper stratosphere for some time to come.” - Paul Rauch, All About Jazz

BlueRail is a two hour-long, multidisciplinary, international, site-specific, and improvised performance that moves through the halls, patio, stairs, and secret little corners of the Conrad Prebys Music Center building. Over 80 extraordinary musicians, dancers, and visual artists from UC San Diego, San Diego, and Baja California will create BlueRail's audio-visual world.

Like runners passing the baton in a relay race, these artists tag each other in and out of ensembles that will grow and change through parts of the building that we've chosen for the special ways in which they invite new social, convivial, and communal dynamics.

The event will be free and open to the public. Food and drinks will also be provided. The title BlueRail honors the dynamics of circulation that have shaped peoples’ lives in the region. Like the trolleys that change direction at the border, BlueRail explores improvised ways of listening and sound that push and pull in many directions at once.

We hope you will join us for this moving concert that fosters community in a fun and innovative way, while it also brings much needed warmth to our building!

UC San Diego Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor, composer Lei Liang has been collaborating with Scripps oceanographers John Hildebrand and Joshua Jones in exploring the sound of the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic—one of the most inaccessible places to humans on earth. The resulting composition, Six Seasons, combines the sound of the ambient environment (ice, waves, wind), its inhabitants (beluga whales, bowhead whales, bearded seals)—captured by hydrophones deployed at the sea floor—and creative response from one of the world’s leading contemporary music string quartets, Mivos Quartet. 

Buy Tickets: https://artpower.ucsd.edu/event/lei-lang-with-mivos-quartet 

• General Admission: $30
• UC San Diego Student: $9

“Both are absolute masters on their instruments, and both have released many albums as leaders of their own groups, often with each other as members, having collaborated for more than twenty years. . . . One has the sense that not only can Okazaki and Weiss anticipate each other’s next moves, but that they are both deeply dedicated to realizing each other’s artistic visions.” – The Paris Review

"composer-improvisers of absurdly expansive imaginative resources. . . a nearly telepathic rapport. This music is hyperacute and superdynamic, with myriad strategies at play.” – Nate Chinen, WBGO

“a high-order musical brainteaser and a memento of a deep, longstanding mind-meld between these two” - Hank Shteamer, Rolling Stone

Miles Okazaki and Dan Weiss have been performing as a duo for over two decades. In early years their repertoire was focused largely on Weiss' translations of tabla material to drumset, and Okazaki's compositions for small ensembles. Gradually they incorporated a wide range of materials from the albums that they worked on together as well as covers and standards. In 2020, they each wrote complete suites for guitar and drums that were recorded and released on the album Music for Drums and Guitar. This concert will feature music from this release. 

Joy Guidry, bassoon - DMA Recital #1 featuring Jordan Davidson on cello

Radical Acceptance is the title of Joy’s new album, and it tells their story of processing trauma, self-care, self-love, and finding hope for the future. Drawing inspiration from the work of Sonya Renee Taylor, who has defined radical self-love as “its own entity, a lush and verdant island are offering safe harbor for self-esteem and self-confidence.”  While Joy’s musical offerings represent a range of musical idioms and methodologies, from improvisation and graphic scores to multimedia and gospel, the uniting principle for Guidry is a focus on the importance of affirmation, validation, and self-care.

Shahrokh Moshkin-Ghalam, Pejman Hadadi and Behfar Bahadoran will take the stage to explore the ecstatic art of improvised music and dance. Acclaimed as one of the world's greatest dancers, Shahrokh's revolutionary style will embody Pejman's masterful percussive expressions and Behfar's passionate motifs - based on the Persian classical Dastgah modal system and Maqam melodic phrasings - on Tar, Setar, and Tanbour.

The audience will be enthralled by this glorious celebration of Persian performing arts.

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PLEASE NOTE:  Audience members are HIGHLY encouraged to arrive early to secure parking and/or consider transportation alternatives. We anticipate a very, very busy campus on this evening.

The Improvisers Initiative presents the visionary bassist, improviser, composer, and educator, William Parker in a telematic concert performing with UC San Diego graduate student ensemble led by Mark Dresser and guests. Four new "sculpted improvisations," including dedications to Civil Rights activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois as well as experimental filmmaker Chantal Anne Akerman, and more.

William Parker is “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.” - Village Voice  

Bio:

William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City, heralded by The Village Voice as, “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.”  

In addition to recording over 150 albums, he has published six books and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists.

Parker’s current bands include the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra, In Order to Survive, Raining on the Moon, Stan’s Hat Flapping in the Wind, and the Cosmic Mountain Quartet with Hamid Drake, Kidd Jordan, and Cooper-Moore.  Throughout his career he has performed with Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Milford Graves, and David S. Ware, among others. 

***PLEASE NOTE:  Mr. Parker is not able to travel to San Diego for this concert, but he will perform live with the ensemble via "tele-presence"!

Blacktronika : Where I Stand Festival, brings together six innovative musical groups to create a full day of sonic cultural expression. The liberation-oriented free jazz of Irreversible Entanglements, Caribbean influenced multi-instrumentalism of Xenia Rubinos, the Grammy nominated cosmic funk from Georgia Ann Muldrow to the Zimbabwean hip hop of Chimurenga Renaissance, electro-acoustic time travelers Tyshawn Sorey and King Britt and UC San Diego’s debut of multicultural supergroup, 5hz .

Freedom music for your mind body and soul.

Blacktronika is a UC San Diego Music course created by Prof. King Britt, that honors the innovators of color who have contributed to the global advancement of electronic music.

La Jolla Symphony & Chorus

October 29-30, 2022- Powerful Nature

GUEST CONDUCTOR RUBEN VALENZUELA

This concert will open with Joan Tower’s intrepid work; a “tribute to women who take chances and who are adventurous.” We’ll then feature local favorite pianist Kyle Adam Blair as soloist in Chávez’ dynamic Piano Concerto. Beethoven’s beautiful “Pastoral” Symphony, so named by the composer himself, will complete the program.

Joan Tower - Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman #6

Carlos Chávez - Piano Concerto

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony #6

Soloist: Kyle Adam Blair, piano

Learn more: https://lajollasymphonychorus.ticketspice.com/october-29-30-powerful-nature

La Jolla Symphony & Chorus

October 29-30, 2022- Powerful Nature

GUEST CONDUCTOR RUBEN VALENZUELA

This concert will open with Joan Tower’s intrepid work; a “tribute to women who take chances and who are adventurous.” We’ll then feature local favorite pianist Kyle Adam Blair as soloist in Chávez’ dynamic Piano Concerto. Beethoven’s beautiful “Pastoral” Symphony, so named by the composer himself, will complete the program.

Joan Tower - Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman #6

Carlos Chávez - Piano Concerto

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony #6

Soloist: Kyle Adam Blair, piano

Learn more: https://lajollasymphonychorus.ticketspice.com/october-29-30-powerful-nature

BE - longing explores the converging specters that exist between sound, music, word, and image, and the construction of meaning in human experiences of space, its expansions, and contractions. Nuria Manzur-Wirth (texts, voice, staging), Jérôme Piguet (video installation), Maximilian Haft (music/violin), and Wilfrido Terrazas (music/flutes) make up the axes of this interdisciplinary and intra-sensory dialogue.

Blacktronika: Club Experience pop up is a physical in person extension of the Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music course. The course honors all the innovators of color that contribute to the advancement of electronic music. Chicago & NY House, Detroit Techno, Jamaican Dub, Funk, Disco, Hip Hop, Amipiano and more are all rooted in black music. These nights provide a remote course with the opportunity to experience the music the way it is meant to be, on a sound system in a safe space. Also provides an opportunity for all to unite for the rhythm. 

"So The Last Shall Be The First..."

In October 2010, Camera Lucida performed the very last string quartet of Beethoven, the Quartet in F major, Opus 135. Not only the last of his string quartets, Opus 135 is in fact Beethoven's last full composition, completed in October 1826, months before his death. With that performance, Camera Lucida initiated an extended survey of all sixteen quartets of Beethoven – not in one weekend, or in one season, but over years. In certain years we presented only one quartet; in some, more than one. These complex, intensely demanding works were situated in the familiar habitat of music by Haydn, Schubert, Dvorak, Brahms, surrounded by the avatars of that intoxicating and abundant world, 19th century European chamber music. Perversely, we programmed the Beethoven cycle in backwards order from the last to the first, working in reverse historical time, but forwards in lived time. We hoped to trace the mysteries of this music back to its beginnings, from the enigmas of the late quartets, to the almost embarrassing opulence and exhibitionism of the middle quartets, back to the initial salvo of six quartets published as Opus 18 in 1801. The penultimate installment of our cycle was the Quartet in c minor, Opus 18 No. 4, on February 10, 2020. And then the world pandemic stopped us in our tracks.

Camera Lucida returns on Monday, November 7 to the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall to complete our task. As the last chapter in this quixotic endeavor, 12 years after its inception, we will present the very first of Beethoven's quartets, the String Quartet in (again!) F major, Opus 18 No. 1.

Our program includes the Piano Trio in E-flat major of Haydn, as well as Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A major. We rejoice in welcoming you back to our concert hall, and to the sounds, vibrations, and shimmering resonances of the illuminated chamber, Camera Lucida.

Camera Lucida

Reiko Uchida, piano

Jeff Thayer and Wes Precourt, violins

Che-Yen Chen, viola

Charles Curtis, cello

Haydn: Piano Trio in E-flat major, Hob XV:30

Beethoven: String Quartet in F major, Opus 18 Nr. 1

Dvorak: Quintet for Piano and Strings in A major, Opus 81

Ticket Information: music.ucsd.edu/tickets

Non-Campus Affiliate: $37.00 | Campus Affiliate: $25.00

Tickets are free at the door for UC San Diego students with ID. First come first serve and subject to availability.

David Borgo will be presenting a new ensemble and a new suite of original music, titled Cautiously Optimistic.

Featuring:

David Borgo, saxophones and flutes

Alan Eicher, piano

Zo Shah, electric guitar

Justin Grinnell, contrabass

Julien Cantelm, drum set

Please note this concert is cancelled tonight.

Music 201A. Projects in New Music Performance - Jazz Improvisation 

Graduate students under the instruction of Mark Dresser perform.

MUS 201A Improviser's Ensemble 

Tonight's concert is a response to a quarter-long immersion in different approaches to improvised music informed in part by a virtual residency and concert with the visionary renowned bassist, composer, author William Parker.  

We will present individual approaches and different strategies to activate improvised music for a medium size ensemble including notated scores with improvisational interludes, time based graphic scores, event based scores, and the conducted structured improvisation language, Soundpainting.

Enjoy!

Ensemble:

Ilana Waniuk-violin - graphic score
Natalia Merlano-Gomez - voice & electronics - Soundpainting
Miguel Zazueta-Cervera-voice
Anita Chandanvarkar - flutes - Soundpainting
Grace Talaski - clarinet/bass clarinet - Flow chart 
Paul Roth - alto sax - score
S Whiteley - graphic score
Jonny Stallings Cárdenas - piano - score
Camilo Zamudio - drums/percussion
Matthew Henson - instructional and graphic score
Mark Dresser - bass and instructor

Join us for the Fall 2022 Undergraduate Forum showcasing UC San Diego's undergraduate music students on Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Recital Hall!

RSVP to attend in person: music.ucsd.edu/tickets
Watch Livestream: music.ucsd.edu/live

PROGRAM:
Minuet - Henry Purcell
Grace Koumaras, harpsichord

Prelude and Fugue in C Major, WTC 1 - Bach
Suite in D minor - Froberger
Peihan Liu, harpsichord

The Death of Narcissus - Kaira Hammerstrøm
Kaira Hammerstrøm, clarinet
Calvin Luu, piano

Sonata for Clarinet in Bb and Piano - Francis Poulenc
Randy Lew, clarinet
Anthony Burr, piano

A Journey in the Folk and Traditional Music of Iran

Khosro Soltani: Persian Wind Instruments

Mohammad Ghavihelm: Tombak and Daf

The UC San Diego Gospel Choir directed by Ken Anderson presents their Fall 2022 concert in the Mandeville Auditorium.

The MUS 95JC Jazz Ensemble, directed by Kamau Kenyatta, presents their Fall 2022 concert in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater.

Join us for the Chamber Orchestra's first concert since before the start of the pandemic. We present an exciting program of symphonic favorites. Conducted by graduate student Alex Taylor.

Program:
Ludwig van Beethoven - Coriolan Overture
Antonín Dvořak - Symphony no. 9 "From the New World"

The MUS 33A Introduction to Composition course instructed by Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music Lei Liang will be performing their works in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on Wednesday, November 30 at 3:00 p.m.

The MUS 130 Chamber Ensemble instructed by UC San Diego Music faculty Takae Ohnishi presents their Fall 2022 concert in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on Friday, December 2 at 7:00 p.m.

DECEMBER 3-4, 2022- PASSIONATE VOICES

GUEST CONDUCTOR JEFFREY MALECKI

Subtitled “Foxtrot for Orchestra,” The Chairman Dances by Adams will open December’s concert program. Sang Song, this year’s Nee Commission winner, will premiere a brand-new work, after which the chorus will join the orchestra to present Rossini’s iconic and powerful Stabat Mater.

John Adams - The Chairman Dances

Sang Song

Nee Commission, 2022

Berk Schneider, Trombone Soloist

Gioachino Rossini - Stabat Mater

Victoria Robertson, soprano; Sarabeth Belon, mezzo-soprano; Bernardo Bermudez, tenor; Travis Sherwood, baritone

Ticket Link: https://lajollasymphonychorus.ticketspice.com/december-3-4-2022---passionate-voices

DECEMBER 3-4, 2022- PASSIONATE VOICES

GUEST CONDUCTOR JEFFREY MALECKI

Subtitled “Foxtrot for Orchestra,” The Chairman Dances by Adams will open December’s concert program. Sang Song, this year’s Nee Commission winner, will premiere a brand-new work, after which the chorus will join the orchestra to present Rossini’s iconic and powerful Stabat Mater.

John Adams - The Chairman Dances

Sang Song

Nee Commission, 2022

Berk Schneider, Trombone Soloist

Gioachino Rossini - Stabat Mater

Victoria Robertson, soprano; Sarabeth Belon, mezzo-soprano; Bernardo Bermudez, tenor; Travis Sherwood, baritone

Ticket Link: https://lajollasymphonychorus.ticketspice.com/december-3-4-2022---passionate-voices

The MUS 32VM Voice Students instructed by UC San Diego Music graduate student Miguel Zazueta presents their Fall 2022 concert on Sunday, December 4 at 5:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Recital Hall.

Percussionist Rebecca Lloyd-Jones presents her third D.MA. recital on Friday, January 13th at 5:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater. 

Program:

Netty Simons DESIGN GROUPS 1 (1967)

Maryanne Amacher ADJACENCIES (1965)

Performers:

Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Dustin Donahue, Amy Cimini

Steven Schick, David Aguila, Theocharis Papatrechas

Winter Juries: A Collaboration Concert with First Year Composition and Performance students

Program:

Shadow (2022)
Haihui Zhang, composer
Jonathan Stehney, bassoon

Scope of Senses (2022), for flute and double bass
Akari Komura, composer
Anita Chandavarkar, flute
Andrew Crapitto, double bass

Four Scenes from Kusamakura (2022), for soprano and percussion
Andrew Crapitto, composer
Natalia Merlano Gomez, soprano
Camilo Zamudio, percussion

one fish two fish ensemble:
Mitchell Carlstrom
Mel Chen
Zoe Farrell
Xiao Feng
Ash Floyd
Michael Jones
Alexander Leong
Thatcher Rexach

Program:

Credo in US (1942) - John Cage (1912-1992)

Immersion (1998) - Annea Lockwood (b. 1939)

Frogs (1958) - Keiko Abe (b. 1937)

Zoe Farrell, marimba

Trio for Percussion (1968) - William Kraft (1923-2022)

-- break--

29 Palm Trees (2019) - Kevin Good (b. 1992) - world premiere

Land (2004) - Takatsugu Muramatsu (b. 1978)

Alexander Leong, marimba

Lift-Off! (1968) - Russell Peck (1945-2009)

Wednesdays@7 presents Reed Family Concert: Double Concerto, conducted by UC San Diego Distinguished Professor of Music Steven Schick, on Wednesday, January 25, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, featuring music by Igor Stravinsky, UC San Diego Music Ph.D. candidate Alex Taylor, and Unsuk Chin.

Program:

Igor Stravinsky "Septet"

Alex Taylor "Inclinations"

Unsuk Chin "Double Concerto" (Ashley Zhang and Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, soloists)

Following more than a dozen years of live musical performance across geographical distance, Widening the Embrace continues a path forward, balancing in sound as we collectively confront a morphing pandemic and undeniable climate crisis. In scientific and political fields today, the challenges facing humanity demand unprecedented levels of global, intercultural cooperation. As artists, we aspire to work in a similar spirit, drawing on the light-speed web of fiber optic nerves spread across our planet to create a trans-locational stage and activate it with new intercultural musical expressions. Directed by Mark Dresser and Michael Dessen, the concert features acclaimed musicians Ingrid Laubrock, Fay Victor and Patricia Brennan in New York City performing together with Dresser, Dessen, Joshua White, and Gerald Cleaver in California, with audiences at both locations. In collaboration with a team of visual designers and technologists, each concert features an ensemble of improvisers split across our two sites and premieres new musical compositions that manifest our shared artistic affinities, in this latest collaborative effort to project our highest sonic aspirations.

Musicians in NYC:
Fay Victor – voice
Ingrid Laubrock – saxophone
Patricia Brennan – vibraphone

Musicians in San Diego:
Michael Dessen – trombone
Joshua White – piano
Mark Dresser – bass
Gerald Cleaver – drums

Widening the Embrace: A Reduced Carbon Footprint Concert (San Diego - Seoul, 2023)

Widening the Embrace is the third stage in our collaboration, which began in 2016 with Changing Tides I and was followed at the beginning of the pandemic in February 2020 with Changing Tides 2: Requiem for the Earth. Our intention is to forge a path forward, balancing in sound as we collectively confront a morphing pandemic and undeniable climate crisis. In scientific and political fields today, the challenges facing humanity demand unprecedented levels of global, intercultural cooperation. As artists, we aspire to work in a similar spirit, drawing on the light-speed web of fiber optic nerves spread across our planet to create a trans-locational stage and activate it with new intercultural musical expressions. In collaboration with a team of visual designers and technologists, an ensemble of ten Korean and American improvisers split across our two sites will premiere new musical compositions that manifest our shared artistic affinities, in this latest collaborative effort to project our highest sonic aspirations.

Musicians performing in Seoul:
Jean Oh (guitar)
Aram Lee (daegum)
Ju Hee Go (haegum)
JoonSu Kim (singer)
Donghyeok Kwak (modular synthesizer)

Musicians performing in San Diego:
Michael Dessen (trombone)
Wilfrido Terrazas (flute)
Joshua White (piano)
Mark Dresser (bass)
Gerald Cleaver (drums)

Wilfrido Terrazas

The Torres Cycle

The Torres Cycle (2014-2021) is a music ritual which honors and celebrates the seven cardinal directions: North, South, East, West, Above, Below, Center. It comprises seven compositions for diverse instrumental ensembles which incorporate improvisatory and spatial strategies to ask fundamental questions about location, orientation, belonging, and seeking sanctuary. The Torres Cycle invites humans to engage in processes of reconciliation between us and the places we inhabit and their histories. The Torres Cycle was released as an album by the New York-based label New Focus Recordings in April 2022.

J.S. and J.C. BACH

Music for One and Two Harpsichords 
Harpsichordists: Arthur Haas and Takae Ohnishi

Program:
J.C.Bach / Sonata for two harpsichords
J.S. Bach / Ricercar 6 voices from Musical Offering for two harpsichords 
J.S. Bach / Goldberg Variations ( Arthur Haas)

UC San Diego Wind Ensemble

Michael Jones, director

Program:

Quod Erat Demonstrandum (2015) - Andrew Ardizzoia (b. 1979)

Irish Tune from County Derry (1918) - arr. Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

Four Scottish Dances (1957) - Malcolm Arnold (1921-2006)

In Dreams (2018) - Cait Nishimura (1991)

Canticle of the Creatures (1984) - James Curnow (b. 1949)
I. Prologue
II. Brother Sun
III. Sister Moon and Stars
IV. Brother Fire
V. Mother Earth
VI. Epilogue

UC San Diego Music welcomes sound artist, researcher and composer Stefan Maier to the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater for a collaborative evening length work with faculty member Michelle Lou. The duo will present a structured improvisation on hardware and software electronics and spatialized audio.

FEBRUARY 11-12, 2023- LEARNING TO FLY

STEVEN SCHICK MUSIC DIRECTOR EMERITUS, CONDUCTOR

We welcome back Steven Schick to conduct this exciting concert. Mary Kouyoumdjian, UCSD alumna and celebrated composer often described as “politically fearless,” will be this year’s Brenda and Steven Schick commission honoree. The orchestra will then present Stravinsky’s energetic Firebird Suite, a work whose premiere was so successful it catapulted the composer to international fame. We will then share Varèse’s work, Octandre, followed by American operatic soprano, and UCSD faculty member, Susan Narucki performing Strauss’ Four Last Songs.

Walking with Ghosts                                   Mary Kouyoumdjian

Jeff Anderle, bass clarinet

Brenda and Steven Schick Commission

Igor Stravinsky                                              Firebird Suite

Edgard Varèse                                             Octandre

Richard Strauss                                            Four Last Songs

Jeff Anderle, Bass Clarinet; Susan Narucki, Soprano

Learn more about The Steven Schick Prize for Acts of Musical Imagination and Excellence, click here.

Purchase tickets: https://lajollasymphonychorus.ticketspice.com/february-11-12-2023-learning-to-fly

FEBRUARY 11-12, 2023- LEARNING TO FLY

STEVEN SCHICK MUSIC DIRECTOR EMERITUS, CONDUCTOR

We welcome back Steven Schick to conduct this exciting concert. Mary Kouyoumdjian, UCSD alumna and celebrated composer often described as “politically fearless,” will be this year’s Brenda and Steven Schick commission honoree. The orchestra will then present Stravinsky’s energetic Firebird Suite, a work whose premiere was so successful it catapulted the composer to international fame. We will then share Varèse’s work, Octandre, followed by American operatic soprano, and UCSD faculty member, Susan Narucki performing Strauss’ Four Last Songs.

Walking with Ghosts                                   Mary Kouyoumdjian

Jeff Anderle, bass clarinet

Brenda and Steven Schick Commission

Igor Stravinsky                                              Firebird Suite

Edgard Varèse                                             Octandre

Richard Strauss                                            Four Last Songs

Jeff Anderle, Bass Clarinet; Susan Narucki, Soprano

Learn more about The Steven Schick Prize for Acts of Musical Imagination and Excellence, click here.

Purchase tickets: https://lajollasymphonychorus.ticketspice.com/february-11-12-2023-learning-to-fly

Kosuke Matsuda is presenting his first DMA recital at the UC San Diego Department of Music on Monday, February 13th at 5PM(PT) in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater.

The concert will feature “Reminiscence” by Toshio Hosokawa, “Chatter/Clatter” by Roger Reynolds, “Weiss/Weisslich 31e” by Peter Ablinger, and “Bone Alphabet” by Brian Ferneyhough. Theocharis Papatrechas will be a collaborator in creating electric and spatialized sound systems.

Kosuke Matsuda Bio:

Kosuke Matsuda is a solo percussionist born in Nagasaki, Japan, who has performed throughout Asia and the United States. He graduated from Ueno Gakuen University in 2015 with a Bachelor's of Arts in Percussion Performance. He studied with Kunihiko Komori at the Aichi University of Fine Art, while earning his Master's of Arts in Percussion Performance in 2017. He moved to the United States in 2018, and completed his second master's degree and artist diploma at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. Here, he studied contemporary music performance with Svet Stoyanov and orchestral music with Matthew Strauss.

Matsuda performed as a soloist with Lancaster Symphony in 2019. He gave the Japanese world premiere of Le Livre des Claviers (entire movements) by Philippe Manoury in 2018. He presented the world premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s Percussion Symphony No.2 with the New World Symphony percussion ensemble in 2019.

He is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Contemporary Music Performance under Steven Schick’s percussion studio at the University of California, San Diego, where he is a member of the Red Fish Blue Fish percussion ensemble group.

My first UC San Diego recital, "Apparition," showcases highly contrasting pieces that yet revolve around themes of internal and external presence. First, S Whiteley’s sonically and visually intriguing new work “INTRA” blends cello, live electronics, interactive lights, and choreography, exploring the entangled unconscious of performer/instrument, folly, presence, and absence of the human body from the stage. Next, Luigi Dallapiccola, in his « Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio ,» uses a colorful array of expressive markings serving to fully conceal and illuminate fragments of 12-tone collections. To follow, Liza Lim's "Invisibility" explores the "aesthetics of presence" in which "shimmering effects both reveal and hide the presence of the numinous." Finally, Chinary Ung's "Grand Alap: A Window in the Sky" brings the numinous to the forefront, communicating to the surrounding spirits and symbolizing a rebirth of the soul.

Program:

INTRA (2023) by S Whiteley

Luigi Dallapiccola: Ciaccona, Intermezzo, e Adagio 

Liza Lim: Invisibility 

Chinary Ung: Grand Alap 

    with Yongyun Zhang, percussion

The Wednesday@7 Palimpsest concert, conducted by Distinguished Professor of Music Aleck Karis, features a world premiere by UC San Diego Music Ph.D. candidate Erin Graham, Mario Davidovsky's "Ambiguous Symmetries," Harrison Birtwistle's "Carmen Arcadiae Mechanicae Perpetuum," and Arnold Schoenberg’s classic “Ode to Napoleon”.

Genre bending, luscious ethereal ice cream for the ears; that’s what the best experimental music for voice and electronics can be. Our hour-long concert will feature music by composers from all across the globe who have transformed the singing voice through their boundless musical ideas.  Performed in the superb technological space of the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater, our concert is a chance to experience electronic music in a way you’ve never imagined.

kallisti is a vocal ensemble at UC San Diego performing contemporary Chamber Opera and masterworks of 20/21st CenturyVocal Chamber Music led by Grammy Award winning Soprano Susan Narucki. 

Program:

Rand Steiger

Falling, rising    for two female voices and electonics

Natalia Merlano Gomez and Mariana Flores Bucio, sopranos

Agata Zubel

Parlando             for voice and electronics
Unisono 1           for voice, percussion and electronics

Miguel Zazueta tenor and Mitchell Carlstrom percussion

Phillippe Manoury

Illud etiam          for soprano and electronics

Mariana Flores, soprano

Marta Sniady    

S!C2  for soprano and electronics

Natalia Merlano Gomez, soprano

Macri Cáceres

Cuerpo y Territorio (2022)  Voice, flutes, and voice pedal

Natalia Merlano Gomez, soprano

Peter Ko presents his second DMA recital, “that which remains..”, a program that interweaves music of the Renaissance with contemporary works. It features works by Matthias Pintscher, Tobias Hume, Luigi Dallapiccola, and Carolyn Chen.

Program:

Figura V / Assonanza (2020) - Matthias Pintscher

Pavan (p. 1605) - Tobias Hume

Adagio, from “Ciaccona, Intermezzo e Adagio” (1945) - Luigi Dallapiccola

Captain Hume’s Galliard (p. 1605) - Tobias Hume

Woodycock (ca. 1580) - Anonymous

rara avis (2015) - Carolyn Chen

Woodycock (ca. 1580) - Anonymous

Wednesdays@7 presents red fish blue fish, directed by UC San Diego Distinguished Professor of Music Steven Schick, on Wednesday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater. The ensemble featuring Steven Schick, Michael Jones, Kosuke Matsuda, Yongyun Zhang, Mitchell Carlstrom and Camilo Zamudio will perform music by David Lang and John Cage.

Program:

John Cage

But what about the noise of crumpling paper which he used to do in order to paint the series of "Papiers froissés" or tearing up paper to make "Papiers déchirés?" Arp was stimulated by water (sea, lake, and flowing waters like rivers), forests

John Cage

Amores I.II.III.IV for percussion trio and prepared piano

David Lang

The So-called Laws of Nature

The Ensemble:

Mitchell Carlstrom

Mel Chen

Ash Floyd

Zoe Farrell

Michael Jones

Alexander Leong

Kosuke Matsuda

Steven Schick

Camilo Zamudio

Yongyun Zhang

Myra Hinrichs presents her DMA recital, “Some Slightly Louder Music," with music by Lim, Sabat, Goldfarb, Democ and Hinrichs on Friday, March 3rd at 5:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.

Program:

Claudius Ptolemy by Marc Sabat (with Peter Ko, cello)

Philtre by Liza Lim

Alec Goldfarb

Ziadba by Adrian Democ

Simultaneously by Myra Hinrichs

Blacktronika: Club Experience pop up is a physical in person extension of the Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music course. The course honors all the innovators of color that contribute to the advancement of electronic music. Chicago & NY House, Detroit Techno, Jamaican Dub, Funk, Disco, Hip Hop, Amipiano and more are all rooted in black music. These nights provide a remote course with the opportunity to experience the music the way it is meant to be, on a sound system in a safe space. Also provides an opportunity for all to unite for the rhythm. 

Soprano Susan Narucki and pianist Donald Berman continue their exploration of the songs of women composers in a concert to be presented on March 8, 2023, at the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at the UC San Diego Department of Music.  The duo's recording of songs by women composers, This Island, featuring songs by Nadia Boulanger, Marion Bauer, Henriette Bosmans, Elizabeth Claisse and Irene Fuerison, was released by London's AVIE Records in February 2023.  

The upcoming program features works by two illustrious living composers, Tania Leon and Judith Weir as well as little known works by African American composer Margaret Bonds, French composer Elizabeth Claisse, and more. Although written in a wide array of compositional styles, each composer has an uncommon sensitivity to the fusion of text and music, and exceptional skill in writing for the combination of voice and piano.  

British composer Judith Weir's The Voice of Desire, a song cycle written in 2003, is a series of conversations between humans and birds, in which, according to the composer, "the birds seem to have a more sophisticated viewpoint than their human hearers."  With texts by John Keats, Thomas Hardy Robert Bridges and a setting of Yoruba Poetry translated by Ulli Beier, Weir's luminous, intricate writing for the piano provides a perfect framework for vocal writing of immense variety and uncommon skill.  

Cuban-born American Tania Leon was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize and honored at the Kennedy Center.  Her music is characterized by its rhythmic vitality, bold use of instrumental timbre and color and inventive and expressive vocal writing.  The Atwood Songs, with poems by the well-known novelist Margaret Atwood, are by turns exuberant, irreverent and wistful.  Margaret Bonds is best known for her settings of texts by Langston Hughes; our program will present four little known setting of Edna St. Vincent Millay.  In addition, Elena Ruehr's exquisite piano solo, Erinnerung, and selections from This Island will complete the program. 

Anita Chandavarkar, flute presents her first D.M.A. Recital on Thursday, March 9 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater.

Program:

Poison Mushroom, for flute and electronics - Dai Fujikura (b. 1977)

Anita Chandavarkar, flute

Naakishchiin Ana’i, for flute and marimba - Raven Chacon (b. 1977)
Anita Chandavarkar, flute
Kosuke Matsuda, marimba

Solo Improvisation
Anita Chandavarkar, bansuri

Improvisation
Anita Chandavarkar, flute; Andrew Crapitto, double bass; Sergey Kasich, electronics; Ilana Waniuk, violin; Camilo Zamudio, percussion

Join us for the Winter 2023 Undergraduate Forum showcasing UC San Diego's undergraduate music students on Friday, March 10, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Recital Hall!

The UC San Diego 95JC Jazz Ensemble directed by Kamau Kenyatta presents their Winter 2023 concert on Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. in the Mandeville Auditorium!

Piano students, instructed by Shaoai Ashley Zhang, presents their Winter 2023 concert on Monday, March 13 at 2:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, featuring works by Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Scriabin, Godowsky, Debussy and Schumann.

Performers:

Sophia Yermolenko

Jack Melcher

Shayan Kalantar

Rachael Qian

Seth Durbin

Kelly Feng

Teresa Diaz de Cossio, flute presents her D.M.A. Recital, WHITE, featuring works by Alonso, Díaz de Cossio, Stallings, Saunders, Retif and Waniuk, on Monday, March 13 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater.

Featuring:
Mariana Flores, Ana and Rocío Díaz de Cossio, and Jonathan Stallings

For the winter quarter, the Chamber Orchestra has split into two orchestras, so that we can fit on the Concert Hall stage (!) We present two programs, both featuring the music of the excellent and influential composer Joseph Bologne (often known by his title the Chevalier de Saint-Georges). He was perhaps the first musician of African descent to be widely celebrated in Europe, and as well as being a virtuoso violinist, conductor and fencer, his violin writing in particular was hugely influential on Mozart.

We also feature two exciting larger symphonies: Schubert’s “Unfinished” and Tchaikovsky’s second symphony, which draws its material from Ukrainian folk songs.

Program:

Symphony no. 1, in G Major - Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Allegro Assai

Symphony no. 8 in B Minor, “Unfinished” - Franz Schubert

I. Allegro Moderato

II. Andante con moto

Intermission

Symphony no. 2, in D Major - Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

I. Allegro Presto

II. Andante

III. Presto

Symphony no. 2, in C Major, “Ukrainian” - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

I. Andante sostenuto – Allegro vivo

II. Andantino marziale, quasi moderato

III. Scherzo: Allegro molto vivace

IV. Finale: Moderato assai – Allegro vivo

The UC San Diego Gospel Choir, directed by Ken Anderson, presents their Winter 2023 concert on Tuesday, March 14th, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. in the Mandeville Auditorium. 

Undergraduate students enrolled in the MUS 33B Introduction to Composition course instructed by Erin Graham presents their compositions on Wednesday, March 15th, 2023 at 2:30 pm in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Recital Hall!

Performers:

Teresa Diaz de Cossio, flute

Alex Taylor, viola

Peter Ko, cello

The UC San Diego Bach Ensemble, directed by Takae Ohnishi, presents their Winter 2023 concert on Wednesday, March 15 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.

The UC San Diego Wind Ensemble directed by Michael Jones presents their Winter 2023 concert, featuring music by Chen Yi, Paul Creston, Darius Milhaud, Ryan Bear and Paul Hindemith, on Thursday, March 16, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. in the Mandeville Auditorium.

Program:

Spring Festival (2001) - Chen Yi

Suite Française (1945) - Darius Milhaud

I. Normandie

II. Bretagne

III. Ile de France

IV. Alsace-Lorraine

V. Provence

Legend (1944) - Paul Creston

The Arrival of Wingèd Victory (2021) - Ryan Beard

“March” from Symphonic Metamorphosis (1945, arr. 1972) - Paul Hindemith (arr. Keith Wilson)

Zakir Hussain is a Grammy award-winning tabla musician who has opened new possibilities beyond the framework of traditional Indian music in collaboration with artists of other diverse genres worldwide. Hussain’s performance innovations include a unique method of creating melodies on the tabla, originally regarded as a rhythmic instrument of accompaniment. In the process, he has expanded the tabla’s possibilities and established it as one of the most expressive percussion instruments in the world. With his superb technique, engaging performances, and rich creativity, he has made a tremendous impact on world music audiences and performers alike.

A Q and A session between world renowned sitar virtuoso Kartik Seshadri (Indian Classical Music, UC San Diego) and maestro Zakir Hussain precedes the event.

Register Here: https://kps-zakirhussain.eventbrite.com

The UC San Diego Chamber Ensemble directed by UC San Diego Music faculty Takae Ohnishi presents their Winter concert on Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.

MARCH 18-19, 2023- MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

GUEST CONDUCTOR MICHAEL GERDES

Brahms’s colossal Requiem may have been inspired by the death of his mother in 1864, a loss which caused him
profound grief. This large-scale work for orchestra, chorus, and soprano and baritone soloists is performed in German, a departure from the traditional Latin. Also on this program, we’ll feature the 2021 Nee Commission winner, Alex Stephenson. The program will open with Missy Mazzoli’s “minimalist” gymnopédie for small orchestra, Music for Orbiting Spheres.

Program:

Missy Mazzoli                                               Music for Orbiting Spheres

Alex Stephenson                                          Nee Commission, 2021

Johannes Brahms                                        Ein Deutsches Requiem

Soloist: Philip Lima, Baritone; Tasha Koontz, Soprano

Tickets: https://www.ljsc.org/events/october-29-30-2022-powerful-nature-921-873-891

MARCH 18-19, 2023- MUSIC OF THE SPHERES

GUEST CONDUCTOR MICHAEL GERDES

Brahms’s colossal Requiem may have been inspired by the death of his mother in 1864, a loss which caused him
profound grief. This large-scale work for orchestra, chorus, and soprano and baritone soloists is performed in German, a departure from the traditional Latin. Also on this program, we’ll feature the 2021 Nee Commission winner, Alex Stephenson. The program will open with Missy Mazzoli’s “minimalist” gymnopédie for small orchestra, Music for Orbiting Spheres.

Program:

Missy Mazzoli                                               Music for Orbiting Spheres

Alex Stephenson                                          Nee Commission, 2021

Johannes Brahms                                        Ein Deutsches Requiem

Soloist: Philip Lima, Baritone; Tasha Koontz, Soprano

Tickets: https://www.ljsc.org/events/october-29-30-2022-powerful-nature-921-873-891

MUS 32VM Voice Students, directed by Miguel Zazueta, presents their Winter Recital on Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Recital Hall!

Singers: Greta Davis, Maria Torpey, Amelia Mardesich, Isabella Panagiotou, Aparna Alluri, Emma Price, Sam Calto *Guest, Jackson Jakovic, Leticia Guzmán, Zoe Graziano, Imo Gong, Kit Chan, and Yuhan Leng

Accompanied by: Dr. Kyle Adam Blair

The one fish two fish undergraduate percussion ensemble directed by Michael Jones presents their Winter 2023 concert, featuring music by Steve Reich, Owen Clayton Condon, Andrea Mazzariello, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Frederic Rzewski, on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023, 7:00 pm in the Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater.

Program:

Music for Pieces of Wood (1973) - Steve Reich

Fractalia (2011) - Owen Clayton Condon

Babybot (2008-11) - Andrea Mazzariello

Aura (2011, arr. for quartet 2015) - Anna Thorvaldsdottir

Les Moutons de Panurge (1969) - Frederic Rzewski

Percussionist Yongyun Zhang presents her first DMA recital in the Experimental Theater on Friday, April 7, 2023 at 5:00 p.m.

The program will include a diverse selection of works, including Grand Alap: “A Window in the Sky” (1996), Toucher (1973), The King of Denmark (1964), ?Corporel (1985), by renowned composers Chinary Ung (b. 1942), Vinko Globokar (b. 1934), and Morton Feldman (1926-1987).

Yongyun will be joined by Robbie Bui on cello for Chinary Ung's Grand Alap: “A Window in the Sky”.

Stage direction by UC San Diego Theatre & Dance PhD candidate: Michelle Huynh.

FOR PHILIP GUSTON (1984) - Morton Feldman

Alexander Ishov, flutes
Liam Wooding, piano and celesta
Steven Schick, percussion

duration: approximately 4 hours 30 minutes
image: Friend - To M.F. by Philip Guston (1978)

For Philip Guston (1983) is the third work in a series of trios for flute, piano, and percussion which also includes Why Patterns? (1978), and Crippled Symmetry (1983). 

Evolving over the course of ~240 minutes, For Philip Guston invites listeners (and performers) to explore its slowly-evolving rhythmic permutations which, over time, generate a trance-like state stretching the perception of form and memory. The score comes in and out of vertical alignment (both rhythmically and visually) and requires unpacking the layers of complex patterns. While perfection is unattainable, pursuing it offers its own satisfaction as one gets closer and closer to figuring out how the puzzle fits together. 

Despite the complexity of the score, the overall effect for the listener can be described as “companionable …. like sitting on a beach with the sound of the waves. Easily done” (Howard Skempton). The challenge of the work is matched by its beauty; the piece has the potential to take us out of the pressures of our daily routines. As Robert Worby puts it, “society cuts time into vicious chunks then makes us fit into them; but sometimes five minutes can seem like forever while a whole day slips by in the twinkle of an eye.” 

Feldman wrote many works for his friends and colleagues, fellow composers, visual artists, writers, and philosophers (including John Cage, Samuel Beckett, Aaron Copland, Franz Kline, Frank O’Hara, Mark Rothko, and Christian Wolff). For Philip Guston is not necessarily about Guston’s paintings, but is a testament to the friendship between Feldman and Guston. The program notes from The Paris Autumn Festival provide a glimpse into Feldman’s relationship with Guston: 

“The friendship between American composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) and painter Philip Guston came to a halt in 1970 when Guston chose to delve into figurative art, an aesthetic change that Feldman, an enthusiast of abstract art, would never be able to forgive. Upon the painter’s death two years later, Feldman understood the sheer freedom with which Guston was able to paint, saying, “he stopped questioning himself.” This became a leitmotiv throughout the remainder of his career, evidenced by his penchant for stretching time in his music. After completing his second String quartet (1983) which lasts five and a half hours, he composed the trio For Philip Guston (1984), of which the title shows the artistic debt Feldman owed the painter – a work that lasts for four hours. Feldman is known to have compared his patient musical style to the interwoven colours of a Persian rug – the Trio is a quintessential example of that very style.” 

We truly hope you enjoy our performance of this mesmerizing work. 

Program Notes by Alexander Ishov

Grace Talaski, clarinet, will perform classic well-loved pieces in the contemporary solo clarinet repertoire as well as the premiere of a wacky new piece composed by her. The program will start with Press Release (1992) by David Lang (b. 1957), a funky minimalist solo bass clarinet piece. Next is the lively standard Three Pieces for clarinet solo (1918) by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Then Grace will perform In Memoriam Jon Higgins for clarinet in A and slow sweep, pure wave oscillator (1987) by Alvin Lucier (1931-2021), a work with a sonically rich and complex audience experience. Finally, the program will conclude with the world premiere of Grace’s new composition Three Elaborations for demi-clarinet (2022). Written for a shortened version of the B-flat clarinet, this piece is a whimsical and humorous extended technique exploration.

About Grace Talaski: 

Grace Talaski is a clarinetist and composer originally from Caro, Michigan. Grace specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century clarinet repertoire, especially pieces involving electronics and extended techniques. She enjoys free improvisation and creating clarinet-based sound worlds with electronics. Grace also composes music for solo clarinet that focuses on exploring the vast sonic possibilities that the clarinet has to offer, especially through experimentation with multiphonics. Grace received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance and Chemistry from Albion College in Albion, Michigan in 2017. Grace received a Master of Music in Performance from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2021. She is currently pursuing a D.M.A. in Contemporary Performance at UC San Diego.

Pandit Kartik Seshadri, sitar

Accompanied by Pandit Arup Chattopadhyay on Tabla

INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC- Kartik Seshadri
Indian classical music known as Raga Sangeeth, is an improvised art form based on the concepts of Raga and Tala. The historical origins of this spiritual musical tradition date back to the sacred Hindu scriptures known as Veda(s), which were the early precursors to the system of music that developed gradually. Raga(s) are the tonal idiom for improvisation and these precise melodic forms while essentially modal in structure, acquire their distinct musical identities from a
complex range of factors: the Indian tonal system of perceiving the octave as 22 microtonal divisions (Sruti); the subtle nuances, inflections, and ornamentations associated with each Raga; and the particular emphasis of certain notes
(Vadi, Samavadi) within the specific ascending and descending (Arohana and Avarohana) movement of each Raga. While all Raga(s) are specific to the time of the day (morning, evening or night) some Raga(s) are performed only during certain seasons, festivals or special occasions. The melodic and rhythmic aspect of our tradition is completely consistent with our aesthetic and philosophical idea that each Raga expresses a single dominant mood (Rasa). The nine Rasa(s) associated with our music are: Shringara (sensuous or erotic), Hasya (humorous), Karuna (pathos), Rudra (anger), Veera ( heroic), Bhayanaka (fearful), Vibhatsa (disgust), Adbhuta (wonderment) and Shanta (tranquility).

The second aspect of improvisation in Indian classical music pertains to the concept of rhythm known as Tala. A Tala is conceptualized in cycles of beats ranging anywhere from a three beat cycle to a 108 beat cycle. There are other complex cycles in fractional beats such as 41⁄2, 611⁄2, 1111⁄2 to mention a few, that make for complicated improvisations. An accomplished musician of Indian classical music has to develop complete mastery and facility over both Raga and Tala to acquire the total freedom of improvisation within the complex constraints that Raga and Tala impose on the performer. Indian classical music is predominantly steeped in melody and rhythm as opposed to the ideas of contrast manifested in harmony, counterpoint and modulation which shape traditions such as European art music or Jazz. The challenge of our music lies in the musician’s ability to shape and develop an entire musical edifice of a Raga and to express its fullest depth and excitement. This is acquired through many years of Talim (training) with a master musician (Guru).

A typical performance of instrumental Indian classical music begins with Alap, Jor and Jhala rendered on the solo instrument such as Sitar, Sarod, etc. While the Alap is a slow, spiritual, non- metric rendition of the Raga, the following sections Jor and Jhala are somewhat free and bound to a more defined pulse. The Gat (theme) follows the previous sections and it is in this section that the concept of Tala is introduced and the accompanying percussion instrument (such as Tabla or Pakhawaj) joins the main instrument.

Sitar: the Sitar is one of the most popular stringed instruments of northern and eastern India and has gained much attention in the West during the last few decades. The instrument usually consists of 20 strings of which seven strings constitute as the main playing strings. There are 13 sympathetic strings that respond in sympathy to the main strings. The instrument also has a track of twenty metal frets that are movable and can be tuned to the specific tonality of each raga. The main facet of the instrument is that the strings can be pulled or stretched over the metal frets to obtain gliding and melismatic effects much in keeping with the ideal of Indian music to emulate the human voice. 

Tabla: The Tabla is a two piece drum referred to as Tabla for the right-handed drum and Bayan for the left-handed drum. The Tabla (right-hand) is a pitch specific drum tuned to the main tonic note of the performer. The Bayan is a bass drum that can produce a variety of sounds by exerting pressure on the skin of the instrument. The instrument is tuned with a metal hammer. 

Tambura: This background instrument also referred to as Tanpura is used to lend a drone or continuous effect for the performer and listener alike. The instrument usually consists of 4 to 5 strings and is tuned to the main notes of the Raga.

An hour long opera for voices and piano that only uses four pitches, and is full of variety, expression and hilarious to boot - too good to be true, right?  Not at all!  Tom Johnson’s The Four Note Opera  has been an underground favorite since its premiere in 1972.  Supremely well-crafted for the vocalists and written in the minimalist style,  Johnson’s tale is a joyous and bouyant look at idosyncracies (!) of beloved genre of opera, as well as  the charming foibles of those who perform it.  

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 29, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
*no late seating!

Conrad Prebys Music Center
Experimental Theater

kallisti vocal ensemble

Susan Narucki, artistic director
Samantha Fox, stage direction
Natalie Barshow, costume design
Elba Emicente Sanchez, lighting design
Michael Wogulis, production design
Jared Blake Halsell, production stage manager 

Mariana Flores Bucio, soprano
Natalia Merlano Gomez, soprano
Jonathan Nussman, baritone
Miguel Zazueta, tenor
Kyle Adam Blair, pianist

An hour long opera for voices and piano that only uses four pitches, and is full of variety, expression and hilarious to boot - too good to be true, right?  Not at all!  Tom Johnson’s The Four Note Opera  has been an underground favorite since its premiere in 1972.  Supremely well-crafted for the vocalists and written in the minimalist style,  Johnson’s tale is a joyous and bouyant look at idosyncracies (!) of beloved genre of opera, as well as  the charming foibles of those who perform it.  

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 29, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
*no late seating!

Conrad Prebys Music Center
Experimental Theater

kallisti vocal ensemble

Susan Narucki, artistic director
Samantha Fox, stage direction
Natalie Barshow, costume design
Elba Emicente Sanchez, lighting design
Michael Wogulis, production design
Jared Blake Halsell, production stage manager 

Mariana Flores Bucio, soprano
Natalia Merlano Gomez, soprano
Jonathan Nussman, baritone
Miguel Zazueta, tenor
Kyle Adam Blair, pianist

An hour long opera for voices and piano that only uses four pitches, and is full of variety, expression and hilarious to boot - too good to be true, right?  Not at all!  Tom Johnson’s The Four Note Opera has been an underground favorite since its premiere in 1972.  Supremely well-crafted for the vocalists and written in the minimalist style,  Johnson’s tale is a joyous and bouyant look at idosyncracies (!) of beloved genre of opera, as well as  the charming foibles of those who perform it.  

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 29, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
*no late seating!

Conrad Prebys Music Center
Experimental Theater

kallisti vocal ensemble

Susan Narucki, artistic director
Samantha Fox, stage direction
Natalie Barshow, costume design
Elba Emicente Sanchez, lighting design
Michael Wogulis, production design
Jared Blake Halsell, production stage manager 

Mariana Flores Bucio, soprano
Natalia Merlano Gomez, soprano
Jonathan Nussman, baritone
Miguel Zazueta, tenor
Kyle Adam Blair, pianist

PRODUCTION AND DECAY OF STRANGE PARTICLES

in^set presents works for tape, electronics and music box by Ignacio Baca Lobera, Kotoka Suzuki, and Melissa Vargas Franco.

SUNDAY, APRIL 30TH at 4:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center: Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

in^set: David Aguila, Teresa Díaz de Cossio and Ilana Waniuk 

RSVP required to attend in person: music.ucsd.edu/tickets
Watch livestream: music.ucsd.edu/live

Chou Wen-Chung Distinguished Lecture on Chinese Culture

21st Century China Center named this lecture after the esteemed Chinese-American composer, teacher and cultural ambassador, Chou Wen-Chung (1923-2019). Chou was the first Chinese composer to achieve international recognition. His ground-breaking works defy cultural categories and inspired generations of composers. UC San Diego Music Department is the recipient of several dozen historically significant percussion instruments from the Chou Wen-Chung estate. 

Chou Wen-Chung Distinguished Lecture on Chinese Culture presents scholars and artists with the belief that arts and culture are important to promoting mutual understanding between China and the U.S., a belief that was shared by Chou Wen-Chung who established the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange at Columbia University in 1978.

Redefining Music: Traditional Guqin Music in Performance and Scholarship

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. PDT | Register
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, UC San Diego Music Department

Speaker: Bell Yung, emeritus professor at the University of Pittsburgh; affiliate professor at the University of Washington
Moderator: Lei Liang, Chancellor's Distinguished Professor of Music at UC San Diego

In this unique talk, which will feature both a musical performance and a discussion of China's musical tradition, Bell Yung, professor at the University of Washington, will examine one of China's traditional instruments, the guqin. China’s guqin music is historically associated with the literati, who left volumes of treatises, essays and poems explicating their philosophical views of music. This talk and performance will explain how music for these individuals was both intellectual and expressive art, shedding new light on the limits of what music can be.

Bell Yung, an ethnomusicologist specializing in China, is an emeritus professor at the University of Pittsburgh and affiliate professor at the University of Washington. He has published 10 books and more than 100 journal articles, book chapters and reviews in English and in Chinese. His most recent publications are “The Scholar and the Courtesan: songs on the Pearl River’s Flower Boats” and “From humble beginnings to qin master: the remarkable cross-fertilization of folk and elite cultures in Yao Bingyan’s dapu music." His biography of his qin teacher Tsar Teh-yun, "The Last of China’s Literati," was recently published in Chinese. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University and an honorary doctorate from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

NOT TO BE MISSED!

WEDNESDAYS @ 7 presents: Percussion ensemble red fish blue fish in performance with Compañía de Danza Lux Boreal of Tijuana, México. 

Featuring the 2023 Chou Commission: Cañonaso 4 by Jonny Stallings Cárdenas, Temazcal by Javier Alvarez, Declarations de la Comunidad performed with Community Members of Casa Familiar of San Ysidro, and Fronteras Liquidas by Gabriela Ortiz. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 3rd at 7:00 p.m.
Conrad Prebys Music Center | Experimental Theater

General admission: $15 | UC San Diego Faculty, Staff, Alumni: $10 | ALL Students: FREE with ID

RSVP required to attend in person: music.ucsd.edu/tickets
Watch livestream: music.ucsd.edu/live

Mexican American composer Alida Vázquez Ayala (1930–2016) was an essential figure in the narratives of women pioneers in electronic music and a feminist who actively worked towards achieving spaces of equity for women composers. Still, her life story and work are virtually unknown. This conference intends to celebrate Vázquez’s legacy by hosting key figures in her life – friends, mentors, colleagues, and family, many of whom will meet for the first time in this event— and by offering performances of her work for the first time in decades. The concert will feature David Aguila, Kyle Blair, Ryan Beard,  Alvaro G. Díaz Rodriguez, Mariana Flores Bucio, Alexander Ishov, Ellen Hindson, Myra Hinrichs, Batya MacAdam-Somer, David Savage, Grace Talaski, Min-Seok Peter Ko, and Ilana Waniuk. 

This conference will be a space to critically engage with fundamental topics related to women in the arts during the 20th Century, to feminism, in particular Chicana/Latina feminism, and others such as migration and identity, situated in between the context Vázquez grew up in, in Mexico, and the context she spent most of her life in, in New York City. 

Featured events 
Friday, May 5th: 
2:00 p.m.  Round Table Discussion, Experimental Theater
5:00 p.m.  Concert, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Saturday, May 6th: 
11:00 a.m.  Ellie Hisama Keynote Address, Experimental Theater
2:00 p.m. Graduate Student Research Workshop, Experimental Theater

Mexican American composer Alida Vázquez Ayala (1930–2016) was an essential figure in the narratives of women pioneers in electronic music and a feminist who actively worked towards achieving spaces of equity for women composers. Still, her life story and work are virtually unknown. This conference intends to celebrate Vázquez’s legacy by hosting key figures in her life – friends, mentors, colleagues, and family, many of whom will meet for the first time in this event— and by offering performances of her work for the first time in decades. The concert will feature David Aguila, Kyle Blair, Ryan Beard,  Alvaro G. Díaz Rodriguez, Mariana Flores Bucio, Alexander Ishov, Ellen Hindson, Myra Hinrichs, Batya MacAdam-Somer, David Savage, Grace Talaski, Min-Seok Peter Ko, and Ilana Waniuk. 

This conference will be a space to critically engage with fundamental topics related to women in the arts during the 20th Century, to feminism, in particular Chicana/Latina feminism, and others such as migration and identity, situated in between the context Vázquez grew up in, in Mexico, and the context she spent most of her life in, in New York City. 

Featured events 
Friday, May 5th: 
2:00 p.m.  Round Table Discussion, Experimental Theater
5:00 p.m.  Concert, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Saturday, May 6th: 
11:00 a.m.  Ellie Hisama Keynote Address, Experimental Theater
2:00 p.m. Graduate Student Research Workshop, Experimental Theater

CONCERT PROGRAM: 

Danzas de la vida y la muerte                        
Electronics

Suite pour le piano                                         
Piano: Kyle Blair

Acuarelas de México                                     
Voice: Mariana Bucio Flores, Piano: Kyle Blair 

From the Wind (unknown)
Voice: Mariana Bucio Flores, Piano: Kyle Blair 

Piece for Clarinet and Piano                                 
Piano:  Kyle, Clarinete: Grace Talaski

String Quartet                                         
Violin: Ilana Waniuk, Myra Hinrichs, Viola: Batya MacAdam-Somer, Cello: Peter Ko

Pieza para Siete Instrumentos                                 
Flute: Alexander Ishov, Oboe: Ellen Hidson, Clarinet: Grace Talaski, Basson: David Savage, Horn: Ryan Beard, Trumpet: David Aguila, Conductor: Alvaro G. Díaz Rodriguez
 

Mexican American composer Alida Vázquez Ayala (1930–2016) was an essential figure in the narratives of women pioneers in electronic music and a feminist who actively worked towards achieving spaces of equity for women composers. Still, her life story and work are virtually unknown. This conference intends to celebrate Vázquez’s legacy by hosting key figures in her life – friends, mentors, colleagues, and family, many of whom will meet for the first time in this event— and by offering performances of her work for the first time in decades. The concert will feature David Aguila, Kyle Blair, Ryan Beard,  Alvaro G. Díaz Rodriguez, Mariana Flores Bucio, Alexander Ishov, Ellen Hindson, Myra Hinrichs, Batya MacAdam-Somer, David Savage, Grace Talaski, Min-Seok Peter Ko, and Ilana Waniuk. 

This conference will be a space to critically engage with fundamental topics related to women in the arts during the 20th Century, to feminism, in particular Chicana/Latina feminism, and others such as migration and identity, situated in between the context Vázquez grew up in, in Mexico, and the context she spent most of her life in, in New York City. 

Featured events 
Friday, May 5th: 
2:00 p.m.  Round Table Discussion, Experimental Theater
5:00 p.m.  Concert, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Saturday, May 6th: 
11:00 a.m.  Ellie Hisama Keynote Address, Experimental Theater
2:00 p.m. Graduate Student Research Workshop, Experimental Theater

ABOUT THE ELLIE M. HISAMA: 

Ellie M. Hisama is Dean of the Faculty of Music and Professor of Music at the University of Toronto. She previously taught at Columbia University as a member of the Theory and Historical Musicology areas. Her research and teaching have addressed issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, the social and political dimensions of music, and public engagement. She is the author of Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and is co-editor of the volumes Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-century American Music and Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies.

She received a Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; a Tsunoda Ryusaku Senior Fellowship, Waseda University (Tokyo); and the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship. In 2022, she delivered the American Musicological Society Women and Gender Endowed Lecture, “‘We Have to Reimagine’: Centering Women/Gender/Sexuality in Music Studies.” She has taught at many institutions including Brooklyn College, the City University of New York's Graduate Center, Connecticut College, and Harvard University. She was nominated twice by Columbia College's Academic Awards Committee for the Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching, and served as Director of the Institute for Studies in American Music [now the Hitchcock Institute] at Brooklyn College.

As an academic leader, she engages with issues of structural racism and gender and racial justice. At Columbia University, she was a Provost Leadership Fellow and an inaugural recipient of the Provost’s Faculty Mentoring Award. With composer Zosha Di Castri, she directed the symposium Unsung Stories: Women at Columbia’s Computer Music Center and coproduced its podcast series. She is Founding Director of For the Daughters of Harlem: Working in Sound, an initiative that brings students of color from public schools to the university to create, record, and reflect upon their work in sound. She continues this project in Toronto with Future Sound 6ix, which invites gender nonconforming and female-identifying students to work at the University of Toronto’s Electronic Music Studio.

Mexican American composer Alida Vázquez Ayala (1930–2016) was an essential figure in the narratives of women pioneers in electronic music and a feminist who actively worked towards achieving spaces of equity for women composers. Still, her life story and work are virtually unknown. This conference intends to celebrate Vázquez’s legacy by hosting key figures in her life – friends, mentors, colleagues, and family, many of whom will meet for the first time in this event— and by offering performances of her work for the first time in decades. The concert will feature David Aguila, Kyle Adam Blair, Ryan Beard, Alvaro G. Díaz Rodriguez, Mariana Flores Bucio, Alexander Ishov, Ellen Hindson, Myra Hinrichs, Batya MacAdam-Somer, David Savage, Grace Talaski, Min-Seok Peter Ko, and Ilana Waniuk. 

This conference will be a space to critically engage with fundamental topics related to women in the arts during the 20th Century, to feminism, in particular Chicana/Latina feminism, and others such as migration and identity, situated in between the context Vázquez grew up in, in Mexico, and the context she spent most of her life in, in New York City. 

Featured events 
Friday, May 5th: 
2:00 p.m.  Round Table Discussion, Experimental Theater
5:00 p.m.  Concert, Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Saturday, May 6th: 
11:00 a.m.  Ellie Hisama Keynote Address, Experimental Theater
2:00 p.m. Graduate Student Research Workshop, Experimental Theater

ABOUT THE ELLIE M. HISAMA: 

Ellie M. Hisama is Dean of the Faculty of Music and Professor of Music at the University of Toronto. She previously taught at Columbia University as a member of the Theory and Historical Musicology areas. Her research and teaching have addressed issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, the social and political dimensions of music, and public engagement. She is the author of Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon, which was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title, and is co-editor of the volumes Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Worlds: Innovation and Tradition in Twentieth-century American Music and Critical Minded: New Approaches to Hip Hop Studies.

She received a Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; a Tsunoda Ryusaku Senior Fellowship, Waseda University (Tokyo); and the Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship. In 2022, she delivered the American Musicological Society Women and Gender Endowed Lecture, “‘We Have to Reimagine’: Centering Women/Gender/Sexuality in Music Studies.” She has taught at many institutions including Brooklyn College, the City University of New York's Graduate Center, Connecticut College, and Harvard University. She was nominated twice by Columbia College's Academic Awards Committee for the Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching, and served as Director of the Institute for Studies in American Music [now the Hitchcock Institute] at Brooklyn College.

As an academic leader, she engages with issues of structural racism and gender and racial justice. At Columbia University, she was a Provost Leadership Fellow and an inaugural recipient of the Provost’s Faculty Mentoring Award. With composer Zosha Di Castri, she directed the symposium Unsung Stories: Women at Columbia’s Computer Music Center and coproduced its podcast series. She is Founding Director of For the Daughters of Harlem: Working in Sound, an initiative that brings students of color from public schools to the university to create, record, and reflect upon their work in sound. She continues this project in Toronto with Future Sound 6ix, which invites gender nonconforming and female-identifying students to work at the University of Toronto’s Electronic Music Studio.

MAY 6-7, 2023 ECHOES OF COLOR

GUEST CONDUCTOR SAMEER PATEL

This concert will be bookended by two stunning pieces by British composer Anna Clyne. The opening work Within Her Arms was written as an ode to her mother, a meditation on loss, love, and life. The closing work will be her 2020 composition, Color Field, a work that was inspired by abstract artist Mark Rothko’s painting: Orange, Red, Yellow. Aaron Copland’s orchestral suite from the ballet Rodeo, and Leon Littlebird’s 2021 Brenda and Steven Schick commission, When Echoes Speak, will round out the program.

Anna Clyne                                     Within Her Arms

Aaron Copland                               Suite from Rodeo

Leon Littlebird/Max Wolpert     When Echoes Speak
2021 Brenda and Steven Schick commission

Anna Clyne                                     Color Field

More information & Tickets at: https://www.ljsc.org/

MAY 6-7, 2023 ECHOES OF COLOR

GUEST CONDUCTOR SAMEER PATEL

This concert will be bookended by two stunning pieces by British composer Anna Clyne. The opening work Within Her Arms was written as an ode to her mother, a meditation on loss, love, and life. The closing work will be her 2020 composition, Color Field, a work that was inspired by abstract artist Mark Rothko’s painting: Orange, Red, Yellow. Aaron Copland’s orchestral suite from the ballet Rodeo, and Leon Littlebird’s 2021 Brenda and Steven Schick commission, When Echoes Speak, will round out the program.

Anna Clyne                                     Within Her Arms

Aaron Copland                               Suite from Rodeo

Leon Littlebird/Max Wolpert     When Echoes Speak
2021 Brenda and Steven Schick commission

Anna Clyne                                     Color Field

More information & Tickets at: https://www.ljsc.org/

Celebrating the memorable works of Mohammad Reza Shajarian
Siamak Shajarian and Keyavash Nourai in Concert
featuring students of the Music department of UC San Diego
Saturday, May 13th, 2023 7:30 pm
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Generously supported by the Chehreazad Endowed Funds for Persian Arts at UCSD
Presented in collaboration with Persian Cultural Center (PCC) and Association of Iranian American Professionals (AIAP) of San Diego.

Tickets: General Public: $25 | PCC and AIAP members: $20 | Free for UC San Diego students, staff and faculty
 

Wednesdays at 7 presents:

back and forth
Susan Narucki, soprano
Donald Berman, piano

Wednesday, May 17, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall
UC San Diego

Susan Narucki and Donald Berman present a recital of works that evoke memories of other places and times, hidden mysteries wrapped in song. The longtime collaborators perform Samuel Barber’s iconic Knoxville: Summer of 1915, as well as the world premiere of Alex Taylor’s Agee Songs, songs that offer a reflection on Barber’s work, utilizing portions of Agee’s iconic prose poem which Barber did not set. In addition, the duo performs Scott Wheeler’s Wasting the Night, a cycle of songs set to poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The works vacillate between the poets’ acerbic wit and unflinching lyricism, in musical language that is playful, succinct and devastatingly understated. Tania Leóns’ Atwood Songs (2018), a cycle of five songs written to poems celebrated feminist writer Margaret Atwood, characterized by rhythmic vitality, bold use of instrumental timbre and color, and searingly expressive writing for the voice, complete the program.

Samuel Barber:  Knoxville, Summer of 1915
Alex Taylor: Agee Songs* (world premiere)
Scott Wheeler: Wasting the night
Tania Leon:  Atwood Songs

RSVP: music.ucsd.edu/tickets
Watch Livestream: music.ucsd.edu/live

PROGRAM NOTES: 

Back and Forth

The first singer who I remember hearing was my father, John.  He had a beautiful baritone voice, and serenaded us regularly in the car, crooning ballads of Nat King Cole and cowboy songs of Hank Williams. I was raised in a town that had seen better days, with mills and factories alongside a river, rows of modest houses with porches and pots of geraniums. I always thought it was beautiful.

Samuel Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915, evokes memories of a simpler place and time. The America of Agee’s prose poem is almost a century old, and the days of clanging streetcars has passed; yet the imagery of families grouped together on a summer night, seen through the eyes of a child, is timeless.  I am grateful to have a chance to present Alex Taylor’s wonderful songs which illuminate other portions of Agee’s work in settings that are spacious and gleaming.

The other two of the sets of songs on tonight’s program focus on the complexity of relationships, in all their forms. Scott Wheeler’s succinct and playful settings of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s songs are miracles of understatement, incorporating the poet’s acerbic wit and unflinching perspective on love and loss. Tania Leon’s Atwood Songs are jazzy, angular and rhythmically vibrant musical framings of the equally uncompromising feminist poetry of the well-known Canadian writer.

I followed the breadcrumb trail of poetry and music to a life far from that town alongside the river.  But we take who we are with us, wherever we go - back and forth, and forth and back again.

- Susan Narucki   

Agee Songs (2023)

James Agee’s fantasia-like Knoxville, Summer of 1915 was published posthumously as a prologue to his novel A Death in the Family. Drawing on memories of childhood just before the death of his father, Agee takes the reader back to the porches and lawns, the smells and sounds and familial dynamics of a lower-middle-class neighborhood in the early twentieth century.

Samuel Barber’s famous setting of Knoxville used only selections – about one-third – of Agee’s text; here my Agee Songs takes a second pass at that original source material, scavenging what Barber left behind – a remainder rich with metaphor and nostalgia.

I was particularly drawn to Agee’s sensitive but hazy rendering of his own and other’s fathers: they are “nearly anonymous”, “ghostlike”, “fishlike pale”, their faces exhibiting a “sober mystery”, as if behind glass, quietly embedded with the mundane but ethereal task of hosing their lawns. To me Agee’s text has the quality of a reverie, ecstatic in the sense of being outside of itself, trance-like; and at the center of it these recurring images of mysterious, distant, paternal ghosts.

At one level these songs respond directly to Agee’s text: creating a musical space that plays with transparency and opacity, a vessel for the words and memories to speak. But they also respond to Barber’s intense and heartfelt embodiment of that text: creating a musical language that is in dialogue with his idiosyncratic harmonies, his deceptively simple lyricism, his clever evocations of musical pasts.

I would like to thank the wonderful Susan Narucki for commissioning this work, and for all of her substantial support of my music throughout my time here at UC San Diego.

- Alex Taylor

BIOGRAPHIES

SUSAN NARUCKI, soprano: For nearly forty years, American soprano Susan Narucki has forged a unique path; her dedication to the music of our time has led to award winning recordings, critically acclaimed performances with musicians of the first rank and close collaborations with generations of composers. Since joining the faculty at UC San Diego in 2008, she has been engaged in commissioning, producing and performing chamber operas that illuminate critical issues in society. Her projects have earned major philanthropic support from the MAP Fund for the Performing Arts, UC MEXUS, Creative Capital Foundation, New Music USA and multiple awards from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ms. Narucki commissioned and produced Inheritance, a chamber opera written by Grawemeyer Award winning composer Lei Liang, addressing gun violence in America. Co-presented by ART Power and the Department of Music at UC San Diego, Inheritance had its premiere performances in October, 2018. In addition, Ms. Narucki also commissioned and produced Cuatro Corridos (2013), a chamber opera that addresses trafficking of women across the U.S.- Mexico border. With libretto by renowned Mexican author Jorge Volpi, the opera earned critical acclaim and was performed in Los Angeles, Guadalajara, Dallas, Tijuana and Mexico City. The recording on Bridge Records earned a 2017 Latin Grammy Nomination.

Ms. Narucki was nominated for a 2019 Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Recording for The Edge of Silence: Vocal Chamber Music of György Kurtág (AVIE Records). The recording was included in the New York Times Best Classical Tracks of 2019 and was named a Critic’s Choice of Opera News. Her most recent recording with pianist Donald Berman, This Island (AVIE Records) focuses on songs of women composers of the early twentieth century, many recorded for the first time.

DONALD BERMAN, piano: Pianist Donald Berman is recognized as a chief exponent of new works by living composers, overlooked music by 20th century masters, and recitals that link classical and modern repertoires. His 2-volume The Unknown Ives and The Uncovered Ruggles (New World) represents the only recordings of the complete short piano works of Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles extant. Other recordings on Bridge Records include the 4-CD set Americans in Rome: Music by Fellows of the American Academy in Rome, The Piano Music of Martin Boykan, and Scott Wheeler: Tributes and Portraits. Berman has also recorded The Light That Is Felt: Songs of Charles Ives (with Susan Narucki, soprano New World), Wasting the Night: Songs of Scott Wheeler (Naxos) and Christopher Theofanidis’s Piano Concerto (Summitt), as well as music by Su Lian Tan (Arsis), Arthur Levering (New World), Martin Boykan (New World; Bridge), Tamar Diesendruck (Centaur), and Aaron Jay Kernis (Koch).

Recent performances by Donald Berman include solo recitals at Bargemusic, National Sawdust, and (le)Poisson Rouge in New York City. He has also been a featured soloist at Zankel Hall, Rockport Music Festival as well as abroad in Belgrade, Rome, Beiijing, and Israel.

A 2011 Radcliffe Institute Fellow, Berman is currently President of The Charles Ives Society. He serves as Chair of the Piano Faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College and is on the faculty of Tufts University. His principal teachers were Mildred Victor, George Barth, John Kirkpatrick, and Leonard Shure.

ALEX TAYLOR, composer: Alex Taylor (b. 1988) has been commissioned and performed by prominent artists in his native New Zealand and abroad, including Orchestra Wellington (NZ), Enso Quartet (US), Ensemble U (EE), Ensemble Proton Bern (CH) and the Tanglewood Music Center (US). After studying English Literature and Music, he completed a Masters in Composition with First Class Honours under the supervision of Eve de Castro-Robinson and John Elmsly in 2011, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California San Diego, studying with Lei Liang. Alex’s compositional work often explores interactions between seemingly disparate materials, especially between old and new musics. As well as composing, he is also a multi-instrumentalist, writer and music educator. His violin-piano duo Three Endings is featured on Sarah Watkins and Andrew Beer’s 2019 Rattle release 11 Frames. A new work for theorbo, violin and cello, on what grounds, will be touring in eleven towns in New Zealand throughout April and May 2023.

On Thursday, May 18 at 5 p.m., join the Qualcomm Institute (QI) in UC San Diego's Atkinson Hall for "Pigments of Imagination" by artist, music producer and UC San Diego graduate student Timothy Gmeiner and Stanford University graduate student Eito Murakami.

"Pigments of Imagination" is an interactive virtual reality experience that frames the creative process as a narrative relating the inner-workings of one's unique imagination to the universe around us. It is an observation on the beauty, fear, adventure, sadness and loneliness of self-discovery and the artist's ultimate recognition of process as goal, as told through the story of a small child's journey to the moon. This piece features musical contributions from UCSD's King Britt, Steph Richards, Zach Konick and vocalist Nick Tolford.

Singular VR experiences will be offered in addition to the general presentation.

Date: May 18, 2023

Time: 5pm - 8pm

Location: UC San Diego Atkinson Hall

Host: Shahrokh Yadegari

Agenda:
5 p.m. Performance in Atkinson Hall's auditorium
6 p.m. Atkinson Hall pre-function area/courtyard for reception

RSVP to ideasqi@ucsd.edu by noon, May 18.

A special thank you to Shahrokh Yadegari, Qualcomm Institute and the IDEAS Initiative, the presenters of this piece.

Full event info: https://qi.ucsd.edu/events/pigments-of-imagination/ 

Space and Time is the last SElectOr concert curated by founder and creative director of the group Gabriel Zalles Ballivian. The concert is a collection of spatial music propositions by graduate students and alumni of the music department. This event will feature multichannel music performances using small and large speaker arrays, including large-scale surround sound compositions using the newly installed Meyer Sound system in CPMC122, the Experimental Theater. Composers involved include: Charles Deluga, Forestsaurus (Paul Roth/ Tornike Karchkhadze), Dante Escrofani, Douglas Osmun, and Nathaniel Haering, with technical support from Jeremy Olson.

UC San Diego SElectOr is a music collective and creative incubator which connects undergraduate and graduate students in collaborative creative endeavors focused on sound and multimedia art-making. In the past, our group as curated concerts, performed live, and developed spatial audio experiences for the web. In addition to concerts and performances, the team also submits these artworks to conferences world-wide and holds workshops open to the public. The group is intended to give graduate students mentorship opportunities as they work closely with undergraduates, alumni, staff and prospective students. It is a miniature, grassroots version of the IDEAS series by long-time UC San Diego faculty Shahrokh Yadegari. Given its unofficial capacity, the group is able to operate efficiently within and outside the confines of the university.

Gabriel Zalles Ballivian is a 5th year PhD student from UC San Diego interested in education, spatial audio, open-source software and multimedia arts. Over the last five years, Gabriel has been developing his own ambisonic arrays using low-cost components in an attempt to democratize this technology. He has also been creating musical material with open-source ambisonic tools and developing web apps that function as low-cost artistic examples of spatial music. Gabriel is originally from Bolivia but has lived and studied in the U.S. for over a decade. In such time, he received a BA from UC San Diego and an MA from NYU, both in music. His research and music have been shown worldwide in conferences such as NIME, EDAM, SMC, AES, and NYCEMF. In the past, Gabriel has also worked for Adobe, Birch Aquarium, and composer Lei Liang.

For more information see: ucsdselector.com

Travel back in time with harpsichordist and UC San Diego lecturer Takae Ohnishi as she teams up with friends from the San Diego Symphony to revel in the joys of a springtime evening in the Baroque era. It is certain to be a lighthearted evening filled with virtuosic performances of some of the great works written for the harpsichord. 

Featuring: Zou Yu and Nihira Awata, violins; Lily Josefsberg, flute, Chia-Ling Chien, cello, PJ Cinque, double bass

Program:
Duphly: Chaconne; Rameau: Clavecin Concert No.5; J.S.Bach: Sonata for harpsichord and cello No.3  BWV1029 and Brandenburg Concerto No.5 BWV1050; Vivaldi: Trio Sonata “La Follia” RV63

Presented by ArtPower | Ticket information

Los Angeles based new music ensemble wasteLAnd, featuring Department alumni Rachel Beetz, Dustin Donahue, Todd Mollenberg, Ashley Walters, and Nicholas Deyoe, will premiere new works for instruments and electronics by Matthew Henson, Roger Reynolds, Jonny Stallings, Rand Steiger, Alexander Taylor, and Ni Zheng.

wasteLAnd

Rachel Beetz, flute
Mattie Barbier, trombone
Brian Walsh, clarinet
Adrianne Pope, violin
Ashley Walters, cello
Todd Moellenberg, piano
Dustin Donahue, percussion
Nicholas Deyoe, conductor

Soprano Mariana Flores Bucio presents her second DMA recital

Manual for the use of wings by Gilda Lyons (2017)
             solo voice
Oh Yes & I by Rebecca Saunders (2017/2018) 
             soprano and bass flute (Teresa Díaz)
From the wind by Alida Vazquez  
             soprano and piano (Kyle Adam Blair)
Acuarelas de México by Alida Vazquez  
             soprano and piano (Kyle Adam Blair)

MARIANA FLORES is a Mexican singer and actress specialized in Contemporary Music and Mexican Vernacular Music.

She has studied and collaborated with artists like Wilfrido Terrazas, Carmina Escobar and artistic groups like the Orquesta of Baja California, Teatro en el Incendio, 9Spiral Project, and the Italo-American Institute of International Cooperation. She has performed leading roles in classical and contemporary operas, premiered several new musical works, and performed on important stages as a vernacular Mexican music singer. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Music at the Autonomous University of Baja California and her MFA degree in Music Performance at UC San Diego. She is co-director of the vocal ensemble "Radical Ensamble" at Tijuana, B.C. Mex., and she is currently pursuing a DMA in Performance at UC San Diego.

~~

Cantante y actriz Mexicana especializada en Música Contemporánea y Música Vernácula Mexicana.

Mariana ha estudiado y colaborado con artistas como Wilfrido Terrazas, Carmina Escobar y grupos artísticos como LA Orquesta de Baja California, Teatro en el Incendio, 9 Spiral Project, y el Instituto Italo-Americano de Cooperación Internacional. Ha preformado roles principales en opera clasica y contemporanea, ha estrenado diversas obras musicales, y se ha presentado en escenarios importantes como cantante de Música Vernácula Mexicana. Flores, obtuvo su licenciatura en Musica, en la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, y su Master en Performance en la Universidad de California, San Diego. Actualmente, es co-directora del ensamble vocal "Radical Ensamble" en Tijuana, B.C., Mex. y persigue su Doctorado en Performance en UC San Diego.

coda is a 35-minute work for hybrid orchestra with which I conclude what I call the first super cycle. coda, as an autonomous musical form, and coda as the last part of a work that I have yet to write.
-Jacques Zafra

coda
Composer: Jacques Zafra

Performers:
Flute: Teresa Días de Cossio
Clarinet: Grace Talaski
Trumpet: David Aguila
Percussion: Kosuke Matsuda
Violin 1: Myra Hinrichs
Violin 2: Pauline Ng
Viola: Alexander Taylor
Cello: Robert Bui
Contrabass: Matthew Henson
Virtual performer: Sibelius

Conducted by: Matthew Kline

In this IDEAS performance in Atkinson Hall (UC San Diego campus), Chicago-based musical Ensemble Dal Niente visits QI to premier original compositions by graduate students in the “Hearing Extremes” seminar taught by QI Research Artist in Residence and UC San Diego Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Music Lei Liang with geologist Emily Chin and oceanographer Joshua Jones.

“Hearing Extremes” compositions are based on ongoing collaborations with scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The pieces reflect an unusual opportunity for artists and scientists to develop interdisciplinary projects outside the walls of their respective departments, and to create works that would not be possible without a fully integrated approach that reflects the knowledge, technology and global issues of our time.

Musicians: Constance Volk (flute), Katherine Schoepflin Jimoh (clarinet), Ben Melsky (harp)

Participants: Marguerite Brown, Robert Bui, Mitchell Carlstrom, Mingyong Cheng, Andrew Crapitto, Charles Deluga, Di Fang, Yifan Guo, Sergey Kasich, Grace Talaski, Delong Wang, S Whiteley, Haihui Zhang, Han Zhang

All IDEAS events are free and open to the public. RSVPs requested to ideasqi@ucsd.edu by noon, May 26.

Agenda:
5 p.m. - Performance in Atkinson Hall
6 p.m. - Reception

More information: Qualcomm Institute Event Site

STEPH RICHARDS & QASIM NAQVI
Thursday, May 25th, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater

Duo collaborators Steph Richards (trumpet/compositions/UC San Diego Music Faculty) and Qasim Naqvi (composer/analogue synthesizer/drummer) Premiere a program of sonic constructions for trumpet, resonating vessels, drumset and analog synthesizers. Longtime collaborators, Naqvi and Richards most recently released Thyroid (2022) as part of the acclaimed Wind Layers project by 7K! Records also featuring saxophonist Colin Stetson and trombonist Peter Zummo.

ABOUT STEPH RICHARDS:

“A rising force in avant-garde jazz…a virtuoso of otherworldy sound” (Jazz Times)

Trumpeter and composer Steph Richards has steadily established herself in as an engaging experimentalist on the jazz and creative music scenes, working with pioneering artists ranging Henry Threadgill and Anthony Braxton to Laurie Anderson and David Byrne. Her work is driven by a curiosity of what sensory variables are open to experimentation— often resulting in interdisciplinary works that include scent, dance, and performed in unexpected spaces such as carousels or underwater. Her works have been featured stages as iconic and varied as Carnegie Hall, the Blue-note and Lincoln Center.

Originally from Canada, Richards has spent much of her career in Brooklyn, NY. Dedicated to experimental music without regard to genre, she is fluid in the contemporary music scene (she has performed alongside the Kronos Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble) as well as in the jazz and creative scenes, working with the many musicians such as Jason Moran, Ravi Coltrane and Sylvie Courvoisier.

As a soloist, Richards’ solo records explore improvisation, spectral experimentation, groove and, in her more recent release, scent. Supersense (Northern Spy Records, 2020), is an inter-sensorial body of works by Steph Richards in collaboration with scent artist Sean Raspet. It is an exploration of the emotional dialogue between sound and scent, which evokes sensations that linger in the wordless space of sonic vibration and chemical reaction. "Supersense makes for high-grade experimental avant-garde and then some" (All About Jazz ****1/2).

Her debut record Fullmoon (Relative Pitch Records) was hailed as a “bold pronouncement” by the New York Times and voted on multiple “Best of 2018” year end lists, including as the #1 Record of the Year by Free Jazz Collective. An electronic exploration of trumpet/resonating percussion and sampler, the record featured the work of pioneering electronic artist J.A. Dino Deane. Steph immediately followed up with her 2019 release Take The Neon Lights, a quartet situated between experimental jazz, free funk and avant rock, It also received high praise from critics, with Downbeat calling Steph “a virtuoso of nonlinear trumpet playing".

For years she co-produced the NYC-based FONT Music festival alongside trumpeter Dave Douglas and now produces FONT West on the West Coast. She is on faculty at the experimentally driven University of California San Diego and is a Yamaha artist.

ABOUT QASIM NAQVI:

Pakistani-American drummer and composer Qasim Naqvi is perhaps best known as a founding member of acoustic trio Dawn of Midi. Outside of his work in DOM., Naqvi is an accomplished solo artist with a passion for analogue and modular synthesizer systems. 

His concert music has been performed/commissioned by The BBC Concert Orchestra, Jennifer Koh, The London Contemporary Orchestra, Stargaze, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Crash Ensemble, The Now Ensemble, The Erebus Ensemble, yMusic, The Helsinki Chamber Choir, Alexander Whitley, Cikada, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra(MusicNOW Season) and others. He has been a featured composer at the Musica Nova Festival in Helsinki, the Spitalfields Festival in London, Ultima Festival, Southbank Centre and the Rest is Noise Festival in Holland.

Qasim's soundtracks for film have appeared on HBO, NBC, PBS, Showtime, New York Times Op-Docs, VICE Media, at The Tribeca, Sundance, Toronto, Rotterdam and London Film Festivals, at dOCUMENTA 13 and 14, The Guggenheim Museum, The Tate Britain (Turner Prize 2018), MOMA P.S. 1, IDFA, Berlinale and others. He has worked with such notable filmmakers as Laura Poitras, Mariam Ghani, Marc Levin, Naeem Mohaiemen, Smriti Keshari, Prashant Bhargava and Erin Heidenreich.

Acoustic trio Dawn of Midi have released two albums. Their most recent Dysnomia, was acclaimed by Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Spin, The Guardian and the New Yorker. Radiohead personally picked Dawn of Midi as their support band for two sold out concerts at New York's Madison Square Garden for their Moon Shaped Pool tour.

Qasim earned his B.F.A in performance from the New School Jazz and Contemporary Music program and his M.F.A in composition and performance from California Institute of the Arts. He studied drums and performance with Andrew Cyrille, Joe Chambers, Reggie Workman, Buster Williams, Ralph Peterson Jr., Charlie Haden and Rashied Ali and composition with Wolfgang von Schweinitz, James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, Marc Sabat, Wadada Leo Smith, Michael Jon Fink and Anne LeBaron. He is a 2016 N.Y.F.A Fellow in Music and Sound and has received other fellowships and awards from Chamber Music America, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mid-Atlantic Arts Council, Harvest Works, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, S.T.E.I.M. and Art OMI.

Presently, Qasim lives in Brooklyn New York and works on a variety of projects as a freelance composer and drummer. He is represented by Erased Tapes Publishing.

Within Worlds is the third DMA recital of violinist Ilana Waniuk. Featuring compositions by Luciano Berio, Catherine Lamb, and live audio/visual improvisations performed by Ilana, the program will also include the world premiere of Alex Mah's  'Bird Cage' (2023) for solo violin, lanterns and fixed media, and Joseph Bourdeau's 'This Way Forever' (2023) for three performers and electronics.  Within Worlds showcases performances by special guests, violinist Myra Hinrichs, and in^set (David Aguila and Teresa Díaz de Cossio). 

Photography: Shayne Gray, Artwork: Dan Tapper

Join us for the Spring 2023 Undergraduate Forum showcasing UC San Diego's undergraduate music students on Friday, May 26, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall!

Featuring perfromances by: Sophia Coon, Sriprada Kattamuri, Eugene Lau, Matthew Young, Ryan Jeffers, Capalina Melentyev, Ashley Mok, Shaen Barnard, Sunwoo Baik, Sydney Liao, Alexandros Alexiou, Emily Wong, Capalina Melentyev, Guy Zamir, Jessica Wang, Kaira Hammerstrøm, Seth Shaoyi Durbin, Kit Jack Chan, and more!

Espejismo
The works selected for tonight’s concert result from the research and conversations in the voice class. They are chamber music pieces, mainly from the last 20 years, created by women composers. Also, writing these notes, I realized that most composers you will listen to emigrated from their countries. 
Navigating this repertory brought me thoughts, emotions, and ideas that allowed me to discover, reformulate, and realize different aspects of myself as a singer, vocalist, performer, musician, and human being. 

Program:

Mirage (2007) - Kaija Saariaho (Finland, France. 1953 - )
Text: Maria Sabina (1896-1985)
For voice, cello, and piano
15 min approx

Meadow Song (2010 / 2013) - Iris Szeghy (Slovak, Switzerland. 1956 -) 
For voice and violin
Text: From Slovak hay-harvesting song
5 min approx

De las hojas secas del verano (1967) - Jacqueline Nova (Colombia, Belgium.1935-1975)
For voice and piano 
Text: Jose Puben (1936-1996)
4 min approx

Only The Words Themselves Say What They Say (2011) - Kate Soper (USA. 1981- )
For voice and flute
Text: Lydia Davis (1947-)
13 min approx

Lullaby (2016) - Nasim Khorassani (Iran. 1987- )
For voice and piano
Text: From Iranian folk lullaby
6 min approx

Artefact #2 (2019) - Sara Glojnaric (Croatia, Germany. 1991- )
For voice drum set and electronics
10 min approx

Collaborators
Piano: Kyle Adam Blair 
Drums: Eric Derr 
Flute: Teresa Diaz De Cossio
Cello: Peter Ko
Violin: Ilana Waniuk
 

Program Notes

Mirage is a work for voice, piano, and cello written by Kaija Saariaho in 2007, commissioned originally by the Orchestre de Paris, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and adapted a couple of years later to her friends Pia Freud, Anssi Karttunen, and Tuija Hakkila.

Working on the piece, I learned about Maria Sabina. She was a healer, wise, oral poet, and Shaman from Mexico who introduced the use of psilocybin mushrooms and their sacred and healing power to help her community. Unfortunately, her practice was taken by the Western world, and this issue affected her and her community profoundly. 

Meadow Song is a piece by Iris Szeghy that I listened to for the first time around 2015 in the two voices version. After that, I wrote the composer on social media and could access the scores of different versions of the same piece, like the voice and flute, voice and saxophone, and voice and violin version you would listen to tonight. After some conversations via email, she sent me her piece for solo voice, Psalm, which I had the pleasure to perform and record in my album Resonancias Entrelazadas in 2021. Although we have not met in person, I feel grateful to collaborate with her in all these fantastic works.

Jaqueline Nova was a pioneer in electroacoustic music in Colombia and Latin America. She was the first woman to graduate from the Colombia National Conservatory of Music as a composer. The first piece I listened to her was Creacion de la Tierra (Creation of the Earth) at elementary school when my music teacher showed us an excerpt of the piece to exemplify Contemporary Music. It was probably the first electro-acoustic piece that I listened to. De las hojas secas del verano is one of her songs closer to an experimental and contemporary language. Other songs by her have more rhythmic structures with patterns and tonal sounds. In the piece you will listen to, the rhythm has more space and freedom, and the melody is created more atonally.

Lydia Davis is one of my favorite American writers and poets, and the way the composer Kate Soper used her text in the piece Only the Words Themselves Say What They Say is incredible. Soper is a talented composer who explores voice in many different ways. Being a singer allowed her to impregnate the piece of many explorations of the instrument that made the performance pleasant and exciting. Additionally, how the flute and the voice create textures and meanings is very simple regarding the tools but rich in the complexity both make simultaneously. 

I met Nasim Khorassani when I started my Doctorate last Fall. A couple of months later, I learned about her project MOAASER, in which she teaches composition online to support and promote the works of young Persian composers, engaging them with all her energy, creativity, discipline, and big heart. When planning this recital, I wanted to include a piece by her. Right after I mentioned it, she sent me the score, and we talked about the work. Lullaby is a song she composed one night when she couldn't fall asleep. It is a melody to calm the mind, and the soul, to lull the thoughts, fears, and sadness. 

Sara Glojnaric is interested in the aesthetics and socio/political consequences of pop culture, among other topics. We met during my Master's at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany. In Artifact #2, she wants to evoke nostalgia from pop music, using drum intros from renamed rock songs from the 90s and 80s and doing different electronic treatments to create new sonorities and meanings. 

Bio Natalia Merlano Gomez: 

Musician, singer, improviser, and creator. She has been captivated by Experimental Music, worldwide Folk Music, improvisation, graphical notation, and extended vocal sounds. Additionally, she is curious about theater and explorations around video and photography. She studied an M.A in Contemporary Music - Singing at Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany, being part of different multidisciplinary projects combining music, theater, dance, literature, and visual arts. Yielding good results, she did her undergraduate program at the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas in Bogota, Colombia. She is pursuing a Doctorate in Music Arts at the University of California San Diego. Since 2009, she has premiered many works by composers worldwide and commissioned new pieces. In 2021, she presented her first album called: Resonancias Entrelazadas. It includes 15 works written by women composers and improvisations with female performers. Also, in 2022, she premiered the project CINCO with audiovisual pieces by Latin American composers written primarily for her.

Mitchell Carlstrom's 2nd DMA Recital, featuring works by Zubel, Stockhausen, Matalon, and Saariaho.

Surface for solo hammered dulcimer was composed in 2023. In this work, I perform a timbral exploration of the body of this traditionally folk instrument through articulation of its various unique resonant surfaces, highlighting aspects of the instrument’s pitched and percussive nature, and bringing about a multitude of gradually unfolding sonorities.

Influx for string quartet was originally composed for the Mivos quartet in 2022. This piece aims to explore a continual straddling of the boundary between identifiably pitched and noisy complexes through a collage of distinctive interspersed textural identities.

Constellations was composed in 2023 for three vibraphones, viola, cello and contrabass. The work explores various textural environments, each composed of a limited set of idiosyncratic behaviors. These behavioral elements are reconceived in each textural circumstance through a variety of transformational processes. This compositional approach examines the unique effect which space and time confer on one’s perception and experience of reality. To me, this entertains our ability to capture distinctive dimensional perspectives, each of which offers their own beauty.

- Zachary Konick

All Performers:
Violin I – Myra Hinrichs
Violin II – Pauline Ng
Viola – Rebecca Matayoshi
Cello – Robert Bui
Contrabass – Matthew Henson
Vibraphone I – Camilo Zamudio
Vibraphone II – Kosuke Matsuda
Vibraphone III – Mitchell Carlstrom
Hammered Dulcimer – Zachary Konick
Conductor – Berk Schneider

Biography:

Zachary Konick is a San Diego based composer, percussionist, hammered dulcimerist and music instructor. He received his BM from the University of Maryland and his MM degree at the University of South Florida in music composition. He has received notable performances by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the newEar Ensemble, the Quasar Saxophone Quartet, the Florida Orchestra, The Conjunct Contemporani del CSMIB (Palma, Spain), the McCormick Percussion Group, the JACK, Ethel, Spektral, and Mivos String Quartets, as well as solo performances by Lee Hinkle, and Alice Weinreb. His music has been conducted under the baton of Oliver Knussen, Aleck Karis, Michael Francis and Steven Schick. He is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at the University of California San Diego, where he primarily studies with Roger Reynolds. His past mentors have included Thomas DeLio, Chinary Ung, Lei Liang, Katharina Rosenberger, Baljinder Sekhon, and Paul Reller.

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

Friday June 2 at 7pm 
in the UC San Diego Conrad Prebys Music Center Concert Hall
Featuring six new works

"By The Meanderings"                                                           Akari Komura
for 3 doublebasses with fixed media

"Hybridization"                                                                       Grace Talaski
for Bb clarinet and contrabass trio 

"Expanding Ostinato with Incongruent Melodies                    Matthew Henson
and Hammer--Ons in Separate Pulses"

"Sysyphus"                                                                              Jordan Davidson

"Breathe, guilt"                                                                        Andrew Crapitto
for double bass trio       

Contextin'                                                                                 Mark Dresser

Performers; Andrew Crapitto, Matthew Henson, Mark Dresser - basses
Grace Talaski - Bb clarinet
 

In its final concert of the season, the UC San Diego Wind Ensemble performs works by inti figgis-vizueta, Carlos Chávez, John Barnes Chance, Hailey Myers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Leonard Bernstein.

Directed by Michael Jones

TIME CHANGE TO 11AM!

Gabriel Michels: hold
(Trumpet, violin)

Kelly Feng: Can You See the Shapes in the Clouds?
(bass flute, trumpet, violin)

Jesus Leon: The Sky  
(flute, trumpet, contrabass)

Min Ju Kim: Playground
(flute, trumpet. violin)


Performers:

Teresa Díaz de Cossio, flute
David Aguila, trumpet
Ilana Waniuk, violin
Jesus Leon, bass

Rand Steiger, conductor

The 95JC concert will feature an ensemble performing a variety of exciting compositions, including some new compositions written and arranged by student musicians. Instrumentation includes voice, violin, saxophones, rhythm section and afro-latin percussion. 

Directed by Kamau Kenyatta

1. Leopold Godowsky - Meditation for the left hand alone (3 mins)

2. Einojuhani Rautavaara -  Ikons Op. 6 No. 1 (4 mins)

3. Sergei Rachmaninov - Prelude Op. 32 No. 10 in b minor (6 mins)

4. Shayan Kalantar - Pianofall (7 mins)

The Honors recital of pianist and composer Shayan Kalantar is a demonstration of his piano studies at UC San Diego. Featuring work by composers which have come to guide his compositional direction like Rachmaninoff and Godowsky, as well as one of his own compositions combining field recordings with acoustic improvisation. It is a window into the world which sparks his creativity, while guiding his compositional direction.

His future work aims to penetrate the modern musical world through confronting traditional performance dynamics, and merging the worlds of field-recording, electronic music, jazz, and “classical” composition.
 

one fish two fish percussion ensemble
Mel Conti Chen, Zoe Farrell. Xiao Feng, Ash Floyd, Michael Jones, Alexander Leong, Jiawei Li, Thatcher Rexach, and Xiaoxuan Zhang

______________________________________________________________________________

Sculpture in Wood (1995) Rüdiger Pawassar

Restless (2013) Rich O’Meara
Xiao Feng, marimba

Intentions (1983) Eugene Novotney
II. Proposal
III. Function

Cenas Amerindias (1986-87) Ney Rosauro
I. Brasiliana
Zoe Farrell, percussion

Day of the South Winds (Gió Nôm) (2003) Kim Ngoc

Six Elegies Dancing (1987) Jennifer Stasack
I. Adamantly, Vigorously
II. Intensely
III. Gingerly, Very Stable
IV. Furiously
V. With Deliberate Concentration
VI. Elegiac
Alexander Leong, marimba

Walking with O. (2023) Janet Sit *world premiere

The UC San Diego Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Alex Taylor, present their final concert for the 2023-24 season features Beethoven's iconic fifth symphony with its revolutionary motto and powerful instrumentation, expanding the symphony orchestra with trombones, piccolo and contrabassoon. We are delighted to collaborate with graduating DMA pianist Shaoai Ashley Zhang on Mozart's sparkling piano concerto in E-flat, and also showcase the atmospheric music of one of UC San Diego's talented graduate composers, Akari Komura. Wenpeng Gao, preparing his conducting portfolio for graduate school, will lead Weber's der Freischütz overture, a characterful opener by turns pastoral and demonic. 

Akari Komura - Weaving Air (world premiere)
Carl Maria von Weber - Overture to Der Freischütz (conducted by Wenpeng Gao)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto no. 22 in E-flat major - Shaoai Ashley Zhang soloist
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony no. 5 in C minor

PROGRAM: 
Chris Carter - Building Character
Antony Yu - Remembrance
Kaira Hagen - Waltz of the Jellyfish
Evelyn Roberts - Irreparable - In 4 continuous movements (Awakening, Cataclysm, Spectres, Hope)

Performers:
Cello - Robert Bui
Piano - Melissa Evans Tierra
Percussion - Alexander Leong
Conductor - Zachary Konick
 

PROGRAM NOTES: 

Chris Carter - Building Character 
The inspiration I had for this piece came from the incessant struggles I myself faced as well as acquaintances of mine within the last year. Challenges face us every day, and college just adds to it. Job, food, and housing insecurity plague college students and I watch as they fight to regain control over their lives and desperately seek out some semblance of fulfillment for their basic needs. Even through adversity though, the beauty of humanity shines through. I spent my last dollar paying for a meal for a friend. A friend shared the last bit of food in his fridge with me. The cyclical nature of kindness persists in spite of all. This piece is dedicated to all kind individuals.

Antony Yu - Remembrance
Remembrance plays around mainly with three meters. Starting off in 11/8, the next two sections are loosely in 6/8 and 5/8. As if the initial meter was fragmented into groups of 6 and 5, this concept also applies melodically by recycling ideas in various different contexts. I often play with sequences and the circle of fifths which is featured in the second section in 6/8. With much more active instrumentation and variation along with a greater focus on harmonic movement rather than distinct melodies the reappearance of a short three note motif becomes less noticeable. Because of the difference between sections this helped me recognize that it's not always about what I initially write but what I can do to build on said material to create various options. 

Kaira Hagen - Waltz of the Jellyfish
I first found inspiration for this piece while scuba diving, and noticed a group of tiny jellyfish that seemed to undulate in a three-step pattern. Because the animals moved with one strong push followed by two weak ones, I drew the connection to the waltz form. I also took inspiration from the movement patterns of other species of jellyfish, such as the velella velella that glides across the water using the wind, and the crystal jelly, which naturally glow a bluish-green. The music features broad, soaring melodies and a blend of natural and melodic minor keys, drawing a connection to some of my previous work. The use of dynamic swells further represents that undulation, creating a piece that uses acoustic instruments to illustrate the beauty of nature.

Evelyn Roberts - Irreparable - In 4 continuous movements (Awakening, Cataclysm, Spectres, Hope) 
Irreparable is, like so much of my music, an expression of pain I can’t really describe. The first movement, Awakening, is my building horror at the world, the slow realization that I am trapped, utterly, and the sense of waking up and wanting to go back to sleep forever. The second movement, March, is a sharply rhythmic passage, the policy of hyperfocus, forcing oneself to keep going. The theme developed here and echoed for the rest of the piece is taken directly from the improvisation I played minutes after I found out I would never hear from one of my friends again. The third movement, Cataclysm, expands upon that story, of two of my friends, who, by no fault of their own, hurt each other beyond any hope of repair. It is based on another improvisation I did at the edge of sanity, meant to express chaos and pain and despair, the sort of thing you play because nothing is enough, until the roar consumes everything. The movement fades out into the beginning of Spectres, the fourth movement, the emptiness after everything is gone. The slow, fragmented harmonics, ghosts of notes, are the memories, the spectres, of the ones whose stories I am no longer part of. I still see them, in my mind, their eyes, their latticed arms, and I hear their music. But I can only hope that things worked out for them, somehow. Which is what inspired the last movement, Hope. From what little I learned afterwards, their story has kept going, with hope and pain and abandonment and forgiveness. Somehow, after months of trying to process it all, I am more at peace than I thought possible. Somehow, it is enough to know that the story is not over. I’ve realized that the story never ends, really. And all of the wonderful and horrible things that implies.

Students of Kartik Seshadri in a performance of Indian Classical Music

MUS 130 under the instruction of Takae Ohnishi, present classical chamber ensemble favorites. Additional program and perfomer information forthcoming!

Aleck Karis, Distinguished Professor of Music, presents a solo piano recital on the occasion of his retirement from UC San Diego. 

Program: 

Serenade in A (1925)   Igor Stravinsky
Hymne
Romanza
Rondoletto
Candenza Finala
----
Variations from the Golden Mountain (2014)   Harrison Birtwistle
----
Two Nocturnes, Opus 55 (1842-44)   Frédéric Chopin
No. 1 in f minor, Andante
No. 2 in Eb major, Lento Sostenuto

Sonata in b minor, Opus 58 (1844)   Frédéric Chopin
Allegro maestoso
Scherzo: Molto vivace
Largo
Finale: Presto, non tanto; agitato
 

JUNE 10-11, 2023 SACRED AND SUBLIME

ARIAN KHAEFI, SALLY & EINAR GALL CHORUS DIRECTOR, CONDUCTOR

Arian Khaefi takes the podium to conduct this program of rich choral and symphonic repertoire. We’ll open with R. Nathaniel Dett’s The Chariot Jubilee, a spell-binding oratorio that is “deep rooted in Spirituals and folklore.” We’ll then present Young Artists Competition winner from 2021, Ayrton Coehlo Pisco, as soloist in Mendelssohn’s gorgeous Violin Concerto. The program will conclude with Ernst Bloch’s monumental Avodat Hakodesh. Rarely performed, this epic sacred work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra represents the full maturity of Bloch’s music in the Jewish tradition.

R. Nathaniel Dett                                 The Chariot Jubilee

Felix Mendelssohn                               Violin Concerto

YAC Winner 2021: Ayrton Coehlo Pisco, violin

Ernst Bloch                                            Avodat Hakodesh

Soloist: 2021 Young Artist Competition winner Ayrton Coehlo Pisco, violin; Michael Sokol, Baritone; Richard Hodges, Tenor

More information & Tickets: https://www.ljsc.org/

JUNE 10-11, 2023 SACRED AND SUBLIME

ARIAN KHAEFI, SALLY & EINAR GALL CHORUS DIRECTOR, CONDUCTOR

Arian Khaefi takes the podium to conduct this program of rich choral and symphonic repertoire. We’ll open with R. Nathaniel Dett’s The Chariot Jubilee, a spell-binding oratorio that is “deep rooted in Spirituals and folklore.” We’ll then present Young Artists Competition winner from 2021, Ayrton Coehlo Pisco, as soloist in Mendelssohn’s gorgeous Violin Concerto. The program will conclude with Ernst Bloch’s monumental Avodat Hakodesh. Rarely performed, this epic sacred work for baritone, chorus, and orchestra represents the full maturity of Bloch’s music in the Jewish tradition.

R. Nathaniel Dett                                 The Chariot Jubilee

Felix Mendelssohn                               Violin Concerto

YAC Winner 2021: Ayrton Coehlo Pisco, violin

Ernst Bloch                                            Avodat Hakodesh

Soloist: 2021 Young Artist Competition winner Ayrton Coehlo Pisco, violin; Michael Sokol, Baritone; Richard Hodges, Tenor

More information & Tickets: https://www.ljsc.org/

Undergraduate students of MUS 32VM perform excerpts of Little Women. 

Costumes curation by Greta Davis, Amelia Mardesich, and Maria Torpey
Dr. Kyle Adam Blair – Accompanist and vocal coach
Miguel Zazueta – Instructor

Performers include: Aparna Alluri, Samuel Calto, Kit Chan, Greta Davis, Imo Gong, Zoey Graziano, Leticia Guzman, Jackson Jakovic, Yuhan Leng, Amelia Mardesich, Isabella Panagiotou, Emma Price, and Maria Torpey

MANGLAR

An eclectic group of improvising musicians, from many different walks of life coming together as one to create a one of a kind sonic communal sound quilt in real time!
 

Music 201B. Projects in New Music Performance: Improvisation and the Laboratory of Imagination

Instructor: Matana Roberts

members of the ensemble are
Natalia Merlano vocals
Ess Whiteley trumpet 
Aaron Gozum vocals
Robbie Bui piano 
Pablo Dodero sampler 
Jordan Davidson cello 
Paul Nicholas Roth processed alto 
Grace Talaski clarinet 
Lucia Herrman percussion  
Camilo Zamudio percussion 
JiYoung Ko recorder
Sergey Kasich electronics 

UC San Diego's ICAM Music majors presents their senior projects on Thursday, June 15th at 4:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, North Courtyard. 

COURTYARD
Efrain Avendano-Gutierrez, Chloe Burns, Leslie Casillas Guerrero, Roselle-Angeline Castro, Raul Enciso, Sullivan Fenesy, Chaz Hirales, Lily Li, Junming Lu, David Perez, Ryan Rickey, Qui-Shawn Tran, Jared Trapp, Jack Wagner, and Xuechen Zhao

Hailey Myers is a graduating senior presenting her final recital in pursuit of Honors in Composition for her bachelor's degree in Music. She prefers to describe herself as "funky fresh," but her feet are on the ground just as much as her head is in the clouds. A commentary on big feelings, big change, and big dreams, Hailey's last hurrah at UC San Diego is a concert you won't forget anytime soon!

UC San Diego's ICAM Music majors presents their senior projects on Thursday, June 15th at 7:00 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater.

THEATER
Kieran Burton, Maximillian Chen, Pavel Demidov, Guy LaBorde, Indiana Minnich, Karim Moussa, John Pyjar, Benjamin Redlawsk, and Ali Shaubzada