“…a chaotic, collagic endeavor…” – The Fader

Conceived by Ethio-American saxophonist D.A. Mekonnen – co-founder/leader of the widely celebrated Debo Band – the solo project dragonchild is a culmination of decades of musical experimentation, embodied spiritual practice, and critical thinking. Sunken Cages is the moniker of Indian-born drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin, who has worked with a wide array of musicians, from pop-star Shakira to legendary Jazz saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (of the AACM), in addition to leading his own innovative global groups Tarana and Turning Jewels Into Water (with Val Jeanty). Sunken Cages plays electronic and acoustic drums, triggers melodies and textures, and generates loops in real-time, while dragonchild shifts between saxophones and electronics. Together, they create an exciting new global music that draws from their respective cultural backgrounds as well as contemporary electronic music.

DMA Candidate Myra Hinrichs is joined by visiting pianist Liam Wooding for a performance of Brahms three violin sonatas.

Violin Sonata in G major, Op. 78, "Regensonate"
Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 100 "Thun"
Violin Sonata in D minor, Op. 108

There will be a short interval before the final sonata.

A jewel in the national period-instrument crown.” —Limelight

The Australian Haydn Ensemble (AHE), under the direction of Artistic Director Skye McIntosh, is one of Australia’s leading historically informed orchestras and chamber music groups. AHE brings together world-class musicians who excel in both modern and period instrument performance and are highly committed to both historical research and performance. The group’s repertoire is principally music of the late Baroque and early Classical era, and has built a reputation for its vibrant and accessible performances, which are faithful to the sound-worlds that would have been familiar to Haydn and his contemporaries.

AHE makes its premiere U.S. tour in October 2023 with a coast to coast tour including a North American debut at ArtPower at UC San Diego and a New York debut at Carnegie Hall.

PROGRAM
Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782): Symphony in G minor, op. 6 no. 6
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809: Symphony No.6 in D major (Le Matin)
Franz Joseph Haydn: No. 8 in G (Le Soir)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 29 in A major, K. 201

David Borgo - saxophones
Tobin Chodos - piano
Harley Magsino - electric bass
Tommy Babin - acoustic bass
Mark Ferber - drum set
N. Scott Robinson - percussion

Pathika (Sanskrit for traveller or wanderer). Original music inspired by David Borgo's 2023 travels in India, Kenya, Jordan, Cyprus, Croatia, Morocco, France, and Portugal.

Blacktronika : Dance Club Experience

Blacktronika : Afrofuturism in Electronic  Music is a course created by Professor King Britt that researches and honors all of the innovators of color that contribute to the undeniable advancement of electronic music., which gave birth to Jamaican Dub, Chicago House, Detroit Techno and many other genres rooted in and responding to  the socio political tensions around  Black and Brown communities.

Each quarter, Professor Britt (who also is an active practitioner within multi genres) creates a dance club environment in which the students can experience the music in the context that it has been made for, creating a safe space for all races and genders,  for physical expression and community 

Come experience the dance sounds from all over the world.

The Experimental Theater will not have seating for these events. 

October 20 : King Britt (extended 3+ hr DJ set)

"Horizontal Geographies," a solo percussion recital featuring works by Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Jack Herscowitz, and Sarah Hennies.

Wu Man is recognized as the world’s foremost pipa virtuoso and a leading ambassador of Chinese music. She has carved out a career as a soloist, educator and composer, giving her lute-like instrument — which has a more than 2,000-year history in China — a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. In this conversation, Wu Man will focus on how she found new inspiration in her fruitful collaborations that led to the creation of new musical works. 

The discussion will be in English, moderated by composer Lei Liang, Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Music, and percussionist Steven Schick, Distinguished Professor of Music. The event will feature a performance of vis-à-vis, a duo composed by Lei Liang for Wu Man and Steven Schick.

A pre-lecture reception starts at 3:30 p.m. in the courtyard of the Conrad Prebys Music Center.

The lecture begins at 4 p.m. in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall.

About the 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 groundbreaking works defy cultural categories and inspired generations of composers. The UC San Diego Music Department is the recipient of several dozen historically significant percussion instruments from the Chou Wen-Chung estate. The lecture series presents scholars and artists who believe that arts and culture are important to promoting mutual understanding between China and the U.S., a belief that was shared by Chou, who established the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange at Columbia University in 1978.

When Romanian-born pianist Lucian Ban and Grammy-nominated violinist Mat Maneri joined up for a concert in an opera house in the middle of Romania’s Transylvania region, the music was, as Jazz Times puts it, “as close as it gets to Goth jazz”. Released in 2013 by ECM Records, Transylvanian Concert features a program of self-penned ballads, blues, hymns and abstract improvisations, the whole informed by the twin traditions of jazz and European chamber music. The album has won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, including several Best Album of the Year awards, and has spawned continuous touring throughout the world ever since. Currently, Maneri are presenting music from their follow up album for ECM entitled Transylvanian Dance due to be released in the

first part of 2024.

The Kreutzer Affair is an immersive theatrical concert program created by the Tesla Quartet with pianist David Kaplan, exploring how music was captured into words and then rebottled into music again.

The Tesla Quartet is known the world over for their “superb capacity to find the inner heart of everything they play, regardless of era, style, or technical demand” (International Review of Music). From cutting edge contemporary works to established masterpieces, the Tesla Quartet’s emotive and thoughtful interpretations reveal the ensemble’s deep commitment to the craft and to their ever expanding repertoire. The quartet recognizes the power of their platform to amplify underrepresented voices and to encourage the proliferation of an equitable and just future for society as well as a hospitable climate for posterity. The Tesla Quartet is Ross Snyder (violin), Michelle Lie (violin), Edwin Kaplan (viola), and Austin Fisher (cello).

David Kaplan, pianist, has been called “excellent and adventurous” by the New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. Kaplan has consistently drawn critical acclaim for creative programs that interweave classical and contemporary repertoire, often incorporating newly commissioned works.

PROGRAM:
Beethoven: Sonata for Piano and Violin in A minor, op. 47 “Kreutzer”
Janacek: String Quartet no. 1 “The Kreutzer Sonata”
Amy Beach: Piano Quintet in F sharp minor, op. 67

Peter Ko and Robbie Bui present a series of cello duos for the California Festival, with two new world premieres by Aaron Mencher and Jordan Kuspa. Other works feature compositions by Morton Feldman, Victor Suslin, and music of the Jacobean Renaissance era.

Pieces/Composers:

ochres and bones (2023)* - Aaron Mencher
Jackson Pollock (1951) - Morton Feldman

Ayre (ca. 1600s) - John Ward
Fantasia (ca. 1600s) - Christopher Gibbons

Capricious Combinations (2023)* - Jordan Kuspa

Extensions #5 (1953) - Morton Feldman

Fantasia (ca. 1600s) - Christopher Gibbons
Fantasia (ca. 1600s) -William White

Madrigal (1998) - Viktor Suslin

*world premiere

WILFRIDO TERRAZAS and ESTHER GÁMEZ RUBIO

BOOK OF NAMES

Flute music by Yusef Lateef, Liliana Rodríguez Alvarado, Rachel Beetz, and Wilfrido Terrazas, in dialogue with live visuals by Esther Gámez Rubio.

Multi-genre work Requiem for the Enslaved by Carlos Simon is a musical tribute to commemorate the stories of 272 enslaved men, women and children sold in 1838 by Georgetown University, infusing original compositions with African American spirituals and familiar Catholic liturgical melodies. Performed by the Hub New Music with Carlos at the piano, Requiem features spoken word and hip hop artist Marco Pavé, and trumpeter MK Zulu.

Requiem for the Enslaved was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

World Premiere of an evening length multimedia work for David Aguila (trumpet) and AI electronics.

Bass clarinet works improvised, composed and inspired by Lori Freedman (Montréal, Québec)

Special guest appearance by Wilfrido Terrazas!

red fish blue fish celebrates the 90 th birthday of Pauline Oliveros—iconic American experimentalist, founder of the Deep Listening movement, and former UC San Diego faculty
member—with a performance of one of her greatest works, The Witness, composed in 1989.
Oliveros paved the way for many who followed her: experimentalists, music technologists,
theorists specializing in feminist and queer issues, and performers seeking to expand their ears
and their horizons. We will pair The Witness with other seminal works by American
composers, including Steve Reich’s effervescent Nagoya Marimbas, featuring a return visit by
the distinguished Danish percussionist, Mathias Reumert (MA 2006) who will perform with
Mike Jones. The satirical Credo in Us by John Cage, and the sonically inventive Concerto for
Violin and Percussion Orchestra by Lou Harrison, in which we welcome a new member of our
community, the gifted violinist Amir Hossein Norouz Nasseri. An evening of rhythm and
reminiscence.

Visiting Fulbright scholar Liam Wooding presents a piano recital featuring music by Jenny McLeod and Franz Liszt. There will be a short break before the final work.

Program:
JENNY MCLEOD Rock Sonata no. 1
JENNY MCLEOD Piano Piece 1965
LISZT Sonata in b minor

Suzanne Ciani is a five-time Grammy award-nominated composer, electronic music pioneer, and neo-classical recording artist who has released over 20 solo albums including “Seven Waves,” and “The Velocity of Love,” along with a landmark quad LP “LIVE Quadraphonic,” which restarted her Buchla modular performances. Her work has been featured in films, games, and countless commercials as well.

She was inducted into the first class of Keyboard Magazine’s Hall of Fame alongside other synth luminaries, including Bob Moog, Don Buchla and Dave Smith and received the Moog Innovation Award. Most recently, she is the recipient of the Independent Icon Award from A2IM, The Golden Ear Award, and the SEAMUS Award.

Suzanne has provided the voice and sounds for Bally’s groundbreaking “Xenon” pinball machine, created Coca-Cola’s pop-and-pour sound, designed logos for Fortune 500 companies, and carved out a niche as one of the most creatively successful female composers in the world. A Life in Waves, a documentary about Ciani’s life and work, debuted at SXSW in 2017 and is available to watch on all digital platforms.

Laurel Halo is a composer, producer, musician and DJ based in Los Angeles. Drawing inspiration from a range of musical traditions, her output is singular yet stylistically diverse, with releases traversing ambient, leftfield club, experimental pop and film score. Since 2012 she has released a number of critically-acclaimed albums including Quarantine (2012, Hyperdub), In Situ (2015, Honest Jon’s), Raw Silk Uncut Wood (2018, Latency), and Possessed: OST (2020, Vinyl Factory). She has performed in venues, festivals, clubs and institutions across the world, including the Southbank Centre, Sydney Opera House, The Kitchen, Kölner Philharmonie, CTM/Transmediale, Sónar, and Montreux Jazz Festival. She has collaborated with musicians, artists and fashion designers including Moritz von Oswald, Metahaven, Kevin Beasley, Julia Holter, Hanne Lippard, Eckhaus Latta, Martine Syms, John Cale, and the London Contemporary Orchestra. In September 2023 she will release her latest album, Atlas, as the debut release on her new record label, Awe.

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

Our last Blacktronika event for the quarter is a special one. With live performances from Professor King Britt & Pablo Dodero fka Adíós Mundo Cruel.

King Britt : A continued sonic dedication honoring Detroit Techno techniques using synths and drum machines. 

Adíós Mundo Cruel :  punchy mid-tempo techno with influences ranging from acid and electro to industrial. All hardware featuring modular synths and sampled drums.

This will be a night of dancing and observation, performed in the round, so come close to the tables and see what is happening live. There will be no seating.

7pm. Experimental Theater.

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

A unique duo between internationally acclaimed Iranian singer Mahsa Vahdat, known for her deep-rooted belonging to her heritage and her innovative musical expression with a wide-ranging repertoire, and world-acclaimed harpist and musician Bridget Kibbey, recognized for her mastery of subtle nuances and breathtaking improvisations. Together, they take you on a musical journey that transcends boundaries and languages, embracing the beauty of diversity and the universality of human sentiments.

Pieces include music based on classical and contemporary Iranian poets like Hafez, Rumi, Forough Farrokhzad, and Mohammad Ebrahim Jafari.

Bridget Kibbey has appeared on NPR TinyDesk! 

Join us for the Fall concert of MUS 95E, as the UC San Diego Chamber Orchestra presents:

Mozart - Overture to "The Impresario"
Mendelssohn - Overture to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Beethoven - Symphony No. 4

Prof. Lei Liang's "Introduction to Composition" final concert, featuring percussionist Mitchell Carlstrom premiering pieces written by the participants of the class. For most of the students, this is the first time they compose for percussion instruments. 

The Fall Composition Jury Concert presents an evening of world premieres by graduate composers.

Yifan Guo - Assembled Diary
Jiyoung Ko - spes
Akari Komura - back and forth, a trail of time
Aaron Mencher - Understory
Haihui Zhang - Sojourns in the Parallel World

Featuring:  Mariana Flores (soprano), Anita Chandavarkar (flutes), Grace Talaski (clarinets), Yongyun Zhang and Camilo Zamudio (percussion), Delong Wang (piano, Zhang & Mencher), Melissa Evans Tierra (piano, Guo), Mitchell Carlstrom (prepared piano, Komura), Myra Hinrichs and Tommy Dougherty (violins), Robbie Bui and Peter Ko (celli), and Matthew Henson and Andrew Crapitto (basses). 

Conducted by Steven Schick

The UC San Diego Wind Ensemble presents its Fall Concert, presenting works by Bennett, Corral, Erickson, Ticheli, and Whitacre.

The MUS 130 Chamber Ensemble students instructed by UC San Diego Music faculty Takae Ohnishi present their Fall 2023 final concert in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on Friday, December 8 at 7:00 p.m.

Join La Jolla Symphony and Chorus for "New Beginnings," introducing LJS&C's new Music Director and Orchestra Conductor Sameer Patel! Reserve your seats for Dec. 9-10.

This adventurous program features:

• Gabriela Ortiz, Kauyumari
• Igor Stravinksy, Symphony of Psalms 
• Kaija Saariaho, Ciel d'hiver 
• Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 3, Op. 52

Join La Jolla Symphony and Chorus for "New Beginnings," introducing LJS&C's new Music Director and Orchestra Conductor Sameer Patel! Reserve your seats for Dec. 9-10.

This adventurous program features:

• Gabriela Ortiz, Kauyumari
• Igor Stravinksy, Symphony of Psalms 
• Kaija Saariaho, Ciel d'hiver 
• Jean Sibelius, Symphony No. 3, Op. 52

Final concert by the students of the Vocal Master Class Fall Quarter 2023. 

Mexican composer of the XX Century

Mariana Flores Bucio instructs MUS 32VM Vocal Master Class for their end-of-term performanaces. 

Featuring: Kit Jack Chan, Imo Gong, Leticia Guzman, Jackson Jakovic, Yuhan Leng, and Emma Price. 

Accompanyied by Dr. Kyle Adam Blair. 

Reflections for piano and synthesized tape (1974) - Milton Babbitt (1916-2011)

Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra (1959) - Lou Harrison (1917-2003)

• I Allegro Maestoso, Allegro Vivace

• II Largo, Cantabile

• III Allegro, Vigoroso, Poco Presto

red fish blue fish: 

Amir Hossein Norouz Nasseri, violin

Mitchell Carlstrom

Michael Jones

Kosuke Matsuda

Steven Schick

Camilo Zamudio

The Axe Manual (2000) - Harrison Birtwistle (1934-2022)

Steven Schick, percussion    Aleck Karis, piano

Miguel Zazueta instructs MUS 95C: Concert Choir for their end-of-term performance. 

Repetoire forthcoming.

"The Listening Room" - Graduate students enrolled in MUS 215A, instructed by UC San Diego Assistant Professor of Music Sarah Hankins, present end-of-term projects, performances, presentations, and installations in / out / throughout the Conrad Prebys Music Center - on Thursday, December 14th from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.  

Featuring the work of: Jordan Davidson, Alissa Liu, Joy Guidry, Heidi Tai, Timothy Tmeiner, Jose Hernandez-Lopez, Lyra Montoya, and Natalia Merlano-Gomez.

The eighth annual Reed Family Concert, given in thanks to the Reed Family for their long-standing support of Music Department students, will be presented on January 17 at 7:00 in the Concert Hall. In 2024 we will feature the work of three exemplary graduate students: flutist Sasha Ishov, percussionist Kosuke Matsuda, and composer Jiyoung Ko, whose composition sumbisori is also the 2024 Chou Commission. With this concert, we showcase graduate student excellence in both the performance and composition programs. We also offer a faculty tribute to retired UC San Diego Library Music Specialist Peter Mueller, by playing his Little Trio for clarinet, bass and percussion. Also on the program is the Webern Concerto.

PROGRAM:
Peter Mueller  Little Trio (2021) *world premiere
Jiyoung Ko sumbisori  (2024) (Chou Commission) *world premiere 
Heinz Holliger Ma’mounia (2002)
Anton Webern Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24 (1934)
Dai Fujikura Flute Concerto (Ensemble Version) (2015)

The eighth annual Reed Family concert, celebrated by UC San Diego Music to honor Ann and Joel Reed for their long-standing support of the Arts and Students of the University of California San Diego, will be presented on Wednesday, January 17th at 7:00 p.m. in the Department of Music’s Conrad Prebys Concert Hall. The program is curated and conducted by UC San Diego Distinguished Professor and Reed Family Presidential Chair in Music: Steven Schick.

Among the five works on the program, the 2024 concert will feature the work of three exemplary graduate students: flutist Alexander “Sasha” Ishov, percussionist Kosuke Matsuda, composer Jiyoung Ko, and showcase graduate student excellence in both the performance and composition programs.  

Alexander “Sasha” Ishov, a UC San Diego doctoral candidate in contemporary music performance, is an innovative flutist specializing in 20th and 21st century music. Praised by The San Diego Union-Tribune for his “well-sounded and lucid” artistry, his artistic breadth spans from traditional and contemporary chamber repertoire, to experimental electroacoustic projects pushing the boundaries of modern audio technology.  Ishov’s technical artistry will be featured on the ensemble version of Dai Fujikura’s 2015 Flute Concerto, originally composed for 2012 MacArthur Fellow and San Diego native, Claire Chase. 

Percussionist Kosuke Matsuda will be the featured soloist for Heinz Holliger’s 2002 Ma’mounia. Meaning ‘safe haven’ in Arabic, “In this work, the composer highlights the musical interplay between body and mind. The frantically virtuoso percussion part corresponds with the ensemble in theatrical physicality.” (Schott Music) A member of famed percussion ensemble red fish blue fish, Matsuda is a Doctor of Musical Arts student and Graduate Teaching Assistant under Steven Schick at the University of California San Diego.

Korean composer Jiyoung Ko, a UC San Diego PhD graduate student in composition,  presents the world premiere of “sumbisori” as the third recipient of the Chou Commission. Created in 2022 to celebrate the legacy of Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-chung, and inspired by Chou’s collection of percussion instruments housed at UC San Diego, previous commissions recipients were Erin Graham’s Shape of Silence (2022) and Alex Taylor’s Inclinations (2023). 

The program opens with a performance tribute to retired UC San Diego Music Librarian and PhD composition alumnus: Peter Mueller. Performing the world premiere Mueller’s Little Trio, are Department of Music Chair Anthony Burr on clarinet, and Distinguished Professors of Music: Mark Dresser on  double bass and Steven Schick, percussion. 

The program will also include Anton Webern's 1934 Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24.

The Palimpsest Ensemble, conducted by Steven Schick is completed by:

Anita Chandavarkar (flutes), Carlos Rosas Coronado (oboe), Grace Talaski (clarinets), Robert Zelickman (clarinets), David Savage (bassoon), Darby Hinshaw (horn), Rachel Allen (trumpet), Berk Schneider (trombone), Kyle Adam Blair (piano), Mitchell Carlstrom (percussion), Myra Hinrichs (violin), Amir Hossein Norouz Nasseri (violin), Batya Macadam-Somer (viola), Robert Bui (cello), Min Seok “Peter” Ko (cello), and Andrew Crappito (double bass).

Tickets are available online via UC San Diego Music's box office: music.ucsd.edu/tickets

General Admission: $20 | UC San Diego Faculty, Staff, Alumni: $15 | ALL Students: FREE with ID

Kosuke Matsuda is a solo percussionist born in Nagasaki, Japan, who has performed throughout Asia and North America. He began his percussion studies with Yoko Yamagajo and since his first exposure to percussion at a young age, Matsuda has devoted his life to the art of solo performance. He graduated from Ueno Gakuen University in Tokyo with a Bachelor’s degree in Percussion Performance (2015) where he studied with Masahiro Okada. He studied with Kunihiko Komori and Koji Fukamachi at the Aichi University of Fine Art earning his Master’s degree in Percussion and graduating at the top of his class in the Wind and Percussion instrumental department in 2017. Matsuda performed as a soloist with Lancaster Symphony in 2019 and was also given the honor of certification in the Japanese Arts and Cultural Agency Training Program by the Japanese cultural government. He earned a Master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the Frost School of music, the University of Miami, where he studied with Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. Matsuda is about to start his first semester as a Doctor of Musical Arts student and Graduate Teaching Assistant under Steven Schick at the University of California San Diego in 2021 Fall.

New Graduate Student Collaborations

Featuring premieres of new works by J.E. Hernández, Amir Norouz Nasseri, Myles Ortiz-Green, and Adam Zuckerman

Performed by Carlos Rosas Coronado, J.E. Hernández,. Amir Norouz Nasseri, Myles Ortiz-Green, and Adam Zuckerman

Translínea. Gira binacional - UC San Diego 
Ensamble Cepromusic  
José Luis Castillo, director artístico  

• Karola Obermüller          traverse 
• Aaron Mencher              FACE 
• Alex Taylor                     figments 
• Ignacio Baca Lobera      De La Singularidad V 

El Centro de Experimentación y Producción de Música Contemporánea (CEPROMUSIC), creado en 2012, es un espacio en el que convergen actividades artísticas y académicas en favor de la creación, desarrollo y difusión de la música contemporánea en México. Además de sus temporadas regulares en el Palacio de Bellas Artes, el Ensamble CEPROMUSIC ha realizado ocho giras internacionales con gran éxito de crítica y público, por Alemania, Colombia, Escocia, España, Inglaterra, Brasil y dos por Estados Unidos; así como residencias artísticas y académicas en Colombia, España, Estados Unidos, México y Reino Unido. En 2018, su trayectoria fue reconocida con una invitación al Festival de Verano de Darmstadt. El repertorio del ensamble trata de convocar a lo más amplio de la escena actual: de la nueva complejidad a la improvisación o del macro timbre al código en tiempo real.

El CEPROMUSIC ha tenido residencias y colaboraciones con compositores e intérpretes como Anna Göckel, Chris Cogburn, Christian Wolff, Dafne Vicente, Irvine Arditti, James Dillon, John Butcher, Joshua Fineberg, Kaija Saariaho, Katalin Károlyi, Klaus Lang, Peter Ablinger, Sigma Project Quartet, Susan Platts, Tiffany DuMouchelle, Tony Arnold, UMS ‘n JIP y Ute Wassermann, entre otros. Además de su decidida vocación latinoamericana, el Ensamble CEPROMUSIC es el instrumento de gran parte de los compositores mexicanos contemporáneos, habiendo colaborado, encargado, interpretado y grabado a compositores nacionales de varias generaciones. El ensamble colabora habitualmente con otras disciplinas como el video, el teatro, el cine silente, la danza y la multimedia, y cuenta con tres producciones discográficas. Desde su creación, el ensamble ha ejecutado más de 383 conciertos en los que ha interpretado más de 675 obras y 212 estrenos.

~~~

The Center for Experimentation and Production of Contemporary Music (CEPROMUSIC), created in 2012, is a space in which artistic and academic activities converge in favor of the creation, development and dissemination of contemporary music in Mexico. In addition to its regular seasons at the Palace of Fine Arts, the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble has made eight international tours with great success from critics and the public, to Germany, Colombia, Scotland, Spain, England, Brazil and two to the United States; as well as artistic and academic residencies in Colombia, Spain, the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom. In 2018, his career was recognized with an invitation to the Darmstadt Summer Festival. The ensemble's repertoire tries to summon the broadest aspect of the current scene: from new complexity to improvisation or from macro timbre to real-time code.

CEPROMUSIC has had residencies and collaborations with composers and performers such as Anna Göckel, Chris Cogburn, Christian Wolff, Dafne Vicente, Irvine Arditti, James Dillon, John Butcher, Joshua Fineberg, Kaija Saariaho, Katalin Károlyi, Klaus Lang, Peter Ablinger, Sigma Project Quartet, Susan Platts, Tiffany DuMouchelle, Tony Arnold, UMS 'n JIP and Ute Wassermann, among others. In addition to its decided Latin American vocation, the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble is the instrument of a large part of contemporary Mexican composers, having collaborated, commissioned, performed and recorded national composers of several generations. The ensemble regularly collaborates with other disciplines such as video, theater, silent film, dance and multimedia, and has three record productions. Since its creation, the ensemble has performed more than 383 concerts in which it has performed more than 675 works and 212 premieres.

Translínea. Gira binacional - UC San Diego 
Ensamble Cepromusic  
José Luis Castillo, director artístico 

• Jiyoung Ko                      boiling/blooming 
• Akari Komura                  How the Sky Holds the Sun 
• Rebecca Saunders         disclousure 
• Nasim Khorassani          Paper Pigeons 
• Liao Lin-Ni                       Look back on time with kindly eyes... 
• Iván Naranjo                    a fundamental asymmetry

El Centro de Experimentación y Producción de Música Contemporánea (CEPROMUSIC), creado en 2012, es un espacio en el que convergen actividades artísticas y académicas en favor de la creación, desarrollo y difusión de la música contemporánea en México. Además de sus temporadas regulares en el Palacio de Bellas Artes, el Ensamble CEPROMUSIC ha realizado ocho giras internacionales con gran éxito de crítica y público, por Alemania, Colombia, Escocia, España, Inglaterra, Brasil y dos por Estados Unidos; así como residencias artísticas y académicas en Colombia, España, Estados Unidos, México y Reino Unido. En 2018, su trayectoria fue reconocida con una invitación al Festival de Verano de Darmstadt. El repertorio del ensamble trata de convocar a lo más amplio de la escena actual: de la nueva complejidad a la improvisación o del macro timbre al código en tiempo real.

El CEPROMUSIC ha tenido residencias y colaboraciones con compositores e intérpretes como Anna Göckel, Chris Cogburn, Christian Wolff, Dafne Vicente, Irvine Arditti, James Dillon, John Butcher, Joshua Fineberg, Kaija Saariaho, Katalin Károlyi, Klaus Lang, Peter Ablinger, Sigma Project Quartet, Susan Platts, Tiffany DuMouchelle, Tony Arnold, UMS ‘n JIP y Ute Wassermann, entre otros. Además de su decidida vocación latinoamericana, el Ensamble CEPROMUSIC es el instrumento de gran parte de los compositores mexicanos contemporáneos, habiendo colaborado, encargado, interpretado y grabado a compositores nacionales de varias generaciones. El ensamble colabora habitualmente con otras disciplinas como el video, el teatro, el cine silente, la danza y la multimedia, y cuenta con tres producciones discográficas. Desde su creación, el ensamble ha ejecutado más de 383 conciertos en los que ha interpretado más de 675 obras y 212 estrenos.

~~~

The Center for Experimentation and Production of Contemporary Music (CEPROMUSIC), created in 2012, is a space in which artistic and academic activities converge in favor of the creation, development and dissemination of contemporary music in Mexico. In addition to its regular seasons at the Palace of Fine Arts, the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble has made eight international tours with great success from critics and the public, to Germany, Colombia, Scotland, Spain, England, Brazil and two to the United States; as well as artistic and academic residencies in Colombia, Spain, the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom. In 2018, his career was recognized with an invitation to the Darmstadt Summer Festival. The ensemble's repertoire tries to summon the broadest aspect of the current scene: from new complexity to improvisation or from macro timbre to real-time code.

CEPROMUSIC has had residencies and collaborations with composers and performers such as Anna Göckel, Chris Cogburn, Christian Wolff, Dafne Vicente, Irvine Arditti, James Dillon, John Butcher, Joshua Fineberg, Kaija Saariaho, Katalin Károlyi, Klaus Lang, Peter Ablinger, Sigma Project Quartet, Susan Platts, Tiffany DuMouchelle, Tony Arnold, UMS 'n JIP and Ute Wassermann, among others. In addition to its decided Latin American vocation, the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble is the instrument of a large part of contemporary Mexican composers, having collaborated, commissioned, performed and recorded national composers of several generations. The ensemble regularly collaborates with other disciplines such as video, theater, silent film, dance and multimedia, and has three record productions. Since its creation, the ensemble has performed more than 383 concerts in which it has performed more than 675 works and 212 premieres.

DUO REFRACTA:  Michael Jones, percussion, and Shaoai Ashley Zhang, piano

featuring Ilana Waniuk, violin

Works by Hennies, Hurel, Good, and Macbride

Archive
DMA recital IV
Ilana Waniuk - violin, visuals 
Works by: Julia Mermelstein, Germaine Liu, Ben Wylie, Ilana Waniuk 
With: Teresa Díaz de Cossio - flutes, objects, electronics

Program:
Germaine Liu - Puzzle Piece (2019)* - violin, objects
Ben Wylie - Acousmonium III (2019)* - violin, electronics
Julia Mermelstein - Inner forms (2019)* - for solo violin, movement, electronics 
-intermission-
Ilana Waniuk + Teresa Díaz de Cossio - Archive (2023) - for flutes, violin, objects, electronics, fixed and live visuals

About the Program:
Archive features three works that are part of an ongoing collaborative concert project called 'Filaments' for violin and electronics by artists/composers from across Canada and the U.S. Initiated in 2018 by Ilana Waniuk with generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the SOCAN Foundation, each collaboration explores what happens when electroacoustic, multimedia, or improvisational elements stretch the boundaries of what it means to compose/perform/create works for ‘solo’ violin. 

Following a brief intermission, Ilana will be joined by Teresa Díaz de Cossio to perform 'Archive' (2023), an ongoing modular, audiovisual project dedicated to exploring memory, ritual and connection. Created by Ilana Waniuk in collaboration with Teresa Díaz de Cossio, Archive currently consists of a set of IV modules (artifacts) intended to be used as invitations for collaborative audiovisual improvisation and experimentation. Artifacts take the form of video scores, live visuals, graphic or text scores, field recordings and objects.

*Commissioned by Ilana Waniuk with generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Ilana Waniuk is a versatile violinist and contemporary chamber music addict with interests ranging from classical music and improvisation to visual arts. Along with pianist Cheryl Duvall, she is a founding member and co-artistic director of Tkarón:to (Toronto) -based contemporary music ensemble/presenter Thin Edge New Music Collective (TENMC) now in its twelfth season and Balancing on the Edge (multidisciplinary production melding circus arts with new music). Ilana is also a founding member of in^set, a flexible trio with Teresa Díaz de Cossio (flute) and David Aguila (trumpet) dedicated to creation, improvisation and experimentation. 

Ilana can be heard on several recent recordings including Thin Edge New Music Collective’s ‘Dark Flower’ and ‘field studies, Chamber Music of Emilie Cecilia LeBel’ (2023). Her performance of LeBel’s ‘further migration’ for solo violin was praised by Peter Margasak for “producing a stunning range of sound and texture” (Best Contemporary Classical: May 2023). ‘Dark Flower’ has made its way to Bandcamp's Best Contemporary Classical Music of 2023,The Wire’s prestigious Adventures in New Music's top 10 list of 2023 and has been featured on CBC Radio, and BBC Radio 3.

Ilana has toured Cape Breton and Ontario as part of the Bicycle Opera Project, performed at contemporary music festivals including the California Festival in San Diego, Neofonía: Festival de Música Ensenada in Mexico, Suoni per Il Popolo in Montreal, the University of Calgary’s Happening Festival of New Music and Media, Open Ears in Kitchener/Waterloo and the Royal Conservatory’s 21C festival in Tkarón:to. Ilana is passionate about collaboration, creation and community building through the arts and is currently a doctoral candidate in contemporary performance at the University of California San Diego.

Teresa Díaz de Cossio is a flutist and an active member of in^set, a flexible chamber ensemble dedicated to creation, improvisation, experimentation, and collaboration. She has had the opportunity of performing with Los Tigres del Norte, and has been a fellow at The Banff Center, the Darmstadt Summer Institute, Curating Diversity (Sounds Now, Finland), and the Future of Music Faculty Fellowship (Cleveland Institute of Music, Sphinx Foundation). As a scholar, Teresa has presented her research on the composer Alida Vázquez at Unsung Stories: Women at Columbia's Computer Music Center and the International Musicological Society (Greece), and her work has been published in Radical Sounds of Latin America and the series Musicians’ Migratory Patterns by Routledge. 

Currently, Teresa is a doctoral candidate at the University of California San Diego, where she is mentored by Wilfrido Terrazas and Amy Cimini. She is also a co-producer at Neofonia, Festival de Música Nueva in Ensenada– a space for exploration and collaboration between communities, and as a teacher at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. Teresa looks forward to making meaningful contributions to the community, both through her performances and her scholarly pursuits. Now, she is excited to join the Density Fellows program!

Henry Threadgill In Conversation
with Anthony Davis and Jonny Stallings Cárdenas

UC San Diego Music is honored to welcome composer and jazz legend HENRY THREADGILL to campus: Monday, February 5th at 6:00 p.m. for a conversation
with Anthony Davis and Jonny Stallings Cárdenas at the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater.

A guest of fellow Pulitzer Prize winner, Distinguished Professor of Music Anthony Davis, Mr. Threadgill is a composer, saxophonist, and flautist. He was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his album: In for a Penny, In for a Pound.

Mr. Threadgill will coach and perform with UC San Diego Music graduate students, to perform excerpts from his album: Dirt...And More Dirt.

Henry Threadgill's UC San Diego residency is made possible by the The Cecil Lytle African and African-American Music Endowment Initiative. 

ABOUT HENRY THREADGILL: 

Hailed by the New York Times as “perhaps the most important jazz composer of his generation,” Henry Threadgill has been celebrated for over forty years as one of the most original, forward-thinking composers and multi-instrumentalists in American music. His four-movement work, In for a Penny, In for a Pound, received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2016, one of only three jazz compositions to ever be so honored.

A Chicago native, Mr. Threadgill studied at the city’s American Conservatory of Music, majoring in composition, piano, and flute. A Vietnam veteran, he performed with the U.S. Army Concert Band. Mr. Threadgill is an early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), dedicated to the performance of its members’ original music. Mr. Threadgill has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Award, and the Doris Duke Impact Award. Down Beat magazine’s International Jazz Critics Poll has five times distinguished him with its Best Composer Award. The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with its 2002 Composer of the Year Award and its Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Threadgill has released over thirty critically acclaimed albums.

Mr. Threadgill’s orchestral pieces, 1987’s Run Silent, Run Deep, Run Loud, Run and 1993’s Mix for Orchestra premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His many commissions include Mordine & Co. Dance Theater, Carnegie Hall, the New York Shakespeare Festival, Talujon Percussion Ensemble, Junge Philharmonic Salzburg Orchestra, the Biennale di Venezia, and the American Composers Orchestra. He has been composer in residence at University of California-Berkeley and the Atlantic Center of the Arts. Through the years, Mr. Threadgill has led, performed, and recorded with numerous groups, most recently Zooid and the Double Up Ensemble. In 2015, a two-day festival at New York’s Harlem Stage celebrated works spanning Mr. Threadgill’s career performed and reinterpreted by an all-star collection of musicians.

Promotional photo of Henry Threadgill by John Baker, courtesy of Pi Recordings

UC San Diego Music faculty and graduate students will perform Mr. Threadgill's album: Dirt...And More Dirt.

UC San Diego Music is honored to welcome composer and jazz legend HENRY THREADGILL to campus: Tuesday, February 6th at 8:00 p.m. at the Conrad Prebys Music Center, Experimental Theater.

A guest of fellow Pulitzer Prize winner, Distinguished Professor of Music Anthony Davis, Mr. Threadgill is a composer, saxophonist, and flautist. He was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his album: In for a Penny, In for a Pound.

Mr. Threadgill will coach and direct an ALL-STAR ensemble of UC San Diego distinguished faculty and graduate students to perform his composition: Dirt…And More Dirt.  | RSVP: music.ucsd.edu/tickets

Musicians include: Paul Roth (alto saxophone), Lyra Montoya (alto saxophone and flute), Anita Chandavarkar (flutes), Stephanie Richards (trumpet), David Aguila (trumpet), Berk Schneider (trombone), Peter Sloan (trombone), Jonathan Piper (tuba), Peter Ko (cello), Jonny Stallings Cárdenas (piano), Boris Acosta Jaramillo (piano), Mark Dresser (double bass), and Andrew Munsey (drums).

Henry Threadgill's UC San Diego residency is made possible by the The Cecil Lytle African and African-American Music Endowment Initiative. 

ABOUT HENRY THREADGILL: 

Hailed by the New York Times as “perhaps the most important jazz composer of his generation,” Henry Threadgill has been celebrated for over forty years as one of the most original, forward-thinking composers and multi-instrumentalists in American music. His four-movement work, In for a Penny, In for a Pound, received the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2016, one of only three jazz compositions to ever be so honored.

A Chicago native, Mr. Threadgill studied at the city’s American Conservatory of Music, majoring in composition, piano, and flute. A Vietnam veteran, he performed with the U.S. Army Concert Band. Mr. Threadgill is an early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), dedicated to the performance of its members’ original music. Mr. Threadgill has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Aaron Copland Award, and the Doris Duke Impact Award. Down Beat magazine’s International Jazz Critics Poll has five times distinguished him with its Best Composer Award. The Jazz Journalists Association honored him with its 2002 Composer of the Year Award and its Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Threadgill has released over thirty critically acclaimed albums.

Mr. Threadgill’s orchestral pieces, 1987’s Run Silent, Run Deep, Run Loud, Run and 1993’s Mix for Orchestra premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His many commissions include Mordine & Co. Dance Theater, Carnegie Hall, the New York Shakespeare Festival, Talujon Percussion Ensemble, Junge Philharmonic Salzburg Orchestra, the Biennale di Venezia, and the American Composers Orchestra. He has been composer in residence at University of California-Berkeley and the Atlantic Center of the Arts. Through the years, Mr. Threadgill has led, performed, and recorded with numerous groups, most recently Zooid and the Double Up Ensemble. In 2015, a two-day festival at New York’s Harlem Stage celebrated works spanning Mr. Threadgill’s career performed and reinterpreted by an all-star collection of musicians.

Promotional photo of Henry Threadgill by John Baker, courtesy of Pi Recordings

Bridge Music Presents: Flux Quartet

Bridge Music Series focuses on bridging the classical and contemporary music genres and working across disciplines to create cultural connections.

This concert is made possible in part by the Chris Villars Fund.

The Flux Quartet will perform the San Diego premiere of Morton Feldman's epic 2nd String Quartet, a 5-6 hours long engagement from 2:00-8:00 pm.

The FLUX Quartet, one of the most fearless and important new-music ensembles around," (San Francisco Chronicle) has performed to great acclaim worldwide, including the Tate Modern in London with BBC Radio 3, Park Avenue Armory, Kennedy Center, Walker Art Center, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, arts incubators Mount Tremper Arts and EMPAC, and international festivals in Australia, Europe, and Asia. The group’s discography includes recordings on the Cantaloupe, Innova, New World, and Tzadik labels, in addition to the full string quartet catalog of Morton Feldman on Mode Records, and the complete quartet output of the late Toshi Ichiyanagi. Widely regarded as the authoritative ensemble on Feldman's epic String Quartet No.2, FLUX gave the premiere performance of the full-length version of the piece in 1999.

Strongly influenced by the “anything goes” philosophy of Fluxus, violinist Tom Chiu founded FLUX in the late 1990s. The quartet has since cultivated an uncompromising repertoire that combines late 20th-century groundbreaking works by Feldman, Nancarrow, Ligeti, Scelsi and others, with today's pioneers such as Oliver Lake, George Lewis, Lei Liang, Rand Steiger, Hans Tammen, Henry Threadgill and more. To support the creation of new works, FLUX actively commissions and has been awarded grants from the American Composers Forum, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer, New Music USA, and Chamber Music America.

The spirit to expand stylistic boundaries is a trademark of FLUX. To that end, the quartet avidly pursues interdisciplinary collaborations, resulting in acclaimed creation of new works with choreographers Pam Tanowitz and Christopher Wheeldon, balloonist Judy Dunaway, video artists OpenEndedGroup, and visual artist Matthew Barney.

Blacktronika

In collaboration with the Cross-Cultural Center at UC San Diego and Daunté Fyall, UC San Diego Lecturer in West African Dance

Present 

Back to Source 

A night of love, life, and liberation

Friday, February 9th 

• Sound Bath 7-7:45pm
• Dance Party 8-10pm

Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater, UC San Diego

This special Black History Month collaboration brings together healing and celebration grounded in African Diasporic connections through time, space, and sound. Back to Source goes back to the roots of West African music and infuses it with Black futurism of Chicago House, Detroit Techno, Funk and more. For the first part of the night, immerse yourself in a healing sound bath of ambient electronics accompanied by the ancient West African kora played by Fode Sissoko of the Joko International & DAANSEKOU Cultural Arts Collective. The rest of the night, dance and celebrate community resiliency to the rhythm of live West African drums and Blacktronika music provided by Professor King Britt. 

Winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2022, the New York City-based Isidore String Quartet was formed in 2019 with a vision to revisit, rediscover, and reinvigorate the repertory. The quartet is heavily influenced by the Juilliard String Quartet and the idea of ‘approaching the established as if it were brand new, and the new as if it were firmly established.’

Outside the concert hall the quartet has worked with PROJECT: MUSIC HEALS US providing encouragement, education, and healing to marginalized communities-including elderly, disabled, rehabilitating incarcerated and homeless populations-who otherwise have limited access to high-quality live music performance.

The name Isidore recognizes the ensemble’s musical connection tothe Juilliard Quartet: one of that group’s early members was legendary violinist Isidore Cohen. Additionally, it acknowledges a shared affection for a certain libation-legend has it a Greek monk named Isidore concocted the first genuine vodka recipe for the Grand Duchy of Moscow!

PROGRAM
Mozart: Quartet in C Major, KV 465 “Dissonance”
Billy Childs: String Quartet no. 2 “Awakening”
Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 44 no. 3

Led by Music Director Emeritus, Steven Schick, witness the world premiere of Nasim Khorasasani's new work, winner of the 2024 Nee Commission. Takemitsu's graceful From Me flows what you call Time, performed by the ensemble Red Fish Blue Fish. Niloufar Nourbakhsh's Veiled features a performance by cellist Robert Bui, complemented by electronics and video.

The program culminates with Stravinsky's masterpiece, Le Sacre du Printemps. 

Please note that this concert will begin at 1:00 p.m.

Led by Music Director Emeritus, Steven Schick, witness the world premiere of Nasim Khorasasani's new work, winner of the 2024 Nee Commission. Takemitsu's graceful From Me flows what you call Time, performed by the ensemble Red Fish Blue Fish. Niloufar Nourbakhsh's Veiled features a performance by cellist Robert Bui, complemented by electronics and video.

The program culminates with Stravinsky's masterpiece, Le Sacre du Printemps. 

DMA student cellist Robbie Bui presents "SEN [line]", a recital of music entirely by Japanese composers. There will be music by Dai Fujikura, Toshio Hosokawa, Toshiro Mayuzumi, Toru Takemitsu (featuring pianist Kyle Adam Blair, DMA '13), and a world premiere by PhD student Akari Komura, featuring live visuals and fixed media.

Robbie Bui is a contemporary cellist whose playing has been regarded for its intense physicality and fervent energy.  Complemented by his additional background in composition, he puts deep consideration into music’s theoretical construction blocks to yield corporeally gripping performances. The crux of his musical work involves bringing the new and the unexpected to the foreground.

As a new-music specialist, Bui has been dedicated dozens of works by living composers in both solo and chamber settings. He has appeared as a soloist in several places including the McGill Schulich School of Music, Koussevitzky Shed, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Jordan Hall, Conrad Prebys Music Center, Mandeville Auditorium, and Coronado Public Library. He was frequently a recurring performer in nec[shivaree], NEC Contemporary Ensemble, and the Tuesday Night New Music series. Between 2018-2021, he was also Tuesday Night New Music’s leading director.

Bui is currently recognized in ensembles such as La Jolla Symphony, Pacific Lyric Association, Ecce Ensemble, Palimpsest Ensemble, and Alinéa Ensemble. Alinéa, of which he is a founding member, is a contemporary music group dedicated to music by living composers and new performance practices. The ensemble has produced notable events, some of which include a portrait concert, a microtonal-themed concert, a residency at Ithaca College, and even a virtual summer festival entitled « Everything But The Kitchen Sink, » which won a nomination for the Royal Philharmonic Society Ensemble Award. Other groups in which he was a collaborator, composer, or mentee include Ensemble Dal Niente, Ensemble PHACE, JACK Quartet, New England Conservatory Symphony, Perfect 4th String Quartet, Tempest String Quartet, Transient Canvas, Worcester Chamber Music Society, and Phoenix Youth Symphony.

Some merits from his musical career include winning Best Contemporary Performance Prize of the La Jolla Symphony Young Artists Competition, as well as New England Conservatory’s Honors Ensemble Competition 2018, Orchestral Composition Competition 2019, and Contemporary Ensemble Competitions 2020. Additionally, he has been recognized and awarded through organizations such as Tribeca New Music, Collage New Music, Arizona Musicfest, and the American String Teacher Association’s National Orchestra Festival.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree with Honors from the New England Conservatory, where he was the Commencement Address speaker and a Presser Scholar. His primary teachers included composer Stratis Minakakis and cellist Mickey Katz. He then graduated with a Master of Arts in Contemporary Cello performance at University of California San Diego studying with Charles Curtis. Currently, he is a doctoral student at the same institution. In summers, he has attended institutes and festivals fostering both composition and performance disciplines including Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Klangspuren, Etchings Festival, Delian Academy, New Music on the Point, Orford Music Academy Contemporary Workshop, Vienna Summer Music Festival+Ensemble PHACE, Boston Conservatory, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and Idyllwild Arts.

Beyond cello and composition, Bui is the Community Engagement Manager of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, implementing programs to improve the accessibility and outreach of music. And beyond music, Bui is a portrait/event photographer, avid language learner, fashion enthusiast, and sometimes hair stylist, and latte artist.

World-renowned violinist Marco Fusi will perform Lei Liang's 60-minute piece "Six Seasons" on violin and viola d'amore. "Six Seasons" was inspired by Liang's 6-year collaboration with scientists Joshua Jones and John Hildebrand of Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The music pairs live performance with natural sounds captured by hydrophones placed 300 meters below sea surface in the Arctic. Mingyong Cheng's visual display of NASA images of the Arctic will be enhanced by sonic spatilization by UC San Diego PhD candidate Charles Deluga, a member of the Lei Lab. 

With the support of the Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles

"Six Seasons" https://www.eamdc.com/psny/composers/lei-liang/works/six-seasons/

Lei Lab https://lei-lab.ucsd.edu/

La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura

Date: February 22, 2024

Time: 5pm - 7pm

Location: UC San Diego Atkinson Hall Theater

On Thursday, February 22 at 5 p.m., the Qualcomm Institute’s IDEAS series hosts a live performance of composer Luigi Nono’s “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura,” performed by violinist/violist Marco Fusi, musician, artist and UC San Diego Ph.D. candidate Michelle Helene Mackenzie, and UC San Diego Associate Professor of Sound Design Bobby McElver. The piece will be performed using several hundred loudspeakers in a custom wave field synthesis array built by McElver.

Prior to his passing in 1990, Nono composed avant-garde classical music that mixed traditional instruments with choir and/or electronics. “La lontananza” is one such work that explores an “ever-changing soundscape” blending recordings and improvisation on the performers’ part.

To RSVP, email ideasqi@ucsd.edu by noon Thursday, February 22. All IDEAS events are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

Program Notes:

Before becoming a score, “La lontananza” was a sonic space. 

It was a room, filled with the sounds of moving chairs, laughing and chatting, and microphones and a violin. Luigi Nono was sitting in that space, listening and taking notes, and pasting together sounds and ideas. His fascination with sounds is mixed with respect and appreciation for all of them, from the aristocracy of the violin’s nineteenth century repertoire to the everyday experience of a slamming door.  Such a composite set of elements is equally welcomed within the audio material that Nono assembled for this piece, designing an ever-changing soundscape that allows and demands that performers play along with its heterogeneous components, treading their own path within the hour of sounds that Nono has offered.

When his attention focuses on the violin, Nono sits close to the performer, entering a most intimate and secret space that listeners cannot access. Nono listens with the ears of the violinist, and together with them, explores the stuttering of the bow before the string, the uncertainty of the fingers exploring the fingerboard, searching for a way into the oscillation of the sound before it is heard. It is within these minutiae that the violin utters its first sounds, and the listeners are drawn closer and closer to the strings, within the smallest of the dynamics.

“La lontananza” is conceived as a mental space, and it develops as a real space. The recorded material and the violin explore the unique peculiarities of each room where they perform, moving through islands of sounds and clouds of silence, estranged sounds and enveloping vibrations.

Each performance develops in a different and unforeseeable experience.

Performers:

Marco Fusi

Marco Fusi is a violinist/violist, a researcher in music performance, and a passionate advocate for the music of our time.

Among many collaborations with emerging and established composers, he has premiered works by Jessie Marino, Giacinto Scelsi, Yu Kuwabara, Salvatore Sciarrino and Kristine Tjøgersen, among others. Marco has performed with Pierre Boulez, Elena Schwarz, Lorin Maazel, Susanna Mälkki, Alan Gilbert, and frequently plays with leading contemporary ensembles including Klangforum Wien, MusikFabrik, Meitar Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Ensemble Linea. He has recorded several solo albums, published by Kairos, Stradivarius, Col Legno, Da Vinci, Geiger Grammofon, New Focus Recordings. Marco also plays viola d’amore, commissioning new pieces and collaborating with composers to promote and expand existing repertoire for the instrument. He is currently Professor of Violin at the Conservatory of Alessandria and Fellow Researcher at the Orpheus Instituut of Gent.

Michelle Helene Mackenzie

Michelle Helene Mackenzie is a musician, artist, and researcher who works across electronic, ambient, and noise music. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Music at the University of California, San Diego. Mackenzie combines electronics, synthesis, voice, field recording, and amplified objects. She has released music independently and collaboratively with ISLA, Hotham Sound, and Music From Memory’s Second Circle, and has a collaborative forthcoming release with GRM Portraits. She has performed at INA-GRM’s Live Electronics Series, Leaving Records’s Listen to Music Outside in the Daylight Under a Free, Deep Blue (various), New Forms Festival, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Interplay Festival, Polygon Gallery, Sunset Terrace, UC San Diego, and various other events. Her sound works and commissions have been shown with 221A (Vancouver), Active Cultures (Los Angeles), Albertinum (Dresden), Dynamo Arts Association (Vancouver) Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (Buffalo), Esker Foundation (Calgary), the Hand (NYC), Kadist Gallery (San Francisco), National Audiovisual Centre of Luxembourg (Dudelange), Patel Brown (Toronto/Montreal), Richmond Art Gallery, SFU Galleries (Vancouver), Unitt/Pitt (Vancouver), and Western Front (Vancouver).

Bobby McElver

Bobby McElver is a sound designer and composer who works in theater, dance, music and spatial audio for the performing arts. As a member of the iconoclastic Wooster Group from 2011 to 2016, he worked closely with founder and artistic director Elizabeth LeCompte on several of their experimental works, including “Early Shaker Spirituals,” “The Room,” “Vieux Carré,” “Hamlet,” “Early Plays,” and more. 

As an artist-engineer, McElver’s research focuses on developing new spatial audio technology — specifically Wave Field Synthesis and “sound holograms” — and applying the technology in context of an artistic work. In 2018 he fabricated a Wave Field Synthesis array with 372 loudspeakers based on research at The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (EMPAC). One of the most extensive WFS arrays in the world, it allows him to place sound accurately in 3D space, creating “holophones,” or sounds that float and move in physical space. He is an associate professor of sound design with the UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance.

About the IDEAS Program

The IDEAS initiative aims to encourage interdisciplinary performing, visual, and literary-artists, as well as engineers and scientists, to take advantage of the Qualcomm Institute’s advanced audio-visual facilities, services and personnel in staging performances and presentations of new and experimental works and research. To learn more and to access a list of upcoming IDEAS performances for the 2024 season, visit https://ideas.ucsd.edu/.

This performance of Nono’s “La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” was made possible with the support of the Italian Cultural Institute, Los Angeles.

WEDS@7 red fish blue fish with TERRY LONGSHORE
Wednesday, February 28th at 7:00 p.m.
Conrad Prebys Music Center | Experimental Theater

UC San Diego Music welcomes the return of alumnus TERRY LONGSHORE - Professor of Music, Artist in Residence, and Director of Percussion Studies at Southern Oregon University. 

• John Cage  Third Construction (1942)
• Mackxswell and Terry Longshore  Trap Hat (2022)
• Terry Longshore   Kangaroopak Sardha (2015)
• Karlheinz Stockhausen    Mikrophonie (1965)

red fish blue fish: 
Mitchell Carlstrom, Michael Jones, Kosuke Matsuda, Steven Schick, Yongyun Zhang, Camilo Zamudio, with Terry Longshore

Eric and Jeff Rosenthal, brothers known collectively as ItsTheReal, are regarded as two of the most captivating storytellers and interviewers within the music space. Their prolific body of work spanning the past fifteen years encompasses pioneering podcasts, ingenious sketch videos, and compelling writing, all of which have garnered acclaim from reputable publications such as The New York Times and the LA Review of Books. A wide array of luminaries, including Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder, Cardi B, Questlove, Nipsey Hussle, Meg Thee Stallion and countless others, have sat down with ItsTheReal, who set themselves apart through the authentic expression of their identities, unconventional approach to questioning, and an infusion of absurdist humor.

In 2023, ItsTheReal rolled out their magnum opus, The Blog Era, a narrative podcast about the massively important bridge between Napster and the streaming services, shining a light on the anonymous people behind keyboards who went around the gatekeepers, brought industries to their knees and changed the course of pop culture. Eric and Jeff partnered with Pharrell Williams and his company OTHERtone to distribute the series, which has been universally celebrated and honored with four Signal Awards.

Join us on Thursday February 29 at The Loft at UC San Diego for an essential discussion on one of hip-hop's most riveting eras and the artists, blogs and conditions that defined it. We'll also dive into our current climate, and the chaotic intersection between artists, labels, journalists, media, economics and technology.

This event is presented by the UC-San Diego Music Department. It will be hosted by Timothy "Ill Poetic" Gmeiner (a current music graduate student and artist born from the blog era), and features a DJ set by San Diego's legendary Abjo (Soulection/Ashe).

This event is free, all ages and open to the public. No RSVP required.

When: Thursday, February 29, 2024
Where: The Loft (UC-San Diego, Price Center)

Aaron Mencher writes “sophisticated and compelling” (Boston New Music Initiative) contemporary classical music. Currently, his music focuses on the concepts of utopias, hyperreality, and multimedia collaboration. His artistic practice frequently includes electronic components such as generative scores, DIY hardware electronics, and spatialized audio.

Recently, the Mivos Quartet premiered his piece “Articulate Particulate” for string quartet and generative score in collaboration with geologist Dr. Emily Chin. Additionally, his installation “Displacement” was recently presented with Project [Blank]. Aaron has additional premieres scheduled with Palimpsest Ensemble, violist Caleb Henry, flutist Adeline DeBella, and cellists Robbie Bui and Peter Ko. Previous collaborators include the St. Louis Symphony, Albany Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, violinist Patti Kilroy, cellist Dave Eggar, and many others. Aaron has also received recognition from organizations such as ASCAP, The American Modern Ensemble, The Boston New Music Initiative, NAfME, the European-American Musical Alliance, the American Prize, and the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York.

In addition, he has worked on a variety of dramatic projects. He was the sound designer for Grippy Sock Vacation, a new play written by Beth Hyland, which premiered at the 2023 Wagner New Play Festival. Aaron scored a documentary directed by Katie Schnell, and the short film Maggephah directed by Atlanta-based filmmaker Brad McGaughey.

Aaron is currently a PhD student at the University of California San Diego. His teachers include Michelle Lou, Marcos Balter, and Oscar Bettison.

Susan Narucki and Kirsten Ashley Wiest, sopranos
Alex Greenbaum, cellist
Alexander Ishov, flutist

A musical celebration of International Womens' Day featuring vocal chamber music rarely heard in the United States, curated by Susan Narucki, award winning soprano and Distinguished Professor of Music at UC San Diego, joined by superb guest artists Kirsten Ashley Wiest, soprano, Alex Greenbaum, cellist and Alexander Ishov, flute.

Changing Light honors remarkable composers from across the globe. Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, now in her nineties, has written an astonishing array of powerful works, from large scale symphonic and choral works to intimate, eclectic chamber music. Her Letter to Rimma Dalos for voice and cello is a tribute to the great Russian poet.

German-American composer Ursula Mamlok was an essential voice in the modernist New York scene of the mid 20 th century as well as an important teacher of composition. With exquisite attention to balance in form and attuned to fine gradations of instrumental and vocal color, her Stray Birds, for coloratura soprano, flute and cello, are jewel-like settings of poems of Rabindranath Tagore.

Colombian born composer Alba Potes' distinctive music combines beautifully defined formal structures, with a subtle underpinning of Latin American traditional music. One of Mamlok's most distinguished mentees, Potes' moving TRINOS, written for Susan Narucki and Kirsten Ashley Wiest to poems by Javier Tafur Gonzalez, will be presented in its world premiere.

The late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho was one of music's most important composers, writing exceptional music in the genres of opera, chamber music, choral works and music combination with electronics. We honor her by presenting her iconic From the Grammar of Dreams for two sopranos and her Changing Light for soprano and cello, a gentle prayer for grace and serenity.
Join us for a remarkable fusion of poetry and music created by exceptional women.

5:00 p.m. - START TIME IS 5 p.m.!!!

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

UC San Diego BASS ENSEMBLE Concert
Directed by Mark Dresser
In Memory of Robert Black
Friday March 8, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. PST / 8:00 p.m. EST
Conrad Prebys Music Center | Experimental Theater

The influential and beloved new music bassist Robert Black (1956-2023)
A Founding Member of Bang On A Can All-Stars
Champion of new solo works composed for the double bass

Works by
John Luther Adams
Robert Carl
J.S. Bach
Giacinto Scelso
Aphex Twin

UC San Diego Bass Ensemble:
Mark Dresser, Matthew Henson, Andrew Crapitto, Angelica Pruitt, Luke Holley

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

Camilo Zamudio, a member of the percussion ensmeble red fish blue flsh, presents his first DMA recitlal in conteporary percussion performance. 

Program features: 

Flying Bear (2014)                                   Wilfrido Terrazas (1974)
 
Le Livre des Claviers (1988)                   Philippe Manoury (1952)
           IV Solo de vibraphone                                                                                                                           
                                     
Temazcal (1984)                                      Javier Alvarez (1956-2023)
 
Ritmología (1988)                                    Jesús Pinzón Urrea (1928-2016)

Dissertation recital by Alex Taylor featuring four new works:

Obtuse Strategies (2023), for solo piano
Agee Songs (2023), for voice and piano 
A Handful of False Starts and Dead Ends (2020), for octet
Interviews (2024), for large ensemble

This recital is a culmination of the compositional work I have done during my time at UCSD, and involves a large number of treasured collaborators, including Henry Wong Doe, Susan Narucki, Steven Schick, and Kyle Adam Blair. The concert will feature the premiere of Interviews, a substantial new work for instruments and voices, drawing on recorded interviews with my mother, and exploring issues of memory, identity, and family.

UC San Diego Chamber Orchestra

Conducted by Matthew Henson

Performs

Beethoven’s Overture to "Egmont"

and Brahms’s Symphony No. 3

New compositions by undergraduate composers:
HANNAH ERLANDSON, SAUL ARANA , OWEN WHITE, JACK MELCHER, OLIVIA YANG, COLBY SAPERA

Performed by: KIT JACK CHAN AND ANDREW CRAPITTO
 

The UC San Diego Bach Ensemble is formed with selected string students from MUS130 (Chamber Ensemble Class) directed by Takae Ohnishi. The program includes J.S.Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G major,  G.B.Sammartini's Symphonia in F major and A.Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso in D minor. Please come and enjoy "The Baroque Night!" with us at the beautiful Conrad Prebys Concert Hall. 

Grad Synth Ensemble Full Concert - Thursday, March 14th, 2024 at Warren Lecture Hall, Studio B

Instructed by Tom Erbe in Winter 2024: witness an exciting journey through the world of modular synthesis.

Performers included Emir Chacra, Yifan Guo, Natalia Merlano Gómez, Myles Ortiz Green, Zehao Wang, Han Zhang, and David Aguila.

95C Concert Choir presents: Les Miserables and West Side Story.

The program will be:

1.- Medley from " Les Miserables". Music by Claud-Michel Schönberg. Arranged by Ed Lojeski

2.-  Choral Suite from  "West Side Story". Music by Leonard Bernstein. Arranged by Mac Huff.

Piano accompanist: Dr. Kyle Adam Blair 

Instructor: Miguel Zazueta 

MUS 95C Concert Choir presents a program with some of the most beautiful music written for musical theatre. Please join us in this wonderful concert!

The UC San Diego Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Michael Jones, presents their Winter concert:  

Overture to “Colas Breugnon” (1937/2003) Dimitri Kabalevsky (1904-1987)  arr. Donald Hunsberger

Lincolnshire Posy (1937/2010)         Percy Grainger (1882-1961)

1. Dublin Bay (Lisbon)

2. Horkstow Grange

3. Rufford Park Poachers

4. The Brisk Young Sailor

5. Lord Melbourne

6. The Lost Lady Found

Katherine Pittman, guest conductor

Vitality (2022)     Gala Flagello (b. 1994)

II Concerto for Clarinet (2011-12) Óscar Navarro (b. 1981)

Randy Lew, solo clarinet

Matthew Henson, originally from Kennesaw, Georgia, is a bassist, theorist, and conductor of classical, contemporary, and experimental music.  In 2020, Matthew graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music with a Bachelor of Music in Double Bass Performance and a minor in Contemporary Music Theory and Applied Composition, studying with Todd Seeber and Efstratios Minakakis, respectively.  While in Boston, he performed with many New England orchestras, including Symphony New Hampshire, the Cambridge Symphony, the Pierre Monteux Festival Orchestra, and was the principal of the Boston Civic Symphony.  Beyond the orchestra, he is a founding member of and the bassist for Alinéa, a chamber ensemble devoted to contemporary performance.  As a theorist, Matthew has focused on the music of Rebecca Saunders, exploring its unique forms and motivic usages.  As a conductor, Matthew has been an Associate at the Conductor’s Institute of South Carolina and has performed with NEC orchestras, choirs, and chamber ensembles, conducting standard and contemporary repertoire, including numerous premiers of works by NEC colleagues.  Currently, he is a graduate student at UC San Diego, studying Contemporary Double Bass Performance with Mark Dresser.

The MUS 130 Chamber Ensemble students instructed by UC San Diego Music faculty Takae Ohnishi present their Fall 2023 final concert in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall on Friday, March 15 at 7:00 p.m.

Nexus is a symphonic journey curated by Music Director and Orchestra Conductor Sameer Patel.

Celebrate the awakening of spring with Lili Boulanger's D’un Matin de Printemps. Discover Nina Shekhar's Lumina, a contemporary masterpiece that bridges the gap between tradition and innovation.

Immerse yourself in Debussy's La Mer, a sonic depiction of the majestic sea. The evening concludes with Poulenc's Gloria.

Nexus is a symphonic journey curated by Music Director and Orchestra Conductor Sameer Patel.

Celebrate the awakening of spring with Lili Boulanger's D’un Matin de Printemps. Discover Nina Shekhar's Lumina, a contemporary masterpiece that bridges the gap between tradition and innovation.

Immerse yourself in Debussy's La Mer, a sonic depiction of the majestic sea. The evening concludes with Poulenc's Gloria.

Natalia Merlano-Gomez instructs MUS 32VM Vocal Master Class for their end-of-term performanaces. 

Accompanied by Dr. Kyle Adam Blair. 

KNOWING / NOT KNOWING (2022-2024)

A new multimedia work by Roger Reynolds.

Narrator, recorded voices, mixed chorus, 2 percussion, trombone, 8-channel sound and video projections.
World premiere performance: Sunday, 17 March 2024, 7 pm
UC San Diego Park & Market
1100 Market Street, San Diego

Description By The Composer 

What can I as an individual know? What seems out of reach? In fact, how does “knowing” come about? In everyday life, one faces such questions constantly. One is perplexed by events, by the opinions of others, with deciding how to act in circumstances with immediate or more long-term implications. In contrast, other moments can feel immediately “right”. There’s no friction. Living in this world of disrupted comfort, we seek perspective. KNOWING / NOT KNOWING is an 80-minute musical work for narrator, recorded actors, live and filmed performers, projected imagery, San Diego’s SACRA / PROFANA Chorus, and 8- channel sound movement. The work’s text has nine sections spanning Infancy and Individuation through Communality and Knowledge. It is a montage of more than two dozen sources ranging from ancient Persian and Indian wisdom, through the contemporary voices of Chinua Achebe, Wallace Stevens, James Baldwin, Simone Weil, Albert Camus, Amanda Gorman, Carlo Rovelli, David Brooks, Toni Morrison and many others. Although their perspectives span time and arise from the living of contrasted lives, the composite weave feels natural: many voices speaking as one about the lives we all lead. “Trust implies a willingness to depend upon another.” … “Compassion is a miracle more astonishing than walking on water.” … “Make yourself into an agent – consistent, unified and whole.” … “Every human being is a miracle.”

Experiencing KNOWING not only entails a kaleidoscopic array of observations, but frames and interconnects their content with a central musical score that stems from the world of lullabies: a mother singing to her child. Computer technologies allow individual phrases, nested dialogs, and shared ruminations to move choreographically across the performance space, circling around and through the audience. And what a listener experiences will not only come from the work’s sources and the efforts of those who realize it in performance, but will also include the literal voices of the community in which the finished work is heard. In a tenth section, the community speaks back to the work with its own voice.

Our diverse, dynamic, and turbulent world offers opportunity and peril in comparable proportion. If one cares about what they observe and wants to use who they are and what they can do to respond in useful ways, what to do? KNOWING seeks to address our perplexing encounters with the world. It involves a process of investment that hopes to clarify terrain, diminish tensions, and enable action.

Acknowledgements 

The realization of KNOWING / NOT KNOWING has been generously supported by Chancellor Pradeep Khosla, to whom we are deeply indebted.

We also acknowledge the important support of UC San Diego's Park & Market Facility, and the UC San Diego Department of Music, as well as the many KNOWING collaborators whose energies and imagination have been and continue to be essential, including: Robert Castro, Steven Schick, Kyle Johnson, Peter Sellars, Jacob Sundstrom, Karen Reynolds, Juan Castro Acosta, Shahrokh Yadegari, Paul Hembree, Berk Schneider, Aiyun Huang, Kosuke Matsuda, Jessica Flores, Andrew Munsey, Andrew Waltz, Jennifer Ziemba, and, of course, Producer Leslie Leytham.

UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies has a mission to serve the critical lifelong learning needs of individuals, organizations, and the community, which includes the cultivation of arts enrichment and cultural experiences in the region. We are dedicated to sharing unique and diverse performances to foster vibrant and inclusive artistic encounters. The collaboration with internationally recognized composer Roger Reynolds on the KNOWING / NOT KNOWING Project aligns with these institutional commitments and helps ensure the transformative power of his innovative work reaches a broad audience.

Quote 

“UC San Diego Extended Studies is thrilled to collaborate with Roger Reynolds on the KNOWING / NOT KNOWING project. This performance explores the uniquely human quality of self-knowledge and how this innate ability evolves from infancy to adulthood as the boundaries between self and other are explored. Roger's body of work has contributed greatly to our region's creative legacy, leaving an indelible mark on the intersection of art and innovation. The addition of KNOWING / NOT KNOWING amplifies his influence.”  
- Andrew Waltz, Director of Arts Management, UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies.

Creative Team

Roger Reynolds, composer
Kyle Johnson, filmmaker and video design
Jacob Sundstrom, electronics and sound design
Robert Castro, stage director
Steven Schick, conductor
Juan Carlos Acosta, choir conductor
Leslie Ann Leytham, creative producer

With Performances By

Aiyun Huang, percussion
Berk Schneider, trombone
Kosuke Matsuda, percussion
Monique Gaffney, actor
SACRA / PROFANA, choir

one fish two fish Percussion Ensemble is excited to present their Winter Quarter concert! Please join us Monday, March 18 at 7 P.M. to experience an array of modern chamber percussion music ranging from John Cage's Credo in US (1942) to Alexis Lamb's Lyric Dusk (2023). one fish two fish is an ensemble of undergraduate volunteers dedicated to music making of the highest quality through recent percussion repertoire. 

FREE Electro-Acoustic Workshop with Earl Howard, Anthony Davis, and Gerry Hemingway! 

Gravebirth is a group audio-visual-movement improvisation through which we represent parallel stories confronting social oppression. Nasim Khorassani contributed a poetic text, Zendegi (life), by contemporary Iranian woman poet Erfan Nazar Ahari. This text illustrates an old woman giving birth in a grave. In a reversed life process, the poem shows offspring in combat, emerging from the death zone into that of life. Kosuke Matsuda offered the novel “Silence” by Syusaku Endo, a story of Japanese Christians’ religious oppression in the 17th century. Neither of these texts aims to transcribe history merely but instead attempts to define the real figure of humanity.

With these texts in hand, a wide-ranging collaboration ensued. We united the texts across their respective historical moments through sound, movement, and visuals, including light and projection. Through this, we aimed to make a hopeful and optimistic expression of solidarity with the Woman-Life-Freedom movement in Iran.

Gravebirth embeds performers and audience members in a sonic space consisting of sampled folksong, noise, drone, and silence. The space also contains suspended resonant pipes, standing in for the suspended political state of people fighting for freedom. During the course of the piece, the pipes are cut down, representing the fraught, dangerous, indeed deadly process of people freeing themselves in the course of political action. Gravebirth’s interrupted heavy silences represent God’s silence in response to the Japanese Christians’ prayers and the silence of the oppressed, particularly Iranian women, as they prepare to erupt into combat. Gravebirth aims to find one of the threads that could partially de(re)construct the enormous complexity of humanity, including emotional conflict and the sound of a surge in blood pressure when you, in your struggles, face the overbearing presence of silence.

Curated by: Kosuke Matsuda

More information: https://ideas.ucsd.edu/lamp-presents-gravebirth/

Anthony Davis and The Cecil Lytle African and African-American Music Endowment Initiative presents composer/performer EARL HOWARD in concert. 

EARL HOWARD (synthesizers, saxophone) will perform with ANTHONY DAVIS (piano), STEPH RICHARDS (trumpet), MARK DRESSER (double bass), and GERRY HEMINGWAY (drums). 

Earl Howard's music showcases real-time processing of ensemble instruments, crafting a seamless electro-acoustic soundscape. The upcoming concert will present a variety of works for the ensemble, including duets and a solo performance by Earl Howard himself.

Earl Howard, Gerry Hemingway, Distinguished Professor of Music Mark Dresser, and Anthony Davis have nurtured a creative collaboration spanning over 40 years. Joining them for the April 12th concert is trumpet dynamo and UC San Diego Professor of Music, Steph Richards.

The musical partnership between Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Distinguished Professor of Music, Anthony Davis, and Earl Howard commenced with the piece "Particle W" for piano and "Quarks 2" for the ensemble Episteme, including a duet with Ursula Oppens and Davis. Utilizing the Kurzweil, Earl Howard contributed electronic music for Davis's operas: "Wakonda's Dream," "Lear on the 2nd Floor," and "The Central Park Five." Howard played a pivotal role in Davis's clarinet concerto, "You Have the Right to Remain Silent," initially with J.D. Parran on clarinet and contra-alto clarinet, and more recently with Anthony McGill.

Earl Howard's residency at UC San Diego serves as a prelude to his upcoming performance on April 16th, where he will be featuring Anthony Davis's "You Have the Right to Remain Silent" alongside clarinetist Anthony McGill. The performance will be part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella Series, under the baton of renowned composer John Adams.

ABOUT EARL HOWARD: 

Earl Howard has been performing his compositions in the United States and Europe for over fifty years. His recent compositions include music for live electronics, electronic tape music as well as music for electronics and instruments. Earl Howard's method of creating orchestrated sounds with electronics and adding live, improvisational performance creates a unique, densely layered composition. Howard has performed at numerous venues including Merkin Hall, the Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Roulette, and Carnegie Recital Hall. In 2011 Earl Howard received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2004 his first sound installation was commissioned for the Tiffany Collection at the Queens Museum of Art. In the spring of 2003 Howard had a Regents Fellowship at UCSD. Howard received three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships. In 1998 Howard was the recipient of Harvard's Fromm Foundation Commission. He graduated from California Institute of the Arts in Music Composition in 1974.

Recently Howard has performed frequently at UCSB, Roulette, the Herbst Theater, The Stone, and Merkin Hall with improvisers including; Georg Graewe, Mari Kimura, Mark Dresser, Anne LeBaron, Evan Parker, Thomas Buckner, and George Lewis. In 2005 he premiered a live improvisation with David Wessel at CINMAT in Berkeley, California. In 2006 he premiered Waftings in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. In 2006 he was commissioned by the Donaueschingen Festival to produce a new ensemble work, Clepton. He also performed and composed for the Acoustmania Festival in Romania and Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon Festival 2006 in Austria. In 2007 Earl Howard was a special guest synthesizer performer and sound designer with the Perspectives Ensemble at the Miller Theatre and with the with Opera Omaha for Anthony Davis’s opera Wakonda’s Dream. In 2012 he premiered a composition made possible through his Guggenheim Fellowship “Superstring” in New York. This piece brought together musicians Wu Wei, Allan Jaffe, Miya Masaoka, Ernst Reijseger, Mark Dresser, Harris Eisenstadt, and Earl Howard.
Earl Howard’s compositions have been recorded by a number of musicians including Anthony Davis' recording of "Particle W", for piano and tape, released on the Gramavision label and Gerry Hemingway's recording of "D.R. for Solo percussion" on the Auricle Record label. The recording, "Pele’s Tears" is from ten years of his electronic music on the Random Acoustics Label and "Fire Song" on Erstwhile Records with hyperpianist, Denman Maroney. "Strong Force" for ensemble and electronics was released on Mutable Music's Label in the Spring of 2003. “Clepton” and “Granulary Modality” were recently released by New World Records.

Earl Howard has also produced numerous soundtracks for some of the leading film and video artists including Nam June Paik, Mary Lucier, Rii Kanzaki, Bob Harris, and Bill Brand.
 

FROM THE LINER NOTES TO GRANULAR MODALITY ON NEW WORLD RECORDS
I first encountered Earl Howard’s music in 1980 with his work V & T, which was composed for the violinist Shem Guibbory. I was greatly impressed by his command of texture and the subtle interaction between the soloist and the tape. Initially I felt the soloist was controlled by the tape music but the piece fostered a nuanced performance with a refreshing attention to detail within a relatively restricted musical realm. I felt a connection to this new music because it resonated with my desire to create ensemble music in which compositional aims could be achieved through directed improvisation. I was pleased when he decided to create a new work for piano and tape, Particle W. Particle W was the beginning of a creative collaboration with Earl that continues to this day.

Working on Particle W I was introduced to a new vocabulary of musical terms that were certainly unique in the improvised sphere. His directions for the piano were very specific, not necessarily about pitch or even rhythmic gesture, but about the relationship of the “improvised” material to the tape music. The tape music moved through various textures divided into sections that featured subtle transitions. I had to negotiate very specific musical identities whether playing points with space, bandwidth games, or the beating tones of microtonal harmonics. The terminology for the piano textures came from electronic music. Directions were not metaphoric but a concrete design of interaction and play within a dynamically evolving musical frame. I was always aware of the fixity of tape music, the idea that the piece provided a clock, an organization and frame for the timing of events. This was not altogether different from playing a concerto where the performer must not only realize the inherent structure of the piece but reveal the structure as a new discovery for each  performance. The piece excited me because it shattered the anachronistic idea of improvisation and composition as an oppositional binary. Howard’s innovations suggest that music can be realized in a continuum of interaction and design.

The only limitation in Particle W and Monopole, the subsequent work that Earl created for piano duet with Ursula Oppens and me, was that ultimately the tape maintained control. It dictated the duration and succession of events. The sounds and textures for Particle W, Monopole, and the tape composition Pele’s Tears were all created with a Serge system that Howard describes as an analog computer. With new technology, particularly the Kurzweil K2600, he could create music in real time. The music could be truly interactive within a complex, replicable design. The music could flow through textures and processes that were never static. Textures and ideas could transform and evolve over time. Howard did not conceive sound as an environment or a sonic field but as dynamic forces in motion. The sounds and textures could have behaviors and probabilities rather than static, unrelenting fixity.

In many respects Earl Howard’s music is an anomaly that resists categorization and the seductiveness of genre. He is an important force in improvised music and yet his work employs complex structures and rigorous transitions of sound and texture. His electro-acoustic music is realized with a Kurzweil K2600 that for Howard is not merely a keyboard synthesizer, but as he has described, an open system, a computer with a most effective interface with modules and a key map that enable more freedom in the composer’s creation of textures. The keys, pedals, and sliders on the instrument are in effect switches that can accomplish various musical tasks determined by the composer. Howard does not play the Kurzweil as a mere keyboard; the tactile interface with it allows for a musicality and subtlety that cannot be achieved by most artists working on laptops that feature a visual interface. Howard’s performances on the Kurzweil are embodied and the physical relationship of performer to music and action is self-evident. His painstaking programming of the Kurzweil creates a space for the intuitive mind and the improviser’s imagination. I have witnessed experts in computer music who are stunned by what he is able to achieve with effects and processes that would be impossible for the laptop in realtime.

Howard’s music challenges many assumptions about electro-acoustic music and the role of electronic music. In most electro-acoustic music today the electronic elements are limited to either an attenuation of the instrument in so-called hyper-instruments or in the creation of static environments that provide background for acoustic instruments. Very few composers working in computer music today are interested in new sounds or textures or sound transformation and are more concerned with the movement of sound in virtual spaces, the concert hall as a projected set of headphones.

Earl Howard grew up in Los Angeles. As a child, he was influenced by film music and he was fascinated by the way music and sound in films provided shifting perspectives, moving from large masses of sound like a posse on horseback to an individualized perspective of a bullet whistling overhead. Films provided sound in constant motion forming shifting points of view, from the dense to the spare, from the echoes of space to the violent confrontation. He attended California Institute of the Arts where he studied under the composer Morton Subotnick and the celebrated improviser Buell Neidlinger. Howard also studied saxophone with Phil Sobel. He is a virtuoso on the saxophone, performing on the alto as well as the soprano saxophone and the saxello. Sobel abhorred patterns and licks and emphasized the disruption of patterns by asking for random pitches during exercises. This served Howard well in the future because his music always engages in creative disruption, not allowing the improviser to dwell in the known clichés and patterns of playing and demanding that the performer listen and understand the movement and transformation of texture within the composition.

In the three solo works presented on Granular Modality, one can observe the striking continuity of Howard’s aesthetic approach. All three pieces employ a flexible script of material that transforms and modulates from texture to texture. Each section in the composition represents a complex sound world that is not simply multiphonics or sub-harmonics, for example, but an exchange, an interplay that is both directional in terms of an overall sense of form and discursive in its oppositional characteristics. The discursive elements in Howard’s playing on the saxophone and on the synthesizer convey a restless approach toward material. Musical material and texture always change and evolve. On the synthesizer this is accomplished with a scripted succession of programs, textures, and behaviors that can overlap and be revealed over time. The scripted flow of events creates a coherent overall structure that is malleable in terms of duration and nuance. 

Distinction between the improvised and the composed becomes irrelevant, as the order of events, the script, remains the same as the details are revealed in the action of improvisation. The binary of composition and improvisation is an anachronism and inadequately describes a creative process that embraces immediacy and formal complexity. 

Bird 3 (2006), a solo work for Kurzweil, opens the recording. The piece employs sharp contrasts of musical material with abrupt changes of texture. In a way the piece has a nostalgic quality as it negotiates a virtual history of electronic music from the Columbia-Princeton sine waves to musique concrète to the exploration of granular synthesis and noise. The piece is breathtaking in its virtuosity, filled with surprise and the unexpected. At times the piece builds with rhythmic momentum and then collapses into a mass of sound like a flock of birds drifting in and out of formation moving across a stereo field. Bird 3 has a unique spaciousness and in the piece Howard explores silences that disturb the expectation and predictability of cross-fades. Strasser 60 (2009) is the other Kurweil solo on the recording. In both pieces the listener is startled by the variety of sound and texture that are complexly defined, hardly ever sounding like a conventional instrument. In the opening sections of Strasser 60 the transformations are less abrupt, with large, dense textures that vie for attention. Textures collide and are augmented by harmonics and colorful elaboration with the occasional introduction of tonality and downward moving glissandi. This reveals Howard’s mastery in orchestration as the piece finally resolves into a pedal-point drone that dissipates into a sheen of harmonics, a sublimation of the tonal center. 

2455 (2009) is a work for alto saxophone featuring the composer. Works for solo saxophone remain an important facet of Howard’s music. This piece follows his work on 5 Saxophone Solos. Unlike Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, two other important composers who performed music for solo saxophone, Howard creates longer, more elaborate musical structures that are multi-thematic, employing a variety of extended techniques. He never limits himself to one idea in a piece. The composition morphs and transforms, negotiating contrasting textures and sounds. 

The piece opens with breathy sub-harmonics creating a microtonal melody. He uses his glissando technique with an oblique nod to Johnny Hodges. Howard’s control of his instrument is especially impressive in his attention to dynamics and timbre, employing soft multiphonic textures and sub-tone melodies. Howard’s process of composition in his solo saxophone works is similar to his approach on the synthesizer. He explores contrasting sections of material in an array of varying approaches to technique and sound. Listening to his performance one often arrives at unexpected places like the folksy, Albert Ayler reference in the middle of the solo. The solo has a strong sense of structure while revealing a playfully melodic vision. 

Crupper (2009) features Miya Masaoka on koto with the composer on synthesizer. Crupper begins with the koto alone and the listener is struck by the sense of space. The koto plays around D minor emphasizing the flat fifth, A-flat, like a blues. Later, the koto emphasizes a pentatonic modal scale introducing the E-flat against the D. This establishes a tonal center that will be felt throughout most of the piece. The music takes its time to reveal itself. The synthesizer enters as a shadow of the koto as Howard begins the processing of the koto. Slowly the interaction becomes more rhythmic with repeating figures in the koto but the synthesizer never overwhelms the acoustic koto as Masaoka moves to bowed figures on the koto and later percussive sounds beating on the wood. In the beginning sections of the piece the synthesizer plays a more subordinate role, mirroring and attenuating the melodic figures of the koto. This piece is rather unique in Howard’s music with its slow, almost ritualistic unfolding and with the presence of a predominant tonal center. The synthesizer gently disturbs and extends the tonality, slowly moving toward stochastic textures, less tonally defined, juxtaposed against the prevailing D tonal center in the koto. When Masaoka moves to more percussive sounds, the gravitational pull of tonality begins to abate as the synthesizer employs more stochastic sounds. Later, Masaoka plays microtonal figures with the synthesizer. The piece concludes with a drone in the synthesizer that recalls the D tonality in the beginning of the piece. The roles of the koto and the synthesizer are effectively reversed at the end of the piece with the koto providing melodic embellishment of the drone.
The piece has a fascinating tension between tonality and sound, finding a delicate balance between the stochastic and the melodic.

Earl Howard is a unique voice in new music. His sound world is probably the most rich and varied in electronic music and his playing on the saxophone reinforces a singular vision of music and sound. He draws from a wide range of influences across racial, social, and aesthetic barriers.

New music of the late twentieth century is not only defined by Stockhausen, Cage, and Varèse, but Ayler, Cecil Taylor, Ellington, and even Hank Williams provide the foundation for music today, shattering the anachronistic boundaries between the improvised and the composed.

Howard understands the history and development of electronic music without being constrained by its past. His music avoids the facile eclecticism so prevalent in music today. He has created his own idiosyncratic world of sound.
—Anthony Davis

Anthony Davis is a composer, pianist, and Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California San Diego.

Charles Ives: The Complete Sonatas for Piano
Stephen Drury, piano

First Sonata

• Adagio con moto
• Allegro moderato; “In the Inn”
• Adagio
• “not for the lilies lying back in soft dress-circle cushion to lap up pretty velvet sound with their soft ears”; Allegro
• Andante maestoso

Three Page Sonata

* intermission *

Sonata #2, “Concord, Mass. 1840 – 1860”

• Emerson
• Hawthorne
• The Alcotts
• Thoreau

Pianist STEPHEN DRURY, in concert

Pianist and conductor STEPHEN DRURY has performed throughout the world with a repertoire that stretches from Bach to Liszt to the music of today. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Barbican Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and from Arkansas to Seoul. A champion of contemporary music, he has taken the sound of dissonance into remote corners of Pakistan, Greenland and Montana.

In 1985 Stephen Drury was chosen by Affiliate Artists for its Xerox Pianists Program, and performed in residencies with symphony orchestras in San Diego, Cedar Rapids, San Angelo, Spokane, and Stamford. He has since performed or recorded with the American Composers Orchestra, the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, the Springfield (Massachusetts) and Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestras, and the Romanian National Symphony. Drury was a prize-winner in the Carnegie Hall/Rockefeller Foundation Competitions in American Music, and was selected by the United States Information Agency for its Artistic Ambassador Program and a 1986 European recital tour. A second tour in the fall of 1988 took him to Pakistan, Hong Kong, and Japan. He gave the first piano recitals ever in Julianehaab, Greenland, and Quetta, Pakistan. In 1989 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Drury a Solo Recitalist Fellowship which funded residencies and recitals of American music for two years. The same year he was named “Musician of the Year” by the Boston Globe.

Stephen Drury's performances of music written in the last hundred years, ranging from the piano sonatas of Charles Ives to works by György Ligeti, Frederic Rzewski and John Cage have received the highest critical acclaim. Drury has worked closely with many of the leading composers of our time, including Cage, Ligeti, Rzewski, Steve Reich, Olivier Messiaen, John Zorn, Luciano Berio, Helmut Lachenmann, Christian Wolff, Jonathan Harvey, Michael Finnissy, Lee Hyla and John Luther Adams. Drury has appeared at the MusikTriennale Koln in Germany, the Subtropics Festival in Miami, and the North American New Music Festival in Buffalo as well as at Roulette, the Knitting Factory, Tonic and The Stone in New York. At Spoleto USA, the Angelica Festival in Bologna and Oberlin Conservatory he performed as both conductor and pianist. He has conducted the Britten Sinfonia in England, the Santa Cruz New Music Works Ensemble, and the Harvard Group for New Music. In 1988 - 1989 he organized a year-long festival of the music of John Cage which led to a request from the composer to perform the solo piano part in Cage's 1O1, premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in April, 1989. In 2009 Drury performed the solo piano part in the Fourth Symphony of Charles Ives, again with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under Alan Gilbert. In 1999 Drury was invited by choreographer Merce Cunningham to perform onstage with Cunningham and Mikhail Barishnikov as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Drury has also appeared in New York at Alice Tully Hall as part of the Great Day in New York Festival and on the Bargemusic series, in Boston with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and as soloist with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and with the Seattle Chamber Players in Seattle and Moscow at the International Music Festival “Images of Contemporary American Music”. In 2003 he performed and taught at the Mannes College of Music’s Beethoven Institute; in 2005 he returned to Mannes to play and teach at the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance. That summer he was also the piano faculty at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute. In 2006, Drury’s performance of Frederic Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” at the Gilmore Keyboard Festival was a sensation; he was invited back in 2008 to premiere Rzewski’s Natural Things with the Opus 21 Ensemble at the Gilmore Festival in Michigan and Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in New York as part of the composer’s 70th birthday. That same summer Drury appeared at Bard College’s SUMMERSCAPE Festival, and at the Cité de la Musique in Paris for a week-long celebration of the music of John Zorn. In 2007 he was invited to León, Mexico to perform music by Rzewski, Zorn and Cage at the International Festival of Contemporary Art.

Drury has commissioned new works for solo piano from John Cage, John Zorn, John Luther Adams, Terry Riley, and Chinary Ung with funding provided by Meet The Composer. He has performed with Zorn in Paris, Vienna, London, Brussels, and New York, and conducted Zorn's music in Bologna, Boston, Chicago, and in the UK and Costa Rica. In March of 1995 he gave the first performance of Zorn's concerto for piano and orchestra Aporias with Dennis Russell Davies and the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Later that same season he gave the premiere of Basic Training for solo piano, written for him by Lee Hyla. Drury has recorded the music of John Cage, Elliott Carter, Charles Ives, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Colin McPhee, John Zorn, John Luther Adams and Frederic Rzewski, as well as works of Liszt and Beethoven, for Mode, New Albion, Catalyst, Tzadik, Avant, MusicMasters, Cold Blue, New World and Neuma.

Stephen Drury has given masterclasses at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Mannes Beethoven Institute, and Oberlin Conservatory, and in Japan, Romania, Argentina, Costa Rica, Denmark, and throughout the United States, and served on juries for the Concert Artist Guild, Gaudeamus and Orléans Concours International de Piano XXème Siècle Competitions. Drury is artistic director and conductor of the Callithumpian Consort, and he created and directs the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory. Drury earned his undergraduate degree for Harvard College, and has also earned the New England Conservatory's select Artist Diploma. His teachers have included Claudio Arrau, Patricia Zander, William Masselos, Margaret Ott, and Theodore Lettvin, and conducting with Donald Thulean. He teaches at New England Conservatory, where he has directed festivals of the music of John Cage, Steve Reich, and (in 2010) Christian Wolff.

VOICES: A pop-up festival of 20th/21st Music for the singing voice

UC San Diego Music alumni TIFFANY DU MOUCHELLE, soprano, with STEPHEN SOLOOK, percussion.

Soprano Tiffany Du Mouchelle is known for her fearless performances of contemporary repertoire and her commitment to bringing commissioned works to life. Currently on faculty at the University of Buffalo and a graduate of the UC San Diego Department of Music, along with husband, the distinguished percussionist Stephen Solook, they will present a program of works that celebrate stylistic diversity in contemporary musical languages, and the expressive capacity of the singing voice.

Program to include:

• Lonh, Kaija Saariaho
• The Mussels (voice and percussion), Carolyn Chen
• Bird Songs, Susan Botti

Tiffany Du Mouchelle, Soprano

Soprano, Tiffany Du Mouchelle is praised for her musical versatility, an electric stage presence and exceptional dramatic sensibilities. Most recognized for her fearlessness in exploring new and challenging repertoire, she ushers the voice into new realms of expressivity, including a vast array of musical styles and languages, featuring over 100 different languages and exploring the genres of classical, world, contemporary, cabaret, and theatrical works. Recipient of the prestigious Richard F. Gold Career Grant for American Opera Singers, Du Mouchelle has performed with the  Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Center for Contemporary Opera, Yellow Barn Music Festival, Skålholt Summer Music Series in Iceland, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and American Composers Alliance, and in such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center, Disney Hall, The Consulate of the Republic of Poland, The New York Historical Society, The Ukrainian Institute, the residence of the United States Ambassador in Cairo, and the Acropolium in Carthage. Recent collaborations include the AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE of Stockhausen’s Sirius with Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music, the MODERN PREMIERE of Karl von Seckendorff’s Proserpina (1777) combined with the WOLRD PREMIERE of Paul Botelho’s electro-acoustic mono-opera Proserpina (2016), the WORLD PREMIERE of Roger Reynolds’ JUSTICE: The Songs (Clytemnestra), the WEST COAST PREMIERE of Pasqual Dusapin’s To Be Sung (Voice Two), along with residencies at Yellow Barn and Songfest.  An active chamber musician, she is the co-founder of Aurora Borealis, a voice and percussion duo with her husband, Stephen Solook.  They frequently commission and perform new works, expanding the repertoire  for this unusual combination. A frequent collaborator with the cultural diplomacy organization Cultures in Harmony, she has served as an instructor of voice, musical outreach specialist, and performer for projects in Cameroon, Tunisia, Egypt and Papua New Guinea. In fall 2015, Du Mouchelle moved to Buffalo, NY, joining the faculty at University at Buffalo, where she serves as the director of the vocal performance program. 

Stephen Solook, Percussion

Critically acclaimed percussionist Stephen Solook currently resides in Buffalo, NY. As a vivacious interpreter of contemporary music Steve has worked with such composers as Pulitzer Prize winners Paul Moravec and Roger Reynolds, Chinary Ung, Bruce Adolphe, and David Loeb. With co-founder, Tiffany Du Mouchelle, of the Aurora Borealis duo (for soprano and percussion) they have performed together more then any other duo of its kind. Venturously they encourage the development of and explore equally composed works for this primal combination. Mr. Solook has performed as a soloist throughout the United States, Egypt, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, and is a sought after concerto soloist for many ensembles and composers. As an orchestral musician, Steve has served as principal percussionist/timpanist with multiple New York City ensembles, was a member of the La Jolla Symphony in San Diego, California, and performed as an substitute percussionist with the Buffalo Philharmonic. As a member of the non-profit organization Cultures in Harmony, Mr. Solook has traveled to perform, teach, and lead workshops in Cameroon, Egypt, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea. Ethnomusicological research has brought Steve to Fiji in a search to locate and document pre-colonial music, as a conservation project with Pacific Blue Foundation. Steve has performed with Bang on a Can All-Stars, Eighth Black Bird, the International Contemporary Ensemble, red fish blue fish, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Joseph Alessi, Bob Becker, David Krakauer, Steven Schick, Lucy Shelton, Socalled, Gordon Stout, Glen Velez, and the Jose Limon Dance Company.  He has had the privilege to work under such conductors as John Rutter, JoAnn Falletta, Paul Nadler, and Edwin Outwater, and in venues ranging from Los Angeles’s Disney Hall and New York City’s Lincoln Center to the legendary nightclub CBGB’s. Steve can be seen on QPTV and heard on Bridge, Vortex, and Mode labels, as well as additional forthcoming productions with Mode records. Dr. Solook is on the percussion faculty at Buffalo State University.

“Sublime Integration of Hindustani and Carnatic traditions” with World renowned maestros of Indian Classical Music. 

Pandit Kartik Seshadri, sitar with Shashank Subramanyam, bamboo flute
Accompanied by:
Hindole Majumdar, tabla
Parupalli Phalgun, mridangam

Saturday, April 20th, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Pandit Kartik Seshadri is a world-renowned force in the field of Indian Classical Music. As a sitarist, he attracted widespread attention when he began performing full-length solos at the age of 6 in India. The sitar maestro is now hailed as an “amazingly accomplished” musical powerhouse noted for his music’s “expressive beauty, rich tonal sensibility, and rhythmic intricacy,” praised the Washington Post while the Times of India (2011) noted that Seshadri’s concert was “a show stopper that transported the audience to soak soul deep in his mesmerizing performance.” The prestigious Songlines Magazine (U.K.) has in its March 2012 issue declared his latest album “Sublime Ragas” as one of the “Top Ten of the World’s ” CD’s (as with his 2004 Raga:Rasa album) further citing him as one of the “world’s greatest sitar players.”